The King Is Not Dead (Still Stupid But Not Dead)
The indictment of Scooter Libby is delightful. The humiliation of the President due to the Harriet Miers fiasco is also wonderful. The amount of schadenfreude I feel is reaching all time highs. I think George W. Bush is a strong contender for Worst President Ever, and his embarrassments last week are so sweet I'm gaining weight.
However, fellow liberals, Democrats, and fans of intelligent government, let's not get too excited. Barring a Watergate-style miracle, we are stuck with the Jackass-in-Chief for another three years. I'm sorry, but I just don't see the indictment of Libby to be the start of a snowball of indictments that will bring Bush down. Even if Libby gets sent to jail (and Rove too), Bush will still be president. Lame duck, maybe, but still appointing right-wing judges, still spending us further into fiscal hell, still supporting insane corporate-friendly ideas like drilling in the Arctic Refuge and financing new nuclear plants, and still allowing our soldiers in Iraq to be murdered in an unwinnable situation.
Don't forget, Bush and his handlers are genius-level dissemblers. Bush has slipped out of jams before. The constant bloodletting of Iraq has only recently turned the majority of Americans against him. There is a stubborn base, I estimate a quarter of adult Americans, who simply loathe the idea of gay people marrying more than they care about the competence of their president. Until Bush is videotaped snorting coke off a hooker's ass, his Christian Right supporters will back him right or wrong (or wronger). The best we can hope for is that this voter bloc will be demoralized by Bush's incompetence to the point that they won't show up for the 2006 and 2008 elections.
The Democrats still have to present a cogent, reasonable alternative to Republican rule. Having "intellectual" conservatives fighting with Christian conservatives is great, but you still have to have a plan better than "the other guys suck." The joke about Kerry running as "Not Bush" was too close to being true. The Democrats have to push simple issues that have common sense appeal: funding health care for all children without coverage, maintaining the estate tax, expanding science and computer scholarships, and pulling FEMA out of the ridiculous Department of Homeland Security and making it an independent agency again (with a non-partisan boss who is actually qualified). The list goes on, but the point is the Democrats need to be known as a party of ideas again. If not, the Dems deserve to go the way of the Whigs, the Progressives, and the dinosaurs.
However, fellow liberals, Democrats, and fans of intelligent government, let's not get too excited. Barring a Watergate-style miracle, we are stuck with the Jackass-in-Chief for another three years. I'm sorry, but I just don't see the indictment of Libby to be the start of a snowball of indictments that will bring Bush down. Even if Libby gets sent to jail (and Rove too), Bush will still be president. Lame duck, maybe, but still appointing right-wing judges, still spending us further into fiscal hell, still supporting insane corporate-friendly ideas like drilling in the Arctic Refuge and financing new nuclear plants, and still allowing our soldiers in Iraq to be murdered in an unwinnable situation.
Don't forget, Bush and his handlers are genius-level dissemblers. Bush has slipped out of jams before. The constant bloodletting of Iraq has only recently turned the majority of Americans against him. There is a stubborn base, I estimate a quarter of adult Americans, who simply loathe the idea of gay people marrying more than they care about the competence of their president. Until Bush is videotaped snorting coke off a hooker's ass, his Christian Right supporters will back him right or wrong (or wronger). The best we can hope for is that this voter bloc will be demoralized by Bush's incompetence to the point that they won't show up for the 2006 and 2008 elections.
The Democrats still have to present a cogent, reasonable alternative to Republican rule. Having "intellectual" conservatives fighting with Christian conservatives is great, but you still have to have a plan better than "the other guys suck." The joke about Kerry running as "Not Bush" was too close to being true. The Democrats have to push simple issues that have common sense appeal: funding health care for all children without coverage, maintaining the estate tax, expanding science and computer scholarships, and pulling FEMA out of the ridiculous Department of Homeland Security and making it an independent agency again (with a non-partisan boss who is actually qualified). The list goes on, but the point is the Democrats need to be known as a party of ideas again. If not, the Dems deserve to go the way of the Whigs, the Progressives, and the dinosaurs.
posted by David Bowden at 5:38 PM
