Events seem to be moving rapidly in what has become a tumultuous second term for our president, GW.
During his summer break in Crawford he had to endure the soap opera played out on the McLennan County road to his ranch on which Cindy Sheehan was protesting the war. During that same period of time Bush saw his poll ratings fall like radioactive snow. Of course, GW doesn’t pay attention to poll numbers. Right!
Meanwhile, the Plamegate affair continued to roll on with it appearing more and more as if GW’s Brain, a.k.a. Karl Rove, had his chubby little fingers in the scandalous pie.
So what would lift GW from the depths of despair in such times? Why a good old fashioned, rip, roaring hurricane. That’s what. Only this hurricane, named Katrina, seriously messed up America’s party city and blew down most of the Mississippi Gulf Coast. What’s more the federal response was called into question, criticized and spat upon by TV news anchors standing in the ever-present water of New Orleans. Brownie, a.k.a. FEMA head Michael Brown, got an atta boy from GW just before he got sacked as an apparent sacrificial lamb.
Then came Hurricane Rita. Whoa hoss! Make ’em stop! It tore up Louisiana and Texas like a Barney Bushdog’s chew toy. Petroleum production took a serious hit. More evacuees. More money the government had to spend.
GW had scored one ringer in getting Chief Justice John Roberts run through confirmation rather smoothly. So why not go for a deuce?
Enter Bush crony Harriet Miers, GW’s pick to succeed Sandra Day O’Connor on the Supreme Court. Harriet, who looks on some days a cross between Carol Brady and on other days like Betty White, was never a judge so was therefore WPT (without paper trail).
But the damnedest thing happened. Many members of Bush’s right-wing Christian, fanatical, lunatic fringe base say they’re ag’in’ Harriet. I guess she wasn’t wearing her “I Went to An Abortion Clinic Bombing and All I Got Was This Lousy T-shirt) T-shirt.
Now the investigation into Plamegate is winding down. Pundits and assorted professional speculators of whatever degree of competency predict that at least Rove and Dick Cheney’s main man, Scooter Libby, will be indicted. Indictments seem very “it” lately as even GW’s sleazy little bug-killing friend from Sugarland, Tom DeLay, was indicted in Texas.
You say there can’t be more. But wait, there is more! Now the press and punditry are making noises about the Plamegate grand jury, a wider investigations and Veep Dick “Lon” Cheney. Wow, I’m getting these weird deja vu vibes a’la Watergate. For those of you who were around back then, do you remember Spiro Agnew? He was a tumbling domino long before Tricky Dick Nixon was run out of town on a rail.
I would doubt something so dramatic will happen as was the case in Watergate. For one thing you have a pretty obstinate Republican-controlled Congress that will let Bush-Cheney get away with just about whatever they want anyway. Some of the extremism that emanates from those hallowed halls on Capitol Hill make me wonder if some of the real Kool-Aid drinkers aren’t the political equivalent of suicide bombers. Relax, I’m being figurative here. I refer to some of these dingbats who are willing to run headlong into something that would blow their political lives all to hell. Going against the wishes of their voters, and the American public, can make that all happen.
Where does it all lead? Around and around and around it goes, where it stops nobody knows. No matter how you feel politically, you’ve got to admit these are interesting times in the life of our government. I’m ready for the next page to turn and to see what happens next.