The Nugent Digest

From his latest:

The new breed of Republicans, more advanced in their shamelessness, have spent entirely too much time during the last twenty years arguing about minute distinctions between acceptable and unforgivable varities of untruths, as if they were a bunch of goddamn grad students. Their moral compasses are so degraded that they probably really believe that no one is getting hurt in the process, but consider this: if Henry Hyde had retired from Congress before 1998, he'd have probably counted as just one more flatulent old gasbag who'd have donated his grandchildren to a Chinese labor farm in exchange for three minutes of TV time, useless and unattractive but basically no worse on the whole than any other member of the great undifferentiated mass of mediocre men. But because he hung in there to play a role in two scandals, one in which a sitting president of his own party was the target and one in which a sitting president of the other party had that honor, he will be remembered as a creature whose official position was that lying under oath in order to further a disastrous and pea-brained scheme aimed at conducting a secret, illegal foreign policy that went against the stated policies of the administration and the desires of the electorate was not just okay but admirable, whereas lying under oath about getting your knob polished two years earlier merits impeachment. It seems like such a small thing, but now because of it, Henry Hyde will have to go to Hell when he dies. Henry Hyde hasn't died yet, has he? I assume not, because I haven't noticed any parades lately, but some things just aren't worth going to Wikipedia to double check.