Friday, January 27, 2006
Moderates?
Yet another story in the New York Times about the massive shortfalls in reconstruction and the continuosly bad security situation. Maybe the reason no good news is being reported out of Iraq is that there is none.
I won’t evaluate the incessant wiretap spin coming out of the White House. I’ve already gone over the arguments.
The Bushies have repeatedly said they will continue the wiretapping, which amuses me. What else can they say? Stopping it now would not make the scandal any better for them, and it would look like they were guilty. They have to go on. This is the defense of a rabbit caught in the view of a fox: freeze, don’t move, and pray you aren’t ripped to shreds. Running will only guarantee your dismemberment.
Or maybe they actually think what they’re doing is legal, though I’m not particularly concerned with what the Torture Administration thinks is legal. They can count on Victoria Toensing to shamble out of her legal grave and mount a defense, but they will find little support elsewhere.
I don’t like to speculate about a highly uncertain future, but what justice will there be with republicans like Roberts chairing the committees that will evaluate these activities? This is the guy who voted against the McCain anti-torture amendment, for God’s sake. This is the guy who doubted Valeria Plame was undercover.
We’ll see if the Republicans get their electoral teeth kicked in come November, but in any case justice will be long in coming. Where is Phase II of the intelligence investigation, again?
A small bright spot will be the upcoming State of the Union Address. Tom Oliphant yesterday mentioned that this has been the worst fifth year for a president in modern history. From Katrina to Plamegate to Iraq to wiretapping to failed social security reform, this is as bad as it gets. While I am used to Preznit Twitchy filling valuable minutes of my life with lies and whitewashings, this SOTU is going to be a truly epic exercise in evasiveness and forward-looking programs, because if he takes one second to look back at the feculent ocean of his political legacy it will swallow him whole.
While one half of congress sits sullenly through his address, I expect the other half to applaud loud and long. While Bush’s Job Approval Rating has been hovering at or below 50% for nearly two years now, according to the latest CBS News/New York Times poll conducted last week his approval rating is at 83% among Republicans, compared to 14% for democrats and 34% for independents.
Can you say “disconnect?” What planet are you living on, Repubs? While democrats register an approval rating 20 points below the independents, Repubs register an approval rating nearly 50 points higher.
Never before have conservatives been so partisan, to the detriment of our nation and the world. Only when they are voted out of office will responsible government be restored to Washington.
So forget about the moderate reprobaticans doing anything. Arlen Specter, the “pro-choice” conservative, forgot about the “pro-choice” part and voted for Alito. Voinivich, though he called John Bolton “the poster child of what someone in the diplomatic corps should not be...” swallowed his conscience and abstained from voting against Bolton. John McCain, sunk in South Carolina by Rovian dirty tricks, turned right around and campaigned with Dubya in the following years. In the words of Driftglass: “Man! Bush-dick must taste like Belgian Chocolate! So yummy, that you just can’t get it out of your mouth!”
You can always count on spineless conservatives to heel when their party machine jerks the leash. These invertebrates have less integrity and self-esteem than beat-down crack whores. They have the same chance of reforming as Tom DeLay has of suddenly waking up tomorrow morning with a conscience. They have failed at every single opportunity over the past four years to take a stand against the ugliest junta that has ever controlled their party. Bush dallied for days to address the Katrina disaster. But when James Dobson pulls the strings you can bet your ass Bush jumped out of bed in the middle of the night and flew to Washington in his underwear to sign the Terri Schiavo Bill within 24 hours.
I remember, with the hazy uncertainty of the dim past, the days when an approval rating below 50% was considered very bad territory. This administration is happily making a career out of living in this wasteland. The bad news for them is, like massive overspending financed by Chinese loans, it can’t last forever. The halcyon days of unlimited cash and blatant lies have consequences, and with the Plame/wiretapping/Abramoff scandals still unfolding, this administration is barreling towards the edge of a cliff they will never be able to come back from.
# posted by BitterHarvest @ 5:25 PM 
