Sometimes it's the small stabs of meaty, ugly irony
> that provide the strongest jolts of pleasure, the most
> potent whiffs of toe-curling perspective and
> soul-curdling karmic vinegar.
>
> Sometimes it's stories as tiny and seemingly
> insignificant as Attorney General and noted
> McCarthy sycophant John Ashcroft, a ferociously
> religious and wildly troubled, apparently sexless,
> desperately conservative ball of walking disgust with
> no discernable pulse but that's just an opinion,
> ordering his very own Justice Department to spend
> $8,000 to purchase heavy blue drapes to cover the
> two large, noble, partially naked statues that have
> adorned the department's Great Hall since the
> 1930s.
>
> Because he doesn't like to be photographed in front
> of them, is why. Because they're partially naked.
> Because the female statue, the Spirit of Justice, has
> a single, full, apparently very lawless breast
> exposed, unashamed and openly nipply and
> dwarfing our dear militant anti-everything Power
> Ranger when he's trying to look all serious and
> asexual and tough.
>
> Because part of the male statue, the Majesty of
> Law, is also partially exposed and probably very
> buff and assumedly poor John just can't concentrate
> on the more pressing matters of the nation like how
> to best illegally detain immigrants and wiretap your
> phone and set up illegal war tribunals and openly
> hate all you gay people and women when those
> pesky pornographic icons are looming over him like
> scary naked sinful beasts of scary naked sin.
>
> Not when photographers are always gleefully vying
> for the best angle from which to snap pictures of
> John's famously depressing and leathery scowl with
> a large well-shaped bronze female nipple in the
> background.
>
> You may think it unfair to pull a broader message
> from this tiny and relatively sweet incident. You may
> think Ashcroft's gesture does not necessarily
> bespeak some sort of larger truth about the current
> administration, its value system, the direction of the
> country, the overall misogynistic, monastic,
> dangerously unprogressive, hypocritical attitude of
> our leaders as a whole, or how we are enjoying at
> this very moment what is easily the most
> conservative, sexually terrified, ill-humored,
> anti-choice regime in 50 years.
>
> You would be wrong.
>
> Because it's exactly the tiny and seemingly irrelevant
> details that reveal the true nature of a person, an
> administration, a viewpoint, a dogma. Sometimes.
> Like this time.
>
> Sure it's easy to condemn, say, the shockingly
> insulting USA Patriot Act, with its appalling arsenal
> of civil liberties-bashing provisions and outright
> displays of unconstitutional, jingoistic paranoia, the
> hugely increased authority of the FBI and CIA,
> expanded police powers, reduced rights of the
> accused to discuss their cases with their lawyers, in
> private.
>
> Sure it's easy to poke at Shrub for trumpeting the
> new National Sanctity of Life Day for the benefit of
> the antichoice movement when only China executes
> more people than his own home state and he goes
> to sleep every night dreaming of Tomahawk missiles
> raining down on Afghanistan, killing innocents in
> decrepit villages and making the world safe again
> for puppet governments and oil pipelines.
>
> These are large and obvious targets. Lynne Cheney
> creating a blacklist of American academics who
> don't openly support the war and believe her
> husband is sort of creepy and ashen and probably
> not fully alive? Easy. Powell looking soul-sucked
> and lifeless, drained of all intellectual balance and
> moderation? Done.
>
> Ken Lay stuffing Enron documents down the
> shredder as fast as his hoofed appendages can
> muster while breathlessly dialing Cheney's bunker
> with his nose as his wife goes on "Today" to lament
> the loss of the Range Rover to personal bankruptcy
> while claiming that her husband had no idea about
> all the siphoned billions and the gutted retirement
> accounts he himself orchestrated? Big as a house.
>
> But life is in the details, honeychile, and while the
> larger atrocities can sometimes be explained away
> as blatantly vicious power-grabs or necessary evils
> in this time of unnecessary war -- or even as openly
> hypocritical political maneuverings given how the
> Demos ain't exactly unsoiled humanitarian angels
> either -- we must sometimes look to the small
> intellectual bludgeonings for our proofs.
>
> And here you have it. Eight grand to cover some
> statues that have stood for upwards of 70 years,
> representing the ideals of justice and law. Erected
> before Ashcroft was even born. Endured through
> some 13 presidents and countless polishings. And
> now, all covered up. Your tax dollars at work.
>
> Ashcroft's gesture is merely a painful reminder,
> really, a very clear signal that you are absolutely
> correct to be suffering that deep unsettling feeling
> that absolutely no open-minded or otherwise
> constructive trails are being blazed by this
> administration.
>
> No progressive ideas are being forwarded, no
> improved status for women or gays or minorities, no
> sense that the nation is in good hands or that we as
> a country can at last quit being so Janus-faced and
> hypocritical about sex and art and justice as a
> whole. Let's just cover that right up, shall we?
>
> And as for Ashcroft himself, well, clearly it's
> entirely
> appropriate that the statues symbolizing Justice and
> Law be hidden in his presence.
>
> oh.....and up yours Moronamaec
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