“There He Goes Again…” (Ronald Reagan)

12/18/2005

by Paul Munnis

Mr. Bush, the public, and our Congress, are all having one big mad-on and a loud shouting match too, each accusing the other of all sorts of bad things. Bush has crossed the line, committed crime and has admitted it in public. Now he is attacking and saying that it was his duty to break the law. Once again he will defend himself with an argument that the ends justify the means. 

We refer of course to domestic spying on American citizens.

Congress is incredulous and the I-word is hovering in the background: “impeachment.” If the public demands it the Congress will have to do the deed because he has admitted his guilt publicly. The public is really down right now on Bush. They may demand his head.

The Bushies have known for a year now that this day was coming and they have planned their campaign well in advance. They should be all ready and all organized for battle. They are claiming it’s all legal but that has yet to be proven since the Congress who created the law sees him behaving illegally. So, Bush has to spin the Congress and his own Party and pray for political salvation from above.

The GOP members of Congress are hopping mad—they don’t need this scandal with an election coming on.

Democrats are of course disgusted with Bush but that’s nothing new for us. We are also happy that another campaign burr is under the GOP’s saddle. Come the 2006 elections we seek to overturn the GOP. They are helping us in two key ways: corruption committed by key party members and bad choices made in governing America.

We have been watching FOX TV and they are ridiculous. We heard Steve Forbes on there on this subject and claiming that breaking our laws is an honorable thing to do in wartime. Really?

Arianna Huffington is reminding people about the 60’s, the Vietnam War, and the FBI keeping case records on over 100,000 anti-war protesters.

Even the head of the Senate Judiciary Committee is calling for a full inquiry and what else can he do? Maybe he can find a way to whitewash it.

Sunday talk shows promise to be full of GOP spin as the GOP must discuss this issue, plus others such as a new charges against Senate majority leader Bill Frist that he is using religious right charities to launder money and to payoff political hacks.

Bush has really put his foot in his mouth on this one though. The one thing that Bush has going for himself is that Democrats are wary of using impeachment to solve political differences. We do not want America getting into the habit of settling political differences this way. This is especially true as the nation is polarized roughly equally over Bush. But Republicans could be the one wanting Bush’s scalp even more than Democrats. They must show the folks back home that they are not Bush’s lap dog. They are mighty angry at this deal and Bush’s handling of his office too and this is another scandal they don’t need or want coming their way, especially at the Christmas recess, and especially with the legislative load they want to wrap up before the holidays arrive.

There is an alternative to Impeachment and that is forced resignation. If that happens Democrats will have no say about it because it would be the GOP that would demand that Mr. Bush resign. His government could fall and Congress could name a replacement as the acting president and another as vice-president. Senator John McCain and Senator Lindsay Graham are acting like heir apparent candidates in the GOP.

We don’t know what will happen any better than anyone else does but we doubt that what lies ahead is going to be very good for anybody involved It’s another lose-lose operation from the Bush Administration, a team that seems to specialize in erroneous decision making.

We noticed that the GOP Sunday spin machine has concentrated on the Iraqi War, hoping to change the subject away from the NAS spying that was illegally sanctioned by Mr. Bush, the implications of the spying on the Patriot Act, and the money laundering scandal of Sen. Bill Frist, the GOP Senate Majority Leader.

We also notice that in the area of the Iraqi War the spin machine paints it as being a partisan issue with Democrats wanting to “bring home the troops,” and the GOP wanting to “stay the course.” The spinners from the GOP describe the Democrats as wanting to “cut and run.” Nothing could be further from the truth, this is not a Party polarization issue as both Democrats and Republicans are split over how quickly to bring home the troops. Just ask John Kerry and Hillary Clinton where they stand.

What may be more important though is that the military doesn’t care what any of them think. They report to Bush and they take orders from him and nobody else. As far as the Generals are concerned the politicians can go dunk. Bush calls the shots on their parade ground.

The Iraqi War issue may soon become moot as Chaney is surely communicating the Administration plan that was recently penned by the DoD to area governments and seeking their approval while he is in the mid-east. The buzz has been a plan to pull back to Kuwait and to run a rapid deployment strike force as Iraqi’s call for assistance. Sharon’s stroke today is likely hastening discussion of the plans since the whole mid-east peace process is at stake.

As the Christmas recess comes up all of this acts as a smokescreen for something else, the wicked Congressional War going on over the Defense Appropriations Bill. As we update this editorial tonight a fight over inclusions in the Appropriations Bill is going on and many are now wanting to remove their signature from the Bill and are refusing to endorse a Committee negotiated compromise. Apparently they had the Bill all ready to sign and to then go to the President when some GOP people slipped additions into the Bill on matters not agreed to in conference and now it’s crashing in flames and the needed votes are no longer there to pass it. It could be a long night for Congress.

It’s hard to believe that Bush will be better off for all this street fighting but time will answer the question in full. It looks also that in dividing his Party Mr. Bush is losing a lot of ground to recover his presidency for a second term and he is hurting the GOP election prospects for 2006 as well. Will he soon fall or will he be asked to resign by his Party? Can his legislation be pulled out of the fire? Can he withstand the fire storm of scandals? Does he have a future in American politics?