Our Strange Political Season
Puzzling over the rumours circling around the entire Republican Party right now… which is to say that there are supposedly 22 individuals who are ready at any moment to be indicted, that Dick Cheney may well have to step down and be replaced by Condelleza Rice… that George W Bush’s approval rating has floated down below 40 percent and does not really seem to be in any position to rise above what is generally considered a floor of public approval… that the Republican Party can’t for the life of them recruit candidates for the 2006 mid-term elections… the amazing spectacle of a Supreme Court pick named Harriet Miers who turned in an incomplete preliminary questionaire…
In a parlimentary system, Bush would be sacked right about now. Well, I guess that depends on the parlimentary system in question. I’ll just say that in the British system, Bush would be sacked… the ruling Republican Party would replace their party leader with someone more palatable for the near-term fortunes of the party. (Note that Tony Blair is more or less assumed and assured of not completing his term.)
At this point in time, something has to give. The rumours have to fizzle out and prove to be unture (seriously: twenty – two indictment targets?) or… something strange has to happen within the Bush Administration. Or, some other piece of news has to throw us into a new news-cycle, completely unrelated to the Republican Season of Discontent. (We knew that second terms for presidents could be brutal… but how the hell did things fall apart so quickly for this guy?)
I now don’t believe Cheney will make it to the end of the term. I’m hard pressed to figure out George W Bush.
And I now believe the appropriate book for the moment is Carl Bernestein’s The Final Days.
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Here it is. Tom Delay’s mug shot!
I also note that the Tom Delay Arrest Warrent used to be posted at http://www.democraticleader.house.gov/pdf/Delay.pdf , but in a show that the Democratic Party are wussies (or if there’s a different story to why it is no longer at this address, feel free to clue me in), it is no longer posted there.
CRIMINAL CONSPIRACY
MONEY LAUNDERING => $100,000
To any sheriff or peace officer of the state of Texas, greetings, you are hereby commanded to arrest Thomas Dale DeLay and him safely keep so that you have him before the 331st Judicial District Court of Travis County.