Litany of woes for GOP, from Miers to Katrina, Frist to DeLay

http://www.mysanantonio.com/sharedcontent/APStories/stories/D8D4NFC82.html


It's hard to tell which is more irritating for conservatives less than a year after they savored Republican election triumphs of 2004: President Bush's latest pick for the Supreme Court or his high-dollar pledge for recovery from Hurricane Katrina.

Either way, the double dose of discontent might be easier for the administration and Republican-controlled Congress to manage if their list of problems stopped there.

In purely political terms, several Republican strategists expressed disappointment that Bush had not selected a nominee who would rally the party's core supporters and trigger a battle against Senate Democrats and the abortion rights groups aligned with them. These strategists spoke on condition of anonymity, saying they did not want to detract from Miers' confirmation effort.
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From Sept 2004:


http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0409.drum.html


What do we have to look forward to if George W. Bush is elected to a second term? One word: scandal.

Don't believe me? Consider the highlight reel of reelected presidents over the past 50 years. Ike won a second term and watched in dismay as his chief of staff was forced to resign over a vicuña coat. Richard Nixon buried George McGovern in 1972 and then resigned a year and a half later when Watergate finally caught up to him. Ronald Reagan sweated out his second term wondering if he'd be impeached over Iran-Contra. Bill Clinton didn't have to wonder: Two years after his reelection, he was defending himself in the first impeachment trial in over a century.

George Bush is more susceptible than most to this dynamic. Partly this is because his party controls Congress, so he has no real political oversight to keep him honest. But it's also because both Bush and the current Republican Party leadership have already demonstrated a ruthlessness and disregard for traditional political norms unseen since Nixon was jotting down his enemies list: holding open votes while they bully recalcitrant colleagues, ramming through midterm redistricting, suspending the Freedom of Information Act in all but theory, and cavalierly hiding routine budget data from Congress--all combined with a general mania for secrecy that leaves even John Dean in awe. It's a dangerous and intoxicating brew, and George Bush has demonstrated the combination of ruthlessness, siege mentality, and religious faith in his own righteousness that makes it almost inevitable that he will take a step too far.

Second, there's the problem that second terms are, well, second terms. It takes more than two or three years for a serious scandal to unfold, and problems that start to surface midway through a president's first term usually reach critical mass midway through his second term, a phenomenon that shrewd political observer Kevin Phillips calls "the sixth-year itch." It's like a political SAT: What's the next year in the series 1958, 1974, 1986, 1998?

Time to grab some popcorn and pretzels and enjoy the show.

We need Wes Clark or Al Gore in there in 2008-- split them further and push their collapse even further.

This one should be interesting.. :rofl:

Unlike the wicked witch they must all be burned.