Friday Roundup: So We'll Go No More A-Roving

Karl Rove got subpoenaed. The conga line forms to my left.

I know — you don't have to tell me that the chance for a smooth acceptance, an appearance at hearings, and a broad admission of wrongdoing are low. Wonkette even went straight to the headline "Karl Rove to ignore Senate subpoena." But I am the kind of guy that calls progress progress, and this is progress.

That wasn't all Congressional Democrats got up to yesterday - they also called for a special prosecutor / investigation to look into whether Alberto Gonzales perjured himself. This is also something I'm betting you won't see a quick turnaround on, but knives are out and everyone is starting to look like they mean business. While it is true that the last perjury conviction didn't go so well, Bush may have used up all of his Get Out Of Jail Free political juice on Scooter. I don't know that he has another mid-term pardon or commutation in him, especially after Robert Mueller, Bush's own FBI director, directly controverted some of Gonzales' testimony. I could be wrong, but I think Gonzales may be abandoned if he can't make it to Pardonpalooza 2009 on his own.

With all of this (and everything else) considered in the GOP's books, it is not surprising that Republicans are starting to get The Fear. The American people made a righteous case against them in 2006 and they have done nothing since to disprove it. As such, they feel like yet another beating is coming in 2008. The women are weeping, and some of the men are too. The exile they sincerely hoped was temporary may not be; the electoral punishment they took was not just an unfortunate departure laced with retribution and shame. They have become the punchline of a quintessentially American joke and learned that morality is temporal and temporary at best.

And not even Fred Thompson can save them. For all the noise everyone's made about Old Fred in the last few months, us included, the sad secret is that he's apparently only been able to scrape together about $3 million. That kind of money can't even save you from the cartel. When the sum total of your touted political chicanery barely outpaces Ron Paul's second quarter total, you may as well hang it up and retreat to the USA network, where at least you won't be attacked by vicious dogs, as is likely to be the fate of all failed Republican candidates for the Presidential nomination.

Many of those future failed candidates will be at the Texas GOP straw poll in Fort Worth starting August 31, but not all of them. Giuliani said long ago he wouldn't be making it, and to no one's surprise it is confirmed now that McCain and Romney will also not show up. They'll have Ron Paul, though. Maybe Fred Thompson will show up and perform just a tiny bit better than him.

Freshman state representative and friend of the show Juan Garcia won the 12-day money race for state legislators at the end of the second quarter. He won it hard, and we're glad to see it. He managed to put away a little over $140,000, and I'm sure he along with other first-term Democrats in the state house are already socking it away in earnest.

Oh, in case you hadn't noticed, the drought is over. Maybe if the river in your front yard would stop carrying the daily paper away you would have heard by now.

Lastly today, the kind of bizarre stuff that only space travel can bring you:

1. NASA discovered that someone performed an act of sabotage on a computer bound for the International Space Station. NASA's reaction? "It's cool, guys. Launch is GO!"
2. Astronauts have been getting tanked before flying the space shuttle. Into space.

I'm not kidding about either one. Quote of the week, and possibly the month:

In Washington, the chairman of the House Science and Technology committee said he hadn't seen the report, "but if the reports of drunken astronauts being allowed to fly prove to be true, I think the agency will have a lot of explaining to do."

"That's not the 'right stuff' as far as I'm concerned," said Bart Gordon, D-Tenn.

Bart Gordon, you're now officially D-My Heart. A Texas Blue t-shirt is winging its way to your door.