The Republican Revolution has gone the way of all flesh. It took over Congress and the White House, horns blew, church bells rang, sailors kissed each other, and what happened? The Republicans led us into a reckless foreign war and steered the economy toward receivership and wielded power as if there were no rules. Democrats are accused of having no new ideas, but Republicans are making some of the old ideas look awfully good, such as constitutional checks and balances, fiscal responsibility, and the notion of realism in foreign affairs and taking actions that serve the national interest. What one might call “conservatism.”
Furthermore:
Over the course of time, the Chief Occupant has been cruelly exposed over and over. He sat and was briefed on the danger of a hurricane wiping out a major American city, and without asking a single question, he got up from the table and walked away and resumed his vacation. He played guitar as New Orleans was flooded. It took him four days to realize his responsibility to do something. When the tsunami killed 100,000 people in Southeast Asia, he was on vacation and it took him 72 hours to issue a statement of sympathy.
The Republicans tied their wagon to him and, as a result, their revolution is bankrupt. He has played the terrorism card for all it is worth and campaigned successfully against Adam and Steve and co-opted whole vast flocks of Christians, but he is done now, kaput, out of gas, for one simple reason. He doesn’t represent the best that is our country. Not even close.
Bush has run out of gas. Like Don Quixote, he will continue running around flailing at windmills. But at least Don Quixote, as misguided as he was, had a sense of nobility. Bush doesn’t know the meaning of the word. He’s a washed up little trust fund brat who got to play with a big toy for a while. Tragically, his playtime has come at the expense of thousands of lives and much of the national treasury. We will be years cleaning up his wreckage.
Keillor is right. Bush has played every card, terrorism, gay baiting, race, God, over and over again. But don’t look for him to change. It’s all the little boy knows how to do. He will continue trotting around with his dog and pony show for hand picked audiences. They will cheer. But the people have tuned out. Bush will soon be down to the far right, homophobic, end times fringe.
While this heartens me, I’m worried that the opposition party, (the Democrats, you remember them, don’t you) have grown so spineless and lazy that thay don’t represent any real alternative. But look for them to re-emerge, now that it’s safe.
As history shows us again and again, real change comes from the people and makes it’s way up. The Democrats will now start making loud, bellowing, indiganant noises, puff out their
chests in outrage and baste Bush like a Christmas turkey. Why? Because the polls now thee them that it’s safe. The people knew what Keillor was talking about years ago, and, as always, the people have had to wait for their “leaders” to catch up with them.
Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves and say the revolution is over. It’s starting to turn. Thanks in part to a media that is beginning to discover it’s testicles (Jack Cafferty, David Gregory and to a lesser extent Helen Thomas), a public that is coming out of its cultist coma and plain old logic.
The assertion that bush has played all his cards is true enough, it’s tough to talk About Adam and Steve while our troops are getting shot up in an un-necessary occupation.