The Year in Preview

2005 was an interesting year for American politics. History will show it to be the year that the cracks started to show in the Bush administration and yet the Democratic Party remained in as much discord as it ever has. Despite having the most incompetent presidency since Andrew Johnson on the ropes the entire last third of the year, the Democrats managed to tripped and fell just like President Johnson did. Here are my predictions for 2006 in American Politics.

• People Most Likely To Lose Their Jobs in 2006: Andrew Card Jr., Scott McLellan, Donald Rumsfeld, Karl Rove. If none of these clowns are fired in 2006, Bush is literally as out of touch with reality as Reagan was in the late years. I don’t mean the late years of his time as president.
  
  
• Most Likely To Become Secretary of the Treasury: Andrew Card Jr.
  
  
• Death of 2006: Gerald Ford
  
  
• Most Likely Exchange to be Heard at a Congressional Hearing in 2006:
  
  Senator: Mr. President, how can you justify using executive powers to completely penetrate the civil liberties of Americans?
  Bush (or a proxy): Extraordinary circumstances.
  Senator: No… seriously.
  Bush: Fuck you, bitch. I’m untouchable. Q-E-D! *poll bump*
  
  
• Democrat Who’s Hype Will Peak: Hillary Clinton. Hillary is not going to run for President. Why doesn’t she come out and say it? And does she really think she can win? Only Oprah can win.
  
  
• Most Likely To Continue to Draw Man-Love From Postmaster-General and Chris-face: Special Prosecutor Scott Fitzgerald
  
  
• Superstar Democrat in 2006: Joe Biden. Homeboy has been a Senator for 33 years! More than half his life! He will be the Democratic Nominee in 2008. Look for Viginia Governor Mark Warner to begin quietly fundraising for a 2007 Senate run.
  
  
• Superstar Republican in 2006: Why, John McCain, of course. Watch for McCain to continue to run all over Bush and the Inner Circle in retaliation for the ‘McCain has a Black Baby’ stunt. Campaign finance, the PATRIOT Act and the War in/on Iraq will be John McCain’s bread and butter this year. John McCain is the Chuck Norris of politics.
  
  
• Hallmark Moment of the 2006: Bush’s Approval Rating falling below the floor of Nixon’s.
  
  
• Senate Composition As A Result Of The 2006 Midterms: R: 49 D: 51
  
  
• House Composition As A Result Of The 2006 Midterms: R: 219 D: 215 I: 1
  
  
• Most Likely to Ask US Troops to Leave in 2006: A silly and naive new Iraqi Parliament. A good follow up to that might be “Most Likely To Run Away So Fast That They Leave A Cloud Shaped In Their Likeness Suspended In The Air: The Bush Administration.”
  
  
• Most Likely to be Seen Coming Off A Plane Right Around September 2006: American Troops from Iraq. Completely caving to public pressure and begging from the RNC, it looks like troops are coming home in time to be the centre of political attention for the Midterm elections.
  
  
• Supreme Court Issue of the 2006: NSA Wiretaps. Too many constructionists on the court to hold that one up. Bush will stick by it because he really has nothing better to do.
  
  
• Political Issue of 2006: Iraq. Casualties will hit 2500 before the Midterms. Everyone is going to want to divest themselves from any Iraq related decisions that might be made. The economy could make some noise if those from one side of the income canyon start screaming at their (much) richer counterparts on the other side.
  
  
• Issue That Will Further Polarize Normal Americans in 2006: The Death Penalty. This debate faded from the public with Tookie Williams’ last breath, which is extraordinary and surprising since the issue was so hotly contested before he was executed. However, this issue will come up in the next month with a vengeance when the results of the DNA tests done in the case of Roger Keith Coleman, who was executed in 1992. It will be surprising to see what form the debate takes if it is scientifically proven that Coleman is innocent.
  
  

BUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURN!

Apparently, Iraqi Security Forces don't get decks of cards. Good timing on this one. I bet Dick Cheney would have loved to have gone after him with a pair of pliers and a blowtorch.

So...um...yeah....

I would like to joke about this, but I don't know if it's funny.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/video/2005/12/07/VI2005120700493.html

Sigh.

jury duty

The president's been summoned to serve on a jury back home in Crawford, Texas.

I checked, and Crawford's a few counties over from Travis County where Tom DeLay was indicted; so, sadly, no chance Bush's been summoned for that one, though presumably he'd get an easy out on account of knowing the accused.

One wonders what his excuse will be for dereliction of this Texas duty?

-interlocutor

'bought media'

The LA Times is reporting the Pentagon has been paying local Iraqi media to run fluff stories prepared by the US military:

Many of the articles are presented in the Iraqi press as unbiased news accounts written and reported by independent journalists. The stories trumpet the work of U.S. and Iraqi troops, denounce insurgents and tout U.S.-led efforts to rebuild the country.

Though the articles are basically factual, they present only one side of events and omit information that might reflect poorly on the U.S. or Iraqi governments, officials said. Records and interviews indicate that the U.S. has paid Iraqi newspapers to run dozens of such articles, with headlines such as "Iraqis Insist on Living Despite Terrorism," since the effort began this year.

I take it freedom of the press isn't a key component of 'democracy on the march.'

-interlocutor

woeful disregard and such

Talk about your winning of hearts and minds!

