A short political announcement, and then we can get back to the usual Wetmachine technophilc-phobic goodness. (Warning: Extreme Metaphor Mashup Alert!)
Now that Preznit Bush’s poll numbers are permanently pegged in the Nixonian range, and with White House scandals, travesties, abominations and shotgun blasts to the face dominating the news, we see the predictable yet despicable and revolting spectacle of Republicans slithering off the good ship George W. Bush — or trying to, at least.
The Great Republican “Oh Shit!” (GROS) kind of crystallized with the Dubai Ports fiasco, when the warm waters heated up by years of Arab-bashing xenophobia met the cool air of Cheney-Rice Boogeymanophobia and gave rise to perfect storm Hell No. So much potential energy was bound up in Hell No — the equivalent of 30 MegaLou Dobbs — that the very levies of Washington DC were imperiled– and remain so. Iraq teeters on the edge of the abyss, and signs abound that the mythical people of the heartland are starting to wake up and ask what the fuck that’s all about. And so Republicans with hearts full of dread must face the harsh reality that Bush himself has become their New Orleans, and their Dunkirk.
And so they try to make their escape.
Well, let’s just watch them, shall we?
But remember: Every Republican is a Bush Republican. Every Republican is an Abu Grahib Republican, a Katrina Republican, a trillion-dollar-deficit Republican, a Haliburton Republican, a Yellow Cake Republican, a Claude Allen Republican, a Plame-outing Republican, a stonewall-the-911-commission Republican, a Bill O’Reilly sexual predator Republican, an Ann Coulter murder-the-judges Republican, a Jack Abramoff hitman-in-Miami Republican, an 8.8 billion missing dollars in the Green Zone Republican, a twenty-five-hundred dead soldiers Republican.
Mitt Romney is a Bush Republican. John McCain is a Bush Republican. Bill Frist is a Bush Republican. Newt Gingrich is a Bush Republican. Colin Powell is a Bush Republican, and Michael Powell is a Bush Republican. Olympia Snowe is a Bush Republican and Chuck Hagel and Lincoln Chafee too. They’re all complicit in this, the imperial reign of our delusional Nero: any one of them who has run for office in the last five years with an (R) behind his or her name. Now just watch them sing!
Right on, but wrong, too.
Would you rather that Republicans never come to their senses? I appreciate that that some folks are finally recognizing a mistake in supporting this guy. This is the way things are supposed to work. (“Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing — after they have exhausted all the other options.”) Would you rather that there be just one single political party that gets things “right” from the start? And what party would that be?
And what is the state of abandonment of Bush? As I understand it, more than 1/3 of those polled still approve of the guy. Not just not-disapprove or don’t like anyone else better, but actually think he’s doing the right thing. I still see plenty of W stickers on cars — maybe more than the W in a circle with a line through it. And I live in Madison, WI, a bastion of lefties. Furthermore, it seems like most of those abandoning Bush aren’t yet abandoning his policies or his rhetoric.
It is hard to admit you were wrong — and not just once, but twice, even when you should have known better after the first four years. I think we need to make it easy for the rest to come around and recognize their mistake, and to go further by actually working with us all to fix the problems they have created. That won’t happen by hating them for what they have wrought. We must forgive and move on.
I don’t think either major party is wholly right in all its thought or wholly without value in the ideas of at least some of their members. I think our system works best when the ideas compete in a forum free of demonization.
These people–I’m talking about the politicians, now, not the people who voted for them– are moral cowards who, in typically Republican fashion, want to have it both ways. In public policy they want the moon, guns and butter, without having to pay taxes to get them. They want to conduct an imperial foreign policy based on ruthless domination of friend and foe alike, and yet claim the good guy mantle of Roosevelt and Eisenhower. They want to exploit terror, torture, secret trials and sham “due process” and yet be listened to when they lecture the world about human rights. They want to maintain the USA’s pre-eminant position in the world economy, and yet destroy the foundations of science, technology, a decent chance at a middle-class life, and equality before the law on which that preeminence was built.
Any Republican officeholder, from President to dog catcher, who has not yet resigned from office and from the party will never ever ever under any circumstances get a shred of respect or sympathy from me.
I’ll be all for Lincolnian “malice towards none and charity for all” once their threat to the Republic has been as thoroughly defeated and repudiated as the one that Lincoln faced.
Until then, in the immortal words of Dick Cheney, they can go fuck themselves.
I agree with your assessment of the depth and breadth of the crimes against humanity and the betrayal of American values. And I agree on the need to immediately label the issue and condemn it clearly and uniformly.
But I’m not following how you are distinguishing the politicians from those who voted for them. Assuming a comparison betwen folks who have not resigned from the party, on what basis do you separate an officeholder from a convention delegate from a campaign worker from a contributor from a voter from someone who watches Fox “news” after the game and is too lazy to change the channel.
I judge invididuals and each unique institution one at a time. I have little respect for the institution of the Republican party right now, but I don’t think it is good for anyone to wipe it from the face of the earth. I’d rather see it reformed and reconstructed. I think individuals should be judged by what they caused to happen through their actions or by failing to act. Republican politicians have no monopoly on guilt from failing to act. And what should be their punishment? What shall be our punishment? And who shall decide?
I’ve known only two people who shared with me the story of how their father had served in the Nazi Wehrmacht. Both had been pressed to service. Both moved to the U.S. as soon as they could after the war. (One returned a generation later.) Both raised their children as phsycially and morally far from the influence and legacy of their past as they could. Both committed suicide. Who am I to say they were right or wrong to do so?