Parrot Cage

Nobody Left to Blame

Election Day is less than two weeks away.  Well since March we've been told by various pollsters and pundits that Republicans will be swept from power come November.  With all of the corruption and glaring ineptitude on matters of war and domestic welfare, with the free-wheeling and unprecedented spending, with the absolute unanimity of a government dedicated to securing wealth and power to the wealthy and powerful, with the destruction of New Orleans and with it any notion that we are a nation of equals, with all the known and unknown reasons why this is the worst Congress in at least a century, is the Republican stranglehold on the United States government really going to come to an end?

We think not.

Various public conservatives and Republicans have ran screaming from their sinking ship and are even suggesting that turning government back to Democrats will actually help Republicans in the 2008 Presidential race.  There is some Machiavellian logic here: the country is a mess, Iraq is a mess, the Constitution lies in tatters, and the Republicans have nobody to blame but themselves.  With the housing bubble bursting, the economy could well do a nosedive in the next couple of years--and more than anything, more than chaotic imperial wars, more than outright corruption, economic downturns are the only real guarantee that the bums will be thrown out.  After a looming economic collapse, who will be left holding the bag?

But Karl Rove is smarter than that.  Like an Orwellian villain, the White House knows that the only purpose of power is to retain power.  Everything they do, every decision they make, every soldier they send to die in battle, every word they utter, all revolves around the ultimate need to stay in power.

Which is why this dirty election is about to hit the fan.  This could be the ugliest election season ever for one simple reason.  The risk for Republicans of losing big in this coming election isn't simply the temporary loss of power.  No, this time they are fighting for their lives.  We suspect that the level of corruption oozing out of this Congress is way beyond anything we've seen so far, and we've seen plenty.  If a new Congress decides to actually investigate, there's no telling who will end up disgraced or jailed.  Republicans will not let that happen, and Americans will love them for it.

Perhaps the biggest distinction that one can make between the Republican and the Democratic establishments is that Republicans are willing to do whatever is necessary to win.  That is why Americans are more likely to trust them with power in a time of war.  Which doesn't make them particularly smart, just desperate and willing and amoral.

That may be enough to keep them in power; especially when their opponents offer little alternative.

Listening to the Generals

The Premise:  President Bush keeps repeating that he is listening to the generals in Iraq and taking their advice.  We've heard Lou Dobbs advocate the firing of several generals for not securing victory in Iraq, but nobody else seems to be taking up Dobbs' position, at least not publicly.

The Inside Information:  Many captains and majors are returning from Iraq with nothing but contempt for the generals running the show over there.  They see these generals as sycophantic Bush buddies who are using the lives of our soldiers for career advancement.  These generals are less interested in protecting their troops or of securing victory than in keeping their jobs and pushing promotions.  These veteran officers say that the generals are reluctant to seriously engage the enemy or do anything that might spike the American body count because that would also spike the discontent of the American public with this war.  And, these generals are also reluctant to address any form of withdrawal because their Commander in Chief will not allow it.