Implosion ain't pretty

Maybe it is just that it is spring. Maybe it is because we are now one quarter way into an election year. Maybe the American people have finally had enough of the Bush bullshit: malfeasance, incompetence, lies and his rubber stamp Congress.

Maybe it is none of those things but it seems Russ Feingold’s motion to censure the war criminal in chief is causing the collective head of the Washington wise guys to explode. It took a while. At first it was ignored, then the rubber stamp leadership in Congress brought out the blowtorches. Then we had the spectacle of the Democrats in the Senate surrendering before the battle was joined (so far it sounds like business as usual). But before the Democrats could round themselves up and send themselves to a re-education camp something extraordinary happened.

The polls that show that Americans are willing to consider censuring Bush over his illegal and unconstitutional habits (just as they are willing to consider impeachment for same) started to seep into the consciousness of the pros in Washington.

The seepage maybe was aided by Bush’s favorability ratings tanking yet again. But whatever. The meme is taking hold. Not that I expect that there will be a real up-or-down vote to censure Bush in the Senate. What it will do though is more effective if not as satisfying.

When the issue of warrantless domestic spying starts to fade, Feingold gives it new life. And he did it just as the Republican rubber stamp was crafting a bill to make the illegal activity legal – I guess you could call it the Bush exemption. And on top of that is the just breaking news that says that operatives didn’t just wiretap but may have in fact illegally physically searched not only those that were the “targets” (Peace Groups) but the target’s lawyers office’s. Shades of Watergate.

And now Republican Washington has a problem. Despite their rubber-stamping habits, the Republican Party needs desperately to distance itself from Bush. His numbers are falling faster than he does riding his bicycle. Americans have decided that they really don’t like this man. They don’t believe him. And after 3 years in Iraq (going on forever) and the Katrina disaster they wouldn’t trust him with the responsibility of feeding their gold fish without proper supervision. Republicans must start deserting the ship – and soon but they can’t completely look like rats doing it.

Then along comes Feingold whose motion to censure turns Bush into a tar baby. If you are a Republican up for re-election do you stand by the president the leader of your party who even your constituents use words like “idiot” and “incompetent” to describe him? Or do you run as fast as you can, knowing that the way this White House operates you are going to get hacked to pieces in the right wing noise machine.

As W. has said – It’s hard.

Meanwhile Bush has decided that a pre-emptive strike on his legacy is all that matters. Debt and an economy that is rending the nation into a two-class society (very very rich and everybody else), a health system that is collapsing almost as fast as Iraq and oh yes Iraq – not to mention a military that is likely broken for at least a decade, a foreign policy whose disarray would make a Pollack painting seem organized and a Constitution in shreds all need spinning so that he can tell historians what to think about the facts he is leaving behind.

And spin he has decided to do. In the name of drumming up support for his Iraq albatross he has actually taken questions from real people and real reporters in two consecutive days. That shows you how afraid he is that his presidential library fund may be in jeopardy. Because he has no intention of placing anything he might have heard into his own thinking (I use that term in its biological sense). And he has every intention of placing all the domestic blame on Congress (that would be the rubber stamp Republicans) and defer as much Iraq blame as possible.

Good old George. A slacker from the start. He knows how to get a passing grade from the prof when he is failing. He has no doubt had much practice. And now he is trying to do it again as his administration sinks into the scum that is the government he has created.