American Realistan

A “repudiation” of Republicans and conservativism??? King George knocked off his high horse???

Not so fast!

It’s a nice thing (but not for the troglodytes who lost) that Democrats now make up the majority of the nation’s state governors and improved their numbers in the state legislatures. Hooray for the Democrats who took control of the House. But so what if we won’t have to wrestle with Denny Hastert anymore?

The war between the hued political states continues unabated.

House Democrats can certainly orate impressively on honorable topics, like that really will do some good. New House Speaker Nancy Pelosi can promise to “work together in a bipartisan way for all Americans“, but that sentiment is not shared across the aisle - or in the dank White House darkness where dwells the Rove Monster.

Despite the fact that even the Republicans are pressuring George Allen to concede (demonstrating that the GOP also recognizes Democratic control of the Senate), don’t think for one moment that George W. Bush’s “brain” has stopped thinking - or plotting. What did he come up with to deal with the GOP lack-of-ethics electoral earthquake of 2006?

Why, the best defense against Democratic investigations of Bush Administration activities is to go immediately on the attack before their gains can be consolidated.

Rove may have misread the mood of the electorate against the administration, but he was quick to salvage control of the official story line by convincing Donald Rumsfeld to fall on his sword and “resign” for the good of the Party - even though just last week, George claimed that THE Donald was the very life of it.

Sure - George began his first press conference of the day saying the right things a gracious loser says, but after what had to be the worst minute of his life, George returned to that tired platform of lies rejected yesterday even by Republican voters. “Of course we’re winning!” he asserted.

But there has been far too much interrogation of the accuracy of such statements, so Karl stepped in with the Master Stroke of the Day: regain the loyalty of the military by dumping Rummy, and redirect the attention of the media. The media is a sure sucker for controversy!

Just Monday, the military press published editorials calling for Rumsfeld’s removal, so Karl accommodated their request by having George tell The Don it was now the moment to decide to spend more time with the great-grandkids. As a result, no one saw or heard much about the Democrats rebuttle of George’s first news conference, one which once would have been peppered with “Stay The Course!”

It didn’t stop there.

Like a heavyweight following a left hook with a right cross,
the next punch landed quickly
in order to bury the Democrat’s victory story.

In Rumsfeld’s place, Bush named Robert Gates as SecDef. Gates is a long-time Bush family asset who has experience in Southwest Asia: he is reported to have been involved in the original October Surprise and also to have been involved in Iran-Contra [much more information available here]. In addition, he would be somewhat suited to Bush Administration purposes when dealing with the replacement of the current Iraqi “government” should it fail and the country sink into a real civil war, one quite unlike the current gang-turf battles now underway in Iraq.

There is another win-win for Bu$hCo. By selecting a career CIA man, Karl - I mean, George - seeks to quell the rising discontent of the intelligence community, well-chafed after years of being blamed for Bush Administration failures. And, as far as the military is concerned, Gates is also not Rumsfeld. Now that Donald’s done, they have nothing legitimate to bitch about, so back to war, soldier!

But can Gates be confirmed by a hostile Democratic Senate? Tom Harkin tried to rally an opposition to his confirmation in 1991. It worked. With any luck, it can work again in 2007.

But luck is not something to be relied upon when the outcome is vital.

With the DLC screw-ups still demonstrating poor judgement, and a lot of political novices taking their seats to wage political battle against experienced veteran Republican incumbents, it isn’t going to matter to Bush Administration that the world sees yesterday’s vote as a a rejection of their policies. Anyone not with them is against them, and “We’re in a war!” They will go it alone if they must, believing that they are emulating the brave tradition of the Alamo’s defenders.

So if you should be done celebrating by tomorrow morning, it’s time to get back to work to end the infestation that is the Bush Administration. There is no time for anything else right now. Enacting all those liberal issues isn’t going to get off the ground without a veto-proof majority - a populist-oriented, take-care-of-the-people veto-proof majority.

But how likely is that? The real activity of the Congress - regardless of which party holds the power - has nothing to do with the needs of the nation. It does, however, have a lot to do with the “needs” of the nation’s business community.

That is the real enemy of progress for the individual. We did nothing about that particular problem just because we changed the majority party of the Congress. All we really did yesterday was to change the public color of their turncoats. The real color isn’t Blue or Red like they want us to think.

It’s Dollar Green.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 8th, 2006 at 9:03 pm and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.