More Political Antics Are Yet To Come

11/13/2005

Paul Munnis

The GOP Caucus while taking stock of the latest polls will quickly turn pragmatic and conclude that Bush/Chaney no longer have influence left in Washington or across the nation and that their stock is way down internationally thus hobbling America and the neo-con movement. This cannot be tolerated. All this stuff about rebuilding the Bush Administration is nonsense because it just takes too long to rebound. The 2006 election season has already started.

The Congress and the Bush Administration have such low poll numbers that it indicates a major change coming to Washington in the form of a Democratic Party inspired reform movement; one wherein the GOP will likely loose power in either the Senate, or the House, or both, in the 2006 elections. The GOP will not lay down in front of the bulldozer and be crushed.

The GOP will then look at the historic opportunity that they have right now to get their agenda enacted. They will realize that this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to wield power and they will exercise power in a rough and ready manner.

The impediment up until now has not been Democrats except for pretty minor harassment. We simply lack the needed votes to do much to stop the GOP except to make noise. That cannot be allowed any longer by the GOP.

The problem for neo-cons is that Moderate Republicans like John McCain, and Fiscal Conservative GOP members like Lindsay Graham, are screwing things up for the neo-cons by demanding honesty and proper behavior in government. This comes at a time when the stated neo-con agenda is to fiscally bankrupt America so that the U.S. is forced to cut the government size in half. Thus, McCain may have to go and he will be replaced with a new Senator from Arizona or else he will be politically bound and gagged for the remainder of his term; he could also be co-opted. Ditto for the Fiscal Conservatives, they too will have to be sacrificed with new members that come to Washington warming the GOP seats and voting as they are told to. The risk is that they will form a voting bloc with Democrats and that risk must be managed.

Bush has really screwed up the neo-con agenda for Iraq. The neo-con idea was to use the strong U.S. military to extend American Empire and that has failed thus Bush/Chaney have regressed the neo-con Empire agenda. Democrats are threatening it too with an anti-war movement. That cannot be tolerated any longer. 

Karl Rove is having lots of fun as Bush’s point man but he is lousing things up too as his strategies are all backfiring and Bush is getting weaker and not stronger. We Democrats have been able to launch a counter strike to much of Rove’s manipulation as we figure out how to manage the politics of divisiveness. So, Rove has to go when Bush leaves. Pat Robinson will have to be dumped too and that will be done by painting him as a senile fool. That will clean out the White House and allow for rebasing of the GOP.

Turning these notions into a new prescription for success must follow and will follow the broad outlines that I have described below:

- First dump Bush/Chaney and cut political losses in order to salvage the next three years with someone whom you could run for office in 2008 on the basis of their accomplishment in 2006/2007. Maybe McCain if he can be co-opted.

- Consolidate Iraq by obtaining a stranglehold on the Iraqi government and creating at least a propaganda victory there as soon as the December elections are held.

- Extend the territory that is held in Iraq to an adjacent country, such as Syria, that is an easy knock-off and thus building support for the White House replacements for Bush/Chaney. “We must support our governmentemt, etc.”

- At home, dump DeLay, Frist, and Libby, thus cutting the political losses and liabilities in the House and Senate. Do this dumping in such a way that it is positioned as GOP house-cleaning aimed at ridding Washington of scandal, a form of Party self clean-up. “We have noted the corruption in Washington and have acted to rid our nation of it...”

- Dump Pat Robinson and elevate people like Dr. Dobson and Jerry Folwell as replacement icons to hold out to the religious fundamentalists and the southern voters in the 2006 and 2008 elections.

- Fight hard to hang onto Congress no matter what. The resulting scandals can be blamed on the Democrats after the election is over or else just dismissed as noise in the system. The GOP will fight to win seats at all costs.

- Use the next three years to jam as much neo-con agenda inspired legislation as possible through the Congress.

We can expect that these are the tactical activities that the GOP will turn to in desperation and determination. Bush/Chaney will be forced to resign as part of the house-cleaning ploy and maybe a team like Santorum/Hatch will replace them or perhaps McCain/Graham.

