The Work
It was not without regret that I neglected this project for so long. Many, many things happened on the political front, but I was busy. You read it on better publications than this one, so I’ll dispense with the sob story. I graduated college. I had a couple of jobs. I held it together on many fronts. I threw fundraisers and wore nice pants.
I have received more than a few emails of various kinds. Where are you, they ask. Why do you suck so hard, others question. Please update more, a few implored. These are all understandable. It is hard to explain why, when you’ve done something almost every day for so long, you suddenly stop doing it.
So how about a little year in review, these upcoming days? I can discuss a thing or two. I’ve done it in the past. I will no doubt do it again.
The first thing I want to talk about (the thing, I will admit, I both love and despise talking about) is the Republican collapse. We called it for several years – we said over and over again that the reach of the GOP would exceed the grasp and then the wheels would come off. One has already rattled loose, and the wagon is careening all over the Oregon Trail. They will lose three oxen, at least.
Tom DeLay’s indictment was a foregone conclusion, and Bob Ney had joined him on the train of inevitability. No one foresaw that something like Katrina would happen, which has bred a great deal of discontent among the American people. We said that we weren’t ready and that a massive bureaucratic reorganization like Homeland Security would cause far more trouble than it was worth, and the product of that is now evident.
These things in no way mean that victory for the Democrats in 2006 is a foregone conclusion. Our leadership is weak. The boldest fighter in the struggle for human and civil rights – which, and I can’t believe I have to say this, is a Democratic issue – has been a Republican, in John McCain. Nancy Pelosi was quick to back up John Murtha is his excellent cage-rattling a few weeks ago, but she’s also been on the forefront of several Republican pet projects and voted for the war. Harry Reid tries every day to work his way into my heart, but he has thus far failed to turn the Senate Democrats in to a terrifying minority machine, which they have the capability of being. If House and Senate Democrats would organize as a united front and show a little party discipline, we could take up the Flaming Sword and turn it inward with all the righteousness we pretend to. But it has not happened. It is a very real possibility that it will not.
The word impeachment has entered into the American lexicon, and surprisingly, the 2006 election cycle will prove to be a referendum on whether or not Bush should be removed from office. I wouldn’t hold my breath for it, but it is much closer to being a reality than it was six months ago. The hits keep on coming, as they say, and there doesn’t appear to be an end in sight.
Also, from a constitutonal law standpoint, let me say this: Executive Orders may not directly controvert federal law. Just because a President declares something to be legal doesn’t make it so – he is always open to oversight and judicial review, a la several Supreme Court rulings and, lest I invoke the bitch of the bunch for all Presidents, Article II. So the wiretaps thing was most definitely illegal, and Marbury would tell you so. I’m not screaming bloody murder because doing so would accomplish little – Bush will either get spanked for it or he won’t, and the outcome is in larger hands than mine. Than yours, too.
I have said it several times over the last few years – these are dark times. It is both blind luck and hard work that we haven’t had another serious terrorist attack since 9/11, and most governmental action runs contrary to actually protecting our country. It isn’t all guesswork in a blue blazer by some career intelligence mid-level manager, and there are some hardworking folks in service to our country that are actually trying to protect you and me. But the bosses aren’t making their jobs any easier.
Trust me.
