As we survey the crumbling ruins (Ivins)

.. It's going to be up to the Democrats to hold the metaphoric hands of this crippled administration until it limps off stage. The Republican National Committee has a new scare tactic for the faithful: You must give to the party, or else the Democrats will spend the next two years investigating the administration (horror of horrors). Those who recall the insanely trivial investigations of the Clinton years may indeed regard this as the ultimate waste of time and money (as even Ken Starr concluded, there never was anything to Whitewater), but in fact it could be a therapeutic use of the next biennium. In fact, the offenses are not comparable.

Suppose we stopped to investigate why and how and who is responsible for this administration's lies, deformed policies and inability to govern. There is a wealth of lessons to be learned about the dangers of ideological delusion and contempt for governance ..

Barring emergency, I suspect that the wisest thing Democrats can do in the next two years is to begin steadily undoing what Bush hath wrought -- on tax and spending, on global warming, and on surveillance and other illegal lunges for power. Bush ran in 2000 as a moderate. He did not bother to inform us at the time that he felt the government of this country needed a much stronger executive above the law. Congress has sat by passively while this administration has accrued more and more power. If members of Congress think the legislative branch should be equal, it's time for them to stir their stumps.

Am I jumping to conclusions? Can Karl Rove yet steer his party away from electoral disaster in the fall? I do not think George W. can be put together again, so Rove's only option is go negative against the Democrats -- no surprise there. They could attack Democrats on almost anything, but that would leave the large question "Compared to what?" It would be interesting to see an election in which Bush is not a factor and the whole fight is over what Tom DeLay and the K Street Project have made of the Congress. If ever a gang of corrupt jerks deserved to be held accountable, it's this one.

http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/opinion/14627877.htm


I'm tryin hard to imagine just what, short of the credible threat of impeachment and criminal prosecution, might actually git W and his wacko cohort to stop breaking the law ...

1. Solitary confinement

2. Gags and fetters

3. Death

No point in appalling to their morals, ethics, or sense of self-preservation. They haven't any.