(Posted at the now-defunct Open Source Politics, 9/30/03. Finalist, Best Post, 2003 Koufax Awards.)

When you’ve heard lie upon lie/ There can hardly be a question of why.
– Billy Joel

The first thing you need to do is, stop trying to be fair. I mean it. Just cut it out, before I have to come over there and slap you.

This Bush bunch is the meanest, most immoral bunch of sidewinders ever to taint the halls of the White House, and you’d be a damned fool to think otherwise. You don’t have to take my word for it. If you have the time and energy to put into obsessively detailing the ins and outs of their raping and pillaging, be my guest.

But if you don’t have the time and energy, you could simply trust your instincts. Know that people like me (and the other writers here at Open Source Politics) were once like you.

I wanted to believe he wasn’t as bad as he looked. I mean, think about it: I could trust that Little Georgie was a well-meaning sort who would manage not to make things much worse, who really believed in “compassionate conservatismâ€? – or I could turn into an obsessed midnight blogger, haunting the internet for yet one more tasty morsel with which to show his true character (or lack thereof), while the dishes mount in the sink, Diet Coke cans collect by my monitor and every morning dawns with the sudden realization that, since I haven’t done any wash in a week, I have nothing clean to wear to work – you know, the place where they actually pay me for thinking.

I’m just not that energetic. I wouldn’t do this unless I had to.

I wanted to be fair; I wanted to hear their side. That was stupid, because their side doesn’t traffic in such niceties. (Need I remind you that, after all is said and done, the only thing they ever found on Clinton was that he lied about a blowjob?)

They don’t play fair. They lie, they cheat, they break the rules.

They’re vicious and vindictive. They’re ruthless. In fact, they’re the farthest thing in the world from Christians – they’re what Jesus called “whitewashed tombs.� (Actually, it was “whited sepulchres,� but I used the modern translation.)

One national reporter who’d previously bought what they said ran a piece in which he gravely acknowledged there were no real weapons to justify the rush to war. I wrote him a letter commending him for going public with the realization; then I asked him why he believed Bush.

His reponse? “He’s the president.�

Mine? “Yes, but I have to wonder: What have you ever seen in this man’s background that would lead you to believe in his integrity or his credibility?�

Like his father, Little George was born on third base and thinks he hit a triple. He was a drunk, a coke user, and went AWOL from his cushiony job with the National Guard. (Some other, less-fortunate son died in Vietnam on his behalf.) His business career consisted, basically, of being a bagman to lure people into projects with his famous last name. When he went out on his own, he failed. But he could always count on another one of his daddy’s rich friends ran to bail him out.

Although he has apparently stopped drinking, he still indulges in the compulsive lying that is the hallmark of alcoholism.

He lied about insider trading at Harken. He lied about drug use and DWI arrests.

He lied about his military service, and he lied about Saddam Hussein.

There was no imminent danger from Iraq. They had nothing to do with 9/11. He and his people used forged documents to justify what they wanted to do.

He lied about his tax cut. It went mostly to rich people. The promised jobs are nowhere to be seen.

He lied about being the education president. His plan is an unfunded joke.

He lied about Social Security.

He lied about his environmental plans.

How can you tell when George Bush is lying? His lips are moving.

So now we have this latest story, in which an ambassador’s wife is outed as a CIA operative in an attempt to intimidate those who question Bush’s policies. You can turn on cable news and listen to the media apologentsia hunt and peck, looking for alibis: She was only a desk analyst. It was no big deal.

Or: They’re not that dumb. It can’t be true, it doesn’t make sense.

Arrogance is its own reward. It doesn’t have to make sense.

There is a basic decency in people that often makes it hard to understand (and thus accept the reality of) the dark side of human nature. Most of us learn early on to hold it in check, to balance it.

And some of us don’t.

You’re not crazy and you’re not being unfair. These people are ruthless. Of course they outed Valerie Plame. How could they not? They can’t stop themselves. They want what they want and anyone who says no must be punished.

What have they done that would make you think otherwise?