P.S. hari-kari party at my digs later

How about a little walk down memory lane?

C'mon! It's fun.

Especially on a day like today, when our Attorney General, our nation's top law enforcement official, asserted that he "doesn't know" whether Karl Rove briefed Justice Department officials on Republican National Committee business and talking points, and he's "unsure" how many federal attorneys were fired not because they couldn't do their jobs, but because they wouldn't do the RNC version of their jobs.

In these fast-paced days of ours, when the accusations that BushCo has very nearly turned our government into a subsidiary of the RNC are flying faster than you can say "special prosecutor," wouldn't it be nice to return to a simpler, less stressful time?

And what a time it was: 1996! A time when the best scandal we could dig up about the current administration and their politicization of the government was that the Vice President used his office phone to call a donor.

Used his office phone! His official Vice-Presidential phone!

No, the taxpayers didn't pay for the call. He charged the call to the DNC. But still, you know, wear and tear. Also, he might have twisted the cord around his finger, okay, and then maybe his assistant had to untangle it or something. And the untangling might have taken valuable tax-payer-financed minutes to complete.

It was an important scandal that took up much of the media's time and energy. And we all paid attention to it, because maybe it meant that the Vice President wasn't a man with our best interests at heart.

Aaaahhhhh.....yes, that's it. Now, just let the bitterness and the irony just slide down your throat and settle into your gut. Yeah... Ruminate on it, baby, and then clench your fists and your gut tight, and hold onto that feeling, revel in it, because you still got another 16 months to go.