Tin Pot Presidency
Kevin Drum quoting Steve Benen muses that it's become complete chaos in Washington with everyone blaming each other and no one managing to blame the Media, Dems or the vicious bloggers.
Over at TNR, Eve Fairbanks worries that the scandals are just one big mess and we'll miss the trees for the forest.
You know what this reminds me of? Foley and the Page Scandal. After that really started blowing up in their faces the GOP started acting rather like this, with everyone blaming everyone and leaders trying to instill order and message discipline but failing miserably.
This has been happening with increasing frequency since the elections. I have to confess though I post-date Watergate (and thus REFUSE to ever stick the "gate" handle on a scandal as if it were a pot) I cannot imagine an organization (the GOP machine) imploding like it has. In the weeks before the election I compiled a post that consisted of JRR Tolkien's description of what happened to the armies of Sauron after the Ring melted. Basically like kicking over an ant hill, the ants panic and die. But it also reminded me of something else.
I'm pretty comfortable saying Bush is trying for a dictatorship and failing at THAT as he has at everything else (I mean I'm probably not going to be hauled away and tortured for saying that). But what's happening to the GOP seems to be like what happens when a third-world dictator goes down, one day everything is fine but the next thing you know rumors are flying and everyone is off to join the rebels in the hills as the mob starts hunting for blood.
The fall of a tin pot dictatorship is what I think the best analogy is to describe what's happening to Bush and his GOP right now.
Don't count Bush and his crew are out yet. For all the pissing and moaning, he has yet to suffer a major reverse. The Democrats have never been an effective opposition to Bush, I'll hold my counsel and wait.
March 29, 2007 8:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'd count Social Security as a major reverse. It was only after all of us banded together under Josh Marshall's leadership and defeated privatization that the problems really began for him. Scandals began to be seen as more than just "scandals-as-usual" and I think it shattered the aura of invincibility he and Rove had generated.
Of course he may well survive and hold on. Even dictators that look like their regimes are about to fall have occasionally held on for a while longer.
That said for me it's not so much about impeachment which I don't think would do much good anyway, but about everyone else being able to ignore Bush because he's irrelevant. The only reason he remains relevant is because of presidential war powers. End that, and you have ended the last of the Bush presidency. No one will ever need to listen to him again.
As I said in regards to a story where Bush was unenthusiastically received at a small town diner in a purplish state: "Nation to Bush: Please just go away.."
March 29, 2007 11:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Another Brick in the Wall" Pink Floyd's 1979 concept album, The Wall,
The "bricks" are different traumatic events that make up the mental "wall" created by the
protagonist.
protagonist
noun: a person who backs a politician or a team etc.
3 an advocate or champion of a cause or idea.
I'm expecting the Last Few Bricks and Bush's job and objective, will be done.
March 29, 2007 8:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
... and Americans and Iraqis are still dying in Iraq, because of our would-be dictator.
Tom
March 29, 2007 9:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think it is important send a message to future tin-horn moron dictators who steal the presidency that they will be impeached and convicted when they break the laws of the land by defrauding Congress and the American people.
Tom
March 30, 2007 8:04 AM | Reply | Permalink