You think to yourself, Surely there’s got to be a bottom, a level even the person you think the worst of would stop at. And you would be wrong.

The ultimate in It’s-Not-My-Fault:

“I don’t think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees.”

You don’t need me to tell you that yeah, they kinda did, George. But you had “other priorities.” You had that fucking legacy you’re so fucking concerned with.

Or the director of FEMA, on who they’re trying to help:

“…to help those who are stranded, who chose not to evacuate, who chose not to leave the city…”

Who chose not to evacuate. Goddamn, there is no level to which they will not stoop? Look, all you have to do is get in your SUV and drive away. Is that so hard? Oh, I bet you just wanted to stay in the waist-high polluted water and steal stuff, didn’t you. ‘Cause you chose to stay there.

And in this time of desperate hell, happening right here in our own country, the chairman of the Republican Party—you know, the party that has all the power but apparently none of the responsibilities—brings up his greatest concern: the elimination of the estate tax. He sent out this missive today. This is not something that’s been “in the pipeline.” The Republican Party decided to hit Send on this puppy today.

There is no level beyond which they can sink.

Oh, wait. Maybe there is:

Lawmakers have to ask themselves if it’s worth sinking possibly billions of federal dollars into rebuilding New Orleans, a low-lying city which would remain a vulnerable hurricane target even after clean up, House Speaker Dennis Hastert said Wednesday.

“It doesn’t make sense to me,” said Hastert during an interview with the Daily Herald editorial board. “And it’s a question that certainly we should ask.”

Because, you know, with the tragedy still unfolding, with the resources not yet there—why didn’t you send them five days ago, George? Why? They have phones in Crawford! They have phones in San Diego!—we should just say, Fuck it. Let’s just leave the whole stinking mess there. Screw ’em; they chose to stay there.

We have a government run by sociopaths. Newsflash to those who don’t understand what’s going on: sociopaths cannot feel. They do not give a flying fuck about anything except themselves. People dying? Who cares. Now watch this drive.

Update: Slightly edited to remove usage of a Republican propaganda term in favor of its more correct label, “the estate tax.”

Via Mahablog, we now have proof positive that the White House doesn’t care about what’s gone on in Iraq any more than they have to.

Bill Frist’s Northeast political director at the NRSC in 2002, James Tobin, was the guy behind the New Hampshire phone-jamming scandal from that year. (From Josh Marshall: “The state Republican party hired an Idaho company to knock out the phones of the Democratic get-out-the-vote operation on election day by placing hundreds of automated hang-up calls to their phone banks.”)

Well, Tobin was indicted by a grand jury. But, no fair! he cries. The jury was biased against him. Why?

It contained Democrats.

Tobin now says, in motions filed with the court, that his indictment in the case should be thrown out because the grand jury that indicted him included Democrats.

And in line with Tobin’s apparent contention that Republicans now constitute a protected class (will they mind if we call them a ‘discrete and insular minority’?) there’s this …

And if the case does go to trial, Tobin’s lawyers want to question prospective jurors extensively about their politics and their exposure to media reports of the case to root out potential bias.
A proposed questionnaire would ask prospective jurors to disclose their political party, union membership, whether they’ve ever had a bumper sticker on their car and what it said, what Web logs they read and whether they ever watch TV shows such as “West Wing,” CNN’s “Crossfire,” MSNBC’s “Hardball with Chris Matthews,” and “The McLaughlin Group,” which mostly runs on public television stations.

Tobin’s lawyers also want jurors to describe themselves by checking off all that apply: “aggressive, articulate, emotional, entrepreneurial, intelligent, laid back, loyal, naive, perceptive, stubborn, (or) other.”

Federal prosecutors countered that Tobin is required to prove actual bias by the grand jury: He cannot ask judges to assume that Democrats would indict based on their political convictions, anymore than judges can assume Republicans would indict Democrats in violation of their oath to look only at the evidence.

Let’s see: we have a President who will only make public appearances in front of vetted party members, we have lobbyists being forced to hire Republicans if they want work, and we have the administration insisting that telecom representatives going to a conference overseas be Republicans.

And now trial by acceptable political activity.

Just in case you’re wondering where this is headed.