Anything goes

In olden days a glimpse of stocking
Was looked on as something shocking,
But now, God knows,
Anything Goes.

In 1982, the Republicans ran an ad boasting that President Ronald Reagan had provided a cost of living allowance (COLA) increase to federal workers "in spite of those sticks-in-the-mud who tried to keep him from doing what we elected him to do."

Alas, it was soon pointed out that Reagan had in fact opposed the increase. "Since when," a Republican official asked by way of explanation, "is a commercial supposed to be accurate?"

I remember when the media had to give equal time for someone to rebut charges, but that was before the Reagan Renaissance. Now you can lie about anything without much fear of contradiction: freedom of speech, Republican style.

Perhaps because they feel the election of ’04 wasn’t sleazy enough (trust me, it was) Florida's top elections officials have concluded that most campaign finance restrictions don't apply to third-party groups as long as they don't directly tell people how to vote. According to today’s Miami Herald, the decision from the Florida Division of Elections means that special-interest groups or wealthy donors could pay to air completely false claims or completely false and scurrilous condemnations of opposing candidates, without having to abide by the state's campaign finance limits. The Sept. 21st decision comes on the heels of a recent ruling by the division that points out that state law no longer bars these same third-party groups from coordinating their ads with individual candidates. In other words, a political Party can advertise, using private funds, that their rivals have regular sex with the Devil after performing Human sacrifice and worshipping Jane Fonda - and nobody can do a damn thing about it. Of course they have come close to doing that much already and nobody could do a damn thing about it.

Apparently it’s not enough to use political connections on the Court to unconstitutionally stop votes from being counted or using your connections with Diebold to secretly alter vote counts, they want a license to lie. Hardly shocking. What’s really astonishing is that so few people seem to care. Maybe we should have saved ourselves all that trouble and remained part of the British Empire where a King called George claimed divine approval, because that’s exactly where we are today.

The world has gone mad today
And good's bad today,
And black's white today,
And day's night today,
When most guys today
That women prize today
Are just silly gigolos
And though I'm not a great romancer
I know that I'm bound to answer
When you propose,
Anything goes