New elections in Iraq will result in a new government for Iraq. The new Iraqi government must then be controlled. Using the U.S. purse-strings is the way that the GOP will do it. They will turn Iraq into a welfare case that must behave as the U.S. dictates or else they will go hungry. No joke, the U.S. government is feeding the people of Iraq even as they cut off food stamps for Americans. They will then force the Iraqi Army to defend itself. They will use USAF to support the Iraqi Army as needed. In order to extend American Empire they will invade Syria and thus relieve insurgent pressure on Iraqi forces.

At home the GOP will keep pushing and pulling on the rope marked “House-Cleaning.”

The GOP will leak evidentiary proofs of bad behavior for DeLay, Frist, and Libby and get them so deeply indicted that they are clearly finished in Washington. A presidential pardon by the incoming replacements for Bush/Chaney will then send them home to their rocking chairs to write books. This will be written off strategically as “sacrificial pawns.” In their home districts they will pull DeLay and Frist from the re-election tickets and give them up, replacing them with new candidates who will be ultra supported by the GOP for the 2006 election. The GOP will bill this as “a triumph of neo-con honesty in government.”

The GOP will use these house-cleaning and self-healing party ploys along with a need to support the new President and the troops now fighting in Syria as their major new campaign themes for 2006 and 2008. They will build sentiment for their agenda among the electorate so as to keep the House/Senate majority. A lot of this will happen between Thanksgiving and Easster of 2006.

The GOP must smear Hillary Clinton in 2006/2007 so that she is not capable of election in 2008. They have a problem though with John McCain who they must dump or co-opt. It seems that he is very close in the polls to Hillary for a 2008 presidential bid. Before they kill a presidential prospect off politically they must think it through carefully and so they may keep him or else negotiate a compromise. At any rate the GOP will jam as much legislation through Congress as is possible from 2006 till 2008.

Given this sort of plan (and you can bet that their plan looks a heck of a lot like what I just laid down) then what can we Democrats do?

- We will have to expose them at every turn and prevent the new replacements for Bush/Chaney from being accepted by the public because they were not elected by voters but appointed by power brokers.

- We will have to work to assure the new Congressional leaders do not move into a position of legislative efficiency by slowing the rate that they can flow legislation thru Congress. That means tying them up using the very purse strings that they control and containing them until the old Congress adjourns and a new election is held.

- The way to do that is to demand a spending moratorium until the deficit is cut. Fiscal Conservatives, Democrats, and Moderate Republicans, may be able to form a voting bloc for that effort.

- In Iraq we will have to get closure on the issue of false pretenses for Iraqi invasion and use it to show the neo-cons off as covert Empire builders.

- We may need to create alliances with John McCain who needs GOP moderates back in order to make a Prez campaign bid in 2008 against Hillary. The ultimate compromise would be a shared bipartisan ticket.

- Finally, we will need to go after the GOP over the invasion of Syria showing that it adds to the deficit and places both U.S. foreign policy and the U.S. Treasury in further deficit while killing more American soldiers.

What we are describing is a likely scenario for the next three years of politics in America.

When Bush/Chaney get pushed out then it will become a euphoric moment for Democrats.

More Democratic PArty euphoria will follow over the ditching of the criminal three (DeLay, Frist, Libby).

The GOP propaganda machine will be countering Democrats euphoria by declaring a win in Iraq and the need to mop up over in Syria all in order to consolidate a mid-east victory.

The GOP Party faithful will then turn euphoric and willl work to counter Democrats.

Instead of drinking champagne and enjoying the joust, we Democrats had better be lashing down the ropes on deck because the American ship-of-state is headed for another big storm and we must get ready for it.

Getting truly rid of neo-cons is like trying to eliminate a virus. Just when you think you have it eradicated then it breaks out all over again. Or, as Yogi Bera puts it: “It ain’t over ‘till it’s over.”