Sure, cornered Republicrooks have the right to try to bluff their way through, but shouldn't there be some extra penalty when they're finally nailed?

Like everyone else, I'm curious to see what ol' Rush has to say about his latest brush with the law.

Here's one possibility: "Okay, ya got me. Heh-heh. Everybody knows I'm a druggie. Heh-heh. And I know how funny it must seem, after all those terrible things I always say about druggies and about the dastardliness of coddling them. And here I am one. Heh-heh. I guess this time the joke's on me!"

Another possibility is that, once again, ol' Rush'll try to bluff his way through, while counting on his multifarious "connections" to work their usual magic, then when the dust settles (in his fans' eyes and ears) go back to business as usual.

Actually, I was thinking about this subject before Rush's latest troubles broke, in connection with the latest legal tribulations gnawing at the giant carcass of House Speaker Denny Hastert.

I have to confess that in this case I read the news account clear to the end. I don't always, you know. When I do, I think it's usually because my particular preoccupation with nuts 'n' bolts—the nitty-gritty way things really get done in the real world—has been triggered. As in the case of Speaker Denny's feat of real-estate profiteering.

Of course it stinks. All of it, in Rush's case and in Speaker Denny's, from nauseating start to stomach-turning finish. I don't claim to be either judge or jury, and I don't want to preempt their functions. The legalities of the matters need to be determined by our normal legal processes. But can there really be any question that in both cases it's time for those legal processes to get cracking?

With regard to Speaker Denny, come on, people, has anyone calculated the statistical improbability of the string of coincidences you have to believe in in order to accept his indignant protestations of innocence?

The one question that seems to me to remain open is whether this was an isolated instance in Speaker Denny's history—you know, a lone brazen shot for the gold—or this is just, you know, what he does. We can't even get to that question, though, because look who's there: It's the useless tub of shit himself, denying everything and angrily demanding an apology for the suggestion that his business dealings have been anything but pristine.

Now that's what gets me.

(And even if, for some reason, you're inclined to give credence to Speaker Denny's utterly incredible denials, don't you still feel some lingering sense of filth, filth mingled with degradation—some sense that even if by some miraculous chance the big blowhard didn't actually break the law, it's still unspeakably inappropriate for one of the country's most powerful elected officials to be grubbing for speculative riches like some garden-variety real-estate hustler?)

Of course, high-stakes bluffing is built into the modern world of Republicrookism. You know how folks used to say, "If you can't do the time, don't do the crime"? Under New Republicrook principles, the operative motto is, approximately: "You can't prove nuttin', copper." Or I guess not even. It's more like: "I didn't do nuttin', and anybody who says different is a commie, America-hatin' liberal faggot."

I don't know about you, but I for one am sick of it, and I say we need to change the system.

Obviously you can't deny any American his right to bluff his compromised guts out. That's what made this country great. But somewhere there's got to be an escape clause whereby, in effect, once you're caught, you're caught. You know, like in paintball. I don't know anything about paintball except what I've seen in a few excruciatingly tedious TV-series episodes. But I do know that it honors the old-time principle that when you're caught, you're caught.

True, we've had the edifying spectacle of Randy "Duke" Cunningham, the man who couldn't find enough indignant words to tell us how innocent he was, dissolved in those gorgeous Duke Cunningham Tears as he 'fessed up to the high points of what his friendly local U.S. attorney obviously had him dead to rights on. But what about the rest? Where is Tom DeLay doing a perp walk? Or Boo-Hoo Bob Ney holding House Majority Leader John "Ethics? Me?" Boehner hostage with a broken beer bottle to his neck, sneering, "You'll never take me alive, coppers"?

I just can't help thinking that while they should all have the right guaranteed by our Constitution to bluff their way clear through to the bitter end, there should nevertheless be some kind of extra penalty when their bluff is called and they finally have to fold. Don't ask me what, exactly. I haven't worked that part out. But really, I'm not asking for much. Hey, remember, I was willing to settle for Duke Cunningham Tears.

Oh sure, I have my fantasies. Like seeing "Limp Dick" Cheney "quail-hunt" his sorry-ass self on national TV. Or having the half-dozen most powerful Republicrook congressional committee chairmen stranded on a Survivor island with literally nothing to eat except one another.

Or how about this? Each caught crook has to participate in a series of TV "public-service announcement" (PSA) spots explaining in terms understandable to the people whose trust they've spent their public careers abusing: (a) what he did, (b) why exactly it was wrong, and (c) what punishment he thinks he deservse.

Unfortunately for ol' Rush, he's already on record regarding the evils of drug use and the punishment he thinks druggies should get. And that—ol' Rush throwing the book at himself—ought to make for some gripping PSAs. Can Speaker Denny's PSA script-writers top them?