Scooter

I read that “Scooter” says his nickname came from the great Yankee shortstop Phil Rizzuto, whose nickname was also “Scooter”, but that sounds like a load to me. His father was an investment banker and his parents lived in New Haven, Connecticut. They were upper crust want-a-bees, the kind who persist in calling themselves “middle class”. I believe the truth is the ‘other’ story, that as an infant, ‘Scooter’ used to push himself about on the floor so quickly his proud parents would boast, “He’s a scooter!” Wow, it is such a heart warming image it almost brings tears to my eyes. Go scooter, scoot-scoot. His parents must be so proud, especially now, what with the conviction for perjury and the commutation of sentence and everything. Oh, hell, who am I kidding? No parent admits their kid is that much of a bootlicking screw up. “Don’t you ‘I’m sorry, Mrs. Schicklgruber, me! I don’t care what his aptitude test scores are. My little Adolf is not going to grow up to be a mass murder. He’s going to be a painter!”
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I do not mean to compare Scooter Libby to Adolf Hitler. Hitler started a war that killed 70 million people. Scooter’s war has killed, at most, a million or so…so far. And Scooter is only partly responsible for that. There were also the 9/11 hijackers, and Shrub and the Vice Shrub. Scooter just played his part. He is an enabler, or, to put it another way a boot-licking suck-up brown nose, a neo-con con artist, or as they prefer to refer to themselves, as “The Vulcans.” Oh, yeah, “Vulcans”; “Live long and prosper, you sycophantic little toady!
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Have you seen this guy getting into a car or walking through a door with his lawyers? He always holds the door for the others. That’s Scooters’ role in life. He’s a door holder. A submissive, fawning, flattering, boot-licking , obsequious little door holder. “He’s a scooter.” He held the door open for Dick “the trick” Cheney, right into Iraq. “This way,
Mr. Cheney. The oil fields are on the right and political grandstanding just off to your left. And if there is anything else you want but don’t see, just ask. I’ll be happy to crawl through manure to get it for you. Even if I have to truck in the manure to do it” Go, Scooter, scoot-scoot.
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Is it any wonder that Shrub gave Scooter clemency? It’s the rule of the pack, as Caesar Millan would say. When dealing with a bootlicker, you can praise them, kick them, pet them or literally urinate on their heads. Dogs in a pack do it to each other every day. It’s the way they establish order of dominance. Bootlickers always come back as long as you feed them. What you cannot do is ignore them. Ignore a bootlicker and they will take that as a sign of weakness and they will be at your throat in an instant. Shrub knows how to treat bootlickers, he has surrounded himself with bootlickers, Alberto G. being the prime example, Brownie being another. I’ll bet even Dick licks his master’s boots in private. But Scooter is no Dick. He’s one step further down the dominance chain.
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That is also why Scooter did not get the whole enchilada, a full pardon. That would have been too much. It would remove the hold the Shrub and Vice-Shrub have over The Scoot. It would separate The Scoot from the whole dominance order thing. And The Scoot needs to know who is above him and who is below him at all times, who he has to praise and who he can abuse. This is not the kind of guy who can survive with any independence, like, say, the chairman of the World Bank. No, The Scoot is a bootlicker, and he needs a boot to lick. If he can’t find one, he will become very anxious and start chewing off his own ass.
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Shrub will, of course, grant Scooter a full pardon as he leaves office. That will keep The Scoot’s mouth shut. How could he talk after being pardoned? Have you ever tried to tell off your boss while you were licking his or her boots? It can’t be done. And, in a very sick way, that is the way the founding fathers designed Article II, section 2 of the Constitution. The guys who wrote the constitution were mostly alpha males, themselves. There must have been enough testosterone in Independence Hall in 1787 to float Old Ironsides out of its Boston dry dock. They understood the practical logical needs of an executive, be it a king, an Emperor, or a President. They all need their Scooters. And all Scooters must be pardoned.
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But it does remind me of something Abraham Lincoln said. While running for President in 1860, he said, “As I would not be a Scooter, nor would I be a Scooter user.”
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Words to live by, damn it. Scoot-scoot.
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