A Cornered Administration is Still a Dangerous Administration


Team Bush might be limping and quacking off into the sunset, but they've still got two years (ok, less for Rumsfeld, but hey, maybe that's just because he managed to screw things up that much faster)...and it's not like they've admitted learning a goddamned thing from Tuesday's vote.

Yesterday's press conference was instructive, at least for me, in that regard. I read the transcript, and caught a small bit on the radio, but it wasn't till I watched it on C-Span that I really got the gist of Shrub's attitude.

The "graceful concession" was a classic non-apology apology, and when I watched the entire song and dance act, it was apparent that this was yet another exercise in damage control/spin, with heavy emphasis on control. Several times Shrub made some statement to the effect of "it's [the campaign] over, time to move on," in a tone/manner that I found ironically reminiscent of a scene in The Godfather Part II where Al Pacino and Diane Keaton are arguing (scroll down about three fourth of the page)...ironic, of course, because "The Decider," deep down, is more a mix/match of Fredo and Sonny's worst qualities.

The scene ends with Pacino slapping/knocking Keaton down, and maybe that's another reason why I thought of it: after six years of trashing this country's (admittedly flawed...but that's a whole other post) political process--beginning with the 2000 election--continuing with the passage of the wrongly named Patriot Act, the Iraq war, warrantless wiretapping, the chucking of habeas corpus, the cynicism of Congress, the K Street project, etc. etc. ad nauseum--literally ad nauseum--watching the preznut praise the "process" that FINALLY put a chink in his tarnished armor was, for me, like watching a serial wife beater tell everyone how much he "really loves her."

And I wonder if we'll be seeing the equivalent over the next two years of the lame duck administration...that is, an insistance that everything they've beaten, kicked, or otherwise trashed was done for the "love of country," even as they still posess the power of executive order...and quite evidently have no problem with asserting not merely executive "privilege," but virtually sole executive-branch rule. And while I'm quite happy about the fact that Congress might now actually use its power to convene hearing and issue subpeonas, I've got to wonder if Team Bush will precipitate yet more constitional crises by, say, simply refusing to honor the latter or ignoring the former. I mean, shit, if they'll go to war/do away with habeas corpus/etc., for the sake of political expediency, what's to keep them from spitting on Congressional procedure?

I guess we'll see.

In the meantime, though, I'll celebrate this country's return to at least a measure of electoral sanity...but I won't let my guard down until we either see a genuine return of the Legislature as a CO-EQUAL branch of government...or until January 20th, 2009, when the final curtain falls on the...worst...administration...ever.