Today: The auto industry gets pushed around and Dick Cheney gets even scarier.
Obstruction of Justice Department
Rachel started us off with the delicious news that Spain is planning to indict six members of the Bush administration for violating the 1984 convention against torture. Warrants may be issued in weeks or even days.
After showing us that, had the whole massive-television-fame not worked out, Rachel could have had a fine career as a snappy receptionist, she brought up the question of why Spain is leading the charge on this and not, you know, us.
But we may get some charging started on this side of the ocean when Dawn Johnsen gets confirmed. She’s Obama’s nominee to head the Office of Legal Counsel and I don’t know about you, but I just got a genius idea for a homophonic crime-and-punishment TV show.
Johnsen is severely pissed about the torturing and sounds ready to make some perp walks happen. So Senate Republicans are holding up her nomination. Jesus, guys.
Here’s a quick self-test: Do you think torture can be a partisan issue? If your answer is anything other than “no,” you are officially getting life wrong. Make some changes or risk being reincarnated as Nancy Grace’s emery board.
Just in case there were a few viewers left who weren’t yet retching with national shame, Rachel brought in Ron Suskind to talk about the revelation that high-level members of the Bush administration apparently knew that the torture wasn’t producing any information even as they were fighting to keep doing it.
One more thing:
Hillary Clinton has fired a shot in the war on “The War on Terror.” She says the administration is done with the phrase.
But does this mean a win for “OCO,” Rachel’s new favorite budgetary phrase for our wars, or is a new kinetic action euphemism on the rise?
Rachel can lobby for OCO all she wants. I’m rooting for “enhanced landscaping.”
Another Hilariously Named Car Bites the Dust
General Motors has until the end of day Tuesday to get rid of the Hummer line if it wants its bailout money. GM has been trying to sell it since June, but so far no fuzzy dice. The old culture of excess is truly gone; no one wants a Hummer anymore.
Except for the Iraqis. Even as Americans are rejecting them as poor-handling piles of waste and jerkbaggery, Iraqi men are adopting Hummers as the perfect way to show off one’s outward wealth and inner fears about sexual potency.
General Motor Mouth
Speaking of bailing out the auto industry, President Obama forced the CEO of Chrysler to resign and fired the CEO of GM.
strong>Bob Corker, Republican Senator from Tennessee and, I still maintain, a side character from party scenes in The Great Gatsby, said the whole thing was banana oil and called Obama a real flat tire for interfering with the struggling struggle buggy industry.
Rachel noted that Corker seemed oddly fine with interfering with the auto industry when it came to demanding that workers’ wages be lowered.
Syndicated columnist David Sirota theorized that it might have something to do with Republicans not being particular fans of workers or unions, but that can’t be true because Joe the Never So Much as Unclogged a Drain has assured me that they’re the party of the little guy. It must be the bathtub hooch.
Ms. Information
Rachel reported that the two American journalists being held in North Korea might be used as bargaining chips to keep us from interfering with next month’s launch of a projectile that has “Not an illegal intercontinental ballistic missile” painted up the side.
In much lighter news, we also learned that Colonel Moammar Gadhafi is still awesomely crazy. He grabbed the mic and turned the Arab League Summit into a rap battle, then stormed out with his all-female squad of bodyguards.
And here I must take issue with Ms. Maddow. I am not for one moment suggesting that Gadhafi is anything other than an awful, awful human being, but a squad of Amazon ninja bodyguards is fifteen different kinds of bad-ass and we all know it, even though Rachel tried to suggest otherwise.
Ladies, sign up for those krav maga classes now. We have just spotted what is about to become the fastest-growing job in the world.
Veep Impact
We’ve all seen the messages that Cheney has been broomsticking into the sky over the White House lately, but who knew he’d been so diligent about starting his work early?
Rachel welcomed Barton Gellman, author of Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency to talk about the former Vice President’s pre-Inauguration reality TV-inspired attempt to tell Israel that Obama was not really there for Israel and was just in it for the exposure and was so not keeping it real, not like Cheney was.
Gellman thinks that Cheney isn’t just politicking, and genuinely believes his own sepulchral whispers about how the world is a dark and scary place full of evil people who want to suck out our souls and keep them in little bottles.
I’ve been puzzling for hours over whether True Believer Cheney is scarier than Cynical Politician Cheney and I still can’t decide. On the other hand, maybe that’s kind of like trying to figure out if the Death Star is scarier with or without skull decals.
GOP in Exile
The RNC is hiring! Now is your chance to fill out a beyond-the-cutting-edge online application to work cheek-by-jowl with Michael Steele.
Filling out multiple joke applications would be wrong. Very wrong. Please don’t even think about it.
World War III
Al Franken won the recount in the Minnesota Senate race, but the Republicans are now planning a Federal challenge, which should be resolved sometime around the dawn of the next civilization.
Attorney David Boies joined Rachel to talk about whether the challenge is based on principle or political wrench-throwing. (Spoiler: duck!)
They also discussed the 2000 Florida recount just long enough to make you seriously consider huffing as a coping method.
Cocktail Moment
Obama only managed to pick one of the teams in the Final Four, which is one better than Rachel’s score of none.
This March PlaidMess is certainly exciting! I can’t wait to see which tartan wins the Top Kilt title!