A certain latin pederast from a certain Coen Bro's film offered this applicable bon mot: 'This is bush league psyche-out stuff. Laughable, man - ha ha!'

-interlocutor

Another saucy Downing Street memo

The story is that Bush apparently suggested in a conversation with Tony Blair that he ought to bomb al-Jazeera, allegedly in reprisal for airing messages from al-Qaeda and other deeds deemed counter to the cause. Variously, it has been dismissed as a joke — "sounds like one of the president's one-liners" a senior Washington diplomat is quoted as saying to the Washington Post. Elsewhere in the story, the Post offers:

a senior U.S. intelligence official said that it was clear the White House saw al-Jazeera as a problem, but that although the CIA's clandestine service came up with plans to counteract it, such as planting people on its staff, it never received permission to proceed. 'Bombing in Qatar was never contemplated,' the former official said.

Weird deja vue, from a certain other seemingly endless and unwinnable war: bombing in Cambodia was also never contemplated — publicly. But it happened. Maybe that was just a joke too...

Side note: even though it's all just a romp, the Brits are moving to prosecute bureaucrats and journalists responsible for disseminating these official (and, apparently, 'hilarious') state secrets.

-Interlocutor

John McCain is a smart fella

Besides being my personal Republican hero, John McCain is a pretty wise guy. Doing some research on campaign finance, I came across an article about McCain from 2002. If every American politican had the integrity of John McCain, the US would be a really fantastic place to live.

Republicans are angry with John McCain, the senator whose campaign for the Republican presidential nomination nearly derailed George W. Bush in the primaries last year.

The Washington Post spread the word earlier this month that at the regular weekly luncheon for the 49 senators, McCain arrived early and was left by his colleagues to dine alone.

McCain laughed off the story. "Where we dine, you can't dine alone. There aren't enough seats," he said in an interview with The Sunday Times.

"But are some of my colleagues mad at me for ranting at them? Yes, they are."

If they don't want to get mad, he added, they should stop giving him cause to criticize them by wasting taxpayers' money and indulging in the worst kind of pork-barrel politics.

McCain, 64, has emerged as the discomfiting conscience of the Republican party in an era of spectacular party fundraising. Washington under Bush is swilling with cash.

"There's far too much money washing around this town," said McCain. "History shows that if there's too much money, you get corruption and that leads to scandals."

The Republicans have enjoyed a fundraising bonanza since Bush took office, breaking all records in a non-election year. The Republican national committee has raised almost $50 million, the congressional committee almost $39 million and the senate fundraising committee almost $25 million.

The Democrats, spurred on by gaining control of the Senate in May after the defection of James Jeffords from the Republicans, are also living high on the hog.

McCain insists that the explosion of funds is no cause for rejoicing: "I have no doubt it corrupts the system. When someone buys a ticket to a fundraiser for $500,000, as happened last October, that person then deserves and gets access, which leads to influence."

John McCain: 2
Tom Delay & Bill Frist: 0

-Chris-face

Bush pardons turkey, ironically contracts avian flu

Bush, with peer group, delights in petting a turkey.


Today George W. Bush performed the only function he is intellectually qualified to do: Give presidential clemency to an incredibly stupid animal. The animal will live out the rest of it's days in a petting zoo at Disneyland, living a higher standard of life than many americans enjoy.

It was nice of Dick to let George pet the turkey, though. I bet that made his day.

Anti-Democrat posts coming soon, I promise.

"Strategy for Victory"

This odd post-'Mission Accomplished' phrase hovered as the slogan over Bush’s shoulder today as he delivered a Veterans Day speech aimed at regaining the high ground on the war in Iraq; presumably, the exercdise was also meant to turn the tide on plummeting approval ratings now festering somewhere below 40%.

Among the curious barbs, the President accused Democrats of revisionism of events leading up to the war:

While it's perfectly legitimate to criticize my decision or the conduct of the war, it is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began. Some Democrats and anti-war critics are now claiming we manipulated the intelligence and misled the American people about why we went to war. These critics are fully aware that a bipartisan Senate investigation found no evidence of political pressure to change the intelligence community's judgments related to Iraq's weapons programs.

And in a particularly crass display of Veterans Day political grandstanding, Bush offered the following in summation:

These baseless attacks send the wrong signal to our troops and to an enemy that is questioning America's will. As our troops fight a ruthless enemy determined to destroy our way of life, they deserve to know that their elected leaders who voted to send them to war continue to stand behind them. Our troops deserve to know that this support will remain firm when the going gets tough. And our troops deserve to know that whatever our differences in Washington, our will is strong, our nation is united, and we will settle for nothing less than victory.

John Kerry was reported as saying: "I wish President Bush knew better than to dishonour America's veterans by playing the politics of fear and smear on Veterans Day."

Usually the President visits Arlington National Cemetary on Veterans Day, but Cheney was assigned that duty and was reported as having parroted Bush's message: "we can be certain that by the resolve of our country, by the rightness of our cause...we will prevail."

Between Bush and the Veep it all sounded a bit like an attempt to rescue the justice of the cause, in keeping with that line from Henry V: "methinks I could not die anywhere so contented as in the King's company; his cause being just and his quarrel honourable."

It remains to be seen whether the war can be won on pure piss and vinegar, but in the absence of anything else that seems to remain the "strategy for victory."