Mountain of Judgment

So here comes 300, and with it Frank Miller's continued assertion that violence is sex. (Only better.)

Why Frank bothers me, in Lance Mannion's words:

Miller, who created the graphic...ahem...novels Sin City and 300, is credited with saving Batman for DC, but he did it by turning a goofy kids’ comic book about the world’s greatest detective into a perpetual revenge fantasy starring the world’s most violent arrested adolescent. Batman since the Dark Knight returned has been a medium for late teenage and early twentysomething men whose own adolescences were arrested at the point they first took an honest look in the mirror and saw that they would never be the type who quarterbacks teams to Super Bowl victories and date cheerleaders, to see their self-pitying misanthropy acted out in not quite cathartic violence. “Take that world, for not appreciating me!”

Then again, my favorite version of Batman wore an Indian headdress and fought alien dinosaurs on the moon in 3,700 AD, so what do I know? (Concession: Miller's Batman Year One is very entertaining. Were it the only example of that approach to Batman, it--and Miller's approach to the character, would be unimpeachable. That, however, is Earth 53.)

Also, Mannion's point about how laughable it is to compare George Effing Bush to either Xeres or Leonidas, who were both, ahem, warrior kings.

Mary Matalin describing anyone that she doesn't see in a mirror as a "demonstrable partisan liar".

Eric Shanower sure gives a good interview. Here's a highlight, responding to the interviewer's description of his epic swords and sandals comic book Age of Bronze as "gritty and realistic":

I have trouble with the phrase “gritty and realistic.” Why do people say that? Why don’t they say “beautiful and realistic” or “hilarious and realistic”? Certainly beauty and hilarity are real. Grit isn’t the only realistic thing in life. “Gritty” makes me imagine crunching sand in my teeth, an impression I don’t think I’ve ever gotten from comics.

Actually, I believe I had that exact sensation while reading Identity Crisis. If I remember correctly, it also gave me bloody stools and night terrors.

Elsewhere in the interview, I dig Shanower's defense of not including the Greek gods or the supernatural in his version of the Trojan War by saying "I don't believe in them and Age of Bronze is my statement about what life is like; not what life should be or what it could be, but what it’s like."

Over at the Washington Post web site, legal analyst Jeralyn Merritt began her live chat by proclaiming this a "sad day for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby".

Yeah, that's definitely the lede. Not a good day for the justice system or the American people, but a sad day for a reprehensible convicted perjurer who, like his bosses, confused public service with the mob. It's like saying Nov. 22 1963 was a sad day for Lee Harvey Oswald. Libby intentionally derailed the legitimate case against the administration that the country deserved. His now proven criminal actions effectively killed our right to know.

Libby is like anybody who drives a Hummer; an asshole by default. There are no extenuating circumstances, no reasonable explanations, no room for sympathy. If you drive a Hummer or serve as Chief of Staff for Dick Cheney, you're a pigfucker, case closed. What's more, you know you're a pigfucker. You get off on being a pigfucker, and snicker about it with your pigfucker buddies as you drive around in your Hummers looking for pigs to fuck. "Hey, look at those fucking hippies way down there in their hybrid car giving us the finger! Roll down the window and dump our Arby's wrappers on them! John Edwards is a faggot!"

Libby's not noble, he's not the pitiable fall guy, not as Merritt has described him elsewhere merely "a messenger and employee" who unfortunately got caught in a political crossfire. He's a terrible American up to his neck in the crimes of his bosses. An utter piece of shit who positively decided to be where he is now.

Commentators have remarked on Libby's lack of reaction to the guilty verdicts. Well, of course. The outcome of the trial is basically irrelevant to him. If anything, the conviction just means the plan worked. This is a man who obstructed justice and committed perjury to shield Dick Cheney et al against charges of outing a deep cover CIA agent working on WMD in a despicable act of revenge meant to protect his insane war. Just because Darth Cheney is worse doesn't somehow redeem his water carrier. Feel sorry for his three kids? Not as sorry as they should feel for having a dad who decided to subvert justice out of loyalty to men who deserve none. Libby deserves more time in the joint than he'll ever see.

A sad day? It was a sad day when he decided to lie. Today is a goddamn party.