1) The recent criticisms by a parade of former generals of Rumsfeld and Bush’s Iraq strategy leave Bush in a bind. The GOP has spent the last 5 years telling eveyone who criticizes their policies that they are traitors, and don’t support the troops. Any opponents are painted as not only wrong, but anti-patriotic, anti-military, and harmful to national security and the soldiers in the field. A gutsy attack considering the past (lack of) military history of Bush Cheney etc., and their opponents in the last two elections.
Ah, but the generals! What do you do!? When they criticize, you can’t accuse them of not supporting the troops. You can’t claim they are anti-america. It leaves the GOP in a bind, because there is no response that doesn’t instanly set off the BS meter of everyone in the country.
The Bush Administration is caught in a logical trap. Enemies of the regime are automatically traitors. They do not support the troops. Therefore, the generals are traitors. But the troops logically support the troops! And the generals are the troops! Does not compute! Does not compute!
P.S. I wanted to put a good exploding robot picture here, but couldn’t find one.
2) I heard EJ Dionne speak on NPR the other day, and he brought up the same point as he did in his recent column.
As one outside adviser to the administration said, the danger of a Democratic takeover of at least one house of Congress looms large and would carry huge penalties for Bush. The administration fears “investigations of everything” by congressional committees, this adviser said, and the “possibility of a forced withdrawal from Iraq” through legislative action.
Josh Marshall has some good commentary on this, but I think doesn’t hammer home the central point. Has there ever been an election cycle where the overriding goal of a party is coverup? It’s simply incredible, that their whole election strategy could be driven by the need to make sure no one finds out what they’ve been doing. And is that quote a tacit admission that there is enough rotten stuff going on that it will be easy to launch “investigations of everything”? It’s interesting that the source didn’t pick out one or two areas that might get investigated, but said everything.
3) Talk of impeachment is now acceptable, and covered by the mainstream media (MSM). In three states (Illinois, Maine, California), legislators have taken the legal steps to begin impeachment. (If 3/4 of the states approve motions, then that begins the process.) I suppose the fact that even Fox has Bush’s popularity at 33% have given a bit of spine to some legislators. None of these motions have been passed, and none are likely to. In fact, the ones I saw were clearly written to score political points, not to lay out the legal case for impeachment. Nonetheless, it is telling that this is now becoming part of the center of politics.
Late Update: Vermont joins the list.