If I read the headlines aright, John Conyers really means it this time.

Harriet Meiers, Karl Rove, David Addington, John Ashcroft, David Hasselhoff--all will testify, the truth will out, and there will be hell to pay.

For what we're not exactly sure. The politicized hiring and firing at the justice department? The persecution of Don Siegelman in Alabama? The EPA's willful disregard of a court's mandate to regulate greenhouse gasses? What about all that domestic eavesdropping? The war lies and forgeries? It's a list without end. Trying to find a thread that connects just one person to just one crime is like trying to remove just the shallots from a bisque.

But can you feel it? The pressure is building. The suspense is intolerable.

Buckle up people, we are headed for a shattering anticlimax!

In a normal world, there would be a predictable postscript to such an orgy of malfeasance. One that included resignations, indictments, arraignments, Alberto Gonzalez in an ill-tailored orange jumpsuit, and ultimately, Dick Cheney as the only reliable source for cigarettes at a Maryland Federal prison.

In a normal world.

But in our world, absolutely none of this will happen. Yes, the Democrats will shuttle these investigations hither and thither through committees with all the frenetic purposelessness of a flock of agitated turkeys. But these escalations from suspicions to subpoenas to contempt, these are not the executioner's blade falling in irresistible stages. These are shaggy dog jokes. And, as with all shaggy dog jokes, the punchline is your own slack-jawed gullibility.

You really thought someone was going to go to jail, didn't you?

Sucker.

The Democrats, however, are victims of their own jest as well. Eventually, flushed with a sense of victory, they will retire to their homes to exchange self-congratulatory phone calls. And the perjurers, torturers, profiteers, influence peddlers, and felons miscellaneous will saunter off to empty their Swiss bank accounts, write their best-selling memoirs, or take lucrative yet undemanding positions as lobbyists.

Surely the handful of Republicans who are not yet the subjects of an investigation must feel a little queasy to see such general indifference regarding the enforcement of justice? Isn't the magical deterring power of draconian penalties the only thing preventing us from plunging into anarchy?

But deterrence, in the conservative mindset, is really only an operative concept when applied to the lower classes, who, because they spend so much time in the criminal justice system, know exactly what kinds of sentences they don't want to receive. Lobbyists, legislators, and Presidents Vice- and otherwise can't be held accountable to a code with which they have so little firsthand experience. Nor would it be appropriate to place rigid constraints upon them, for the salubrious functioning of a vibrant kleptocracy such as ours requires that those in command be granted a certain expansive prerogative of conduct. In other words, as long as our government is making a good faith effort to secure the American way of life for future generations, who's to say just how much perjury is too much?

Armed with this enabling perspective, Republicans have worked as mechanically as a colony of ants for eight interminable years to remake government on the model of organized crime. Leveraging a terrorist attack to create war and fear, they manufactured the enormous social and political upheaval required to cleanse America of its quaint expectations of due process, a limited executive, respect for law, transparency, and human rights. The fact that the architects of this madness have been spared all consequence just shows that their success is complete.

Or is it?

Perhaps these would-be autocrats have been so intent on the nearness of their prize that they've been blind to the fatal flaw in their plans. Yes, they have created a Franken-government optimized for tyranny. But if my calculations are correct, they will be ready to pull the switch and imbue this horrific creature with Life! Life! right about...

January of 2009. Just in time for Barack Obama to take over the controls.

All hail the coming liberal dictatorship!

Is justice not sweet? Will payback not be a bitch? I know it is unbecoming to savor the discomfiture of others, even one's enemies. But I have not had the opportunity to stretch, and if I were to resist the urge to revel, I might pull a muscle.

So, dear conservatives, let's consider what the next four years hold--besides compulsory abortions, that is.

All food will be locally grown, organic, and vegetarian. French fries will be taxed exorbitantly. Three days after the policy takes effect, fat people will eat fast food wrappers from trash cans in scenes reminiscent of Stalinist collectivization in the Ukraine.

Not only will there be medical marijuana, marijuana will be the only medicine. Cancer patients will eat and go into remission. People suffering from all other illnesses will endure unbearable suffering, but--small mercy--will later have no memory of it.

Everyone will be issued one of those cars so small that it looks like it caught some kind of necrosis of the flesh and had to have its ass amputated. Road rage will become cute. Teenagers will be so mortified that dating will cease. University researchers will compete to successfully miniaturize fuzzy dice.

Hundreds of luxury "Welcome Centers" will receive Mexicans along our southern borders. As part of a new national service program, debutantes will bathe the immigrants and massage their tired calves with scented ointments. The Department of Agriculture will fund the development of new, easy-to-pick varieties of fruit trees.

Each American will be given the names and addresses of 20 people from other countries to whom they must send a sincere-sounding note of apology. Hand written. And on good stationary--not that cheap stuff. That's right. Just like your mother taught you.

The tax rate for people making over $200,000 per year will be 90%. But they can have half of it back if they ask very, VERY nicely. And sign a paper denying Jesus.

That is just a small sampling of what is in store. The complete list of planned decrees is far too voluminous to transcribe here. And of course it is full of the kind of egg-heady, hard-to-read intellectual language that liberals use because they think they're better than everyone else.

But perhaps those of you who have seen it would like to describe some of your favorite provisions?

This post is a love child of Only Sayin'