Conditions are bad for the Republican Party. They certainly have been stricken with victory disease, that curious mixture of hubris and arrogance that afflicts those who prove that they are better at the game then their opponents. Any reasonable observer would come to the conclusion that the GOP is going to lose control of Congress after the election this year.
Any reasonable observer who doesn’t consider that the Republicans are running against Democrats, that is. No matter how bad they govern, at least no one can accuse the Republicans of being barking mad. I’m not so sure about their opponents.
Case in point is this news item from the Associated Press. It seems that Democrats elected to the Vermont state legislature are going to decide whether or not to petition the US House of Representatives for the impeachment of President Bush.
The basis for impeachment is that Bush lied to the American people about the reasons for invading Iraq, and that he authorized illegal wiretapping. It seems that State lawmakers can initiate such a move due to obscure rules governing the US House called “Jefferson’s Manual”, and you can read them yourself here.
I’m wondering what the Democrats in Vermont are up to. The “Bush Lied!” thing has been discredited so many times, most recently by the documents captured during the invasion of Iraq, that it seems incredible that anyone who hasn’t been driven insane by anti-Republican convictions could ever possibly believe the charge. So far as the wiretapping thing is concerned, the legality of the program will be determined years in the future by the courts. It just doesn’t seem reasonable that someone could call for the impeachment of an elected official when it has yet to be determined if an actual crime has occurred.
But sanity and reason just doesn’t seem to matter to some of the Dems. Many pundits have observed that the Democratic Party has been hijacked by radical extremist groups, people who are so convinced of the absolute moral supremacy of their convictions that the facts don’t have any bearing. Most of their politicians might not be raving lunatics who would literally love to see Bush’s head on a stick, but they have to go along with the flow if they want to keep getting money and support for their election campaigns.
Donk ineptitude is the only thing preventing a GOP wipeout in 2006.
I conjecture that deregulation of campaign financing — real deregulation, e.g., anyone can contribute any amount and it gets noted in real time on the Internet — would go a long way toward making the Democratic Party responsive to a plurality of voters.
Too bad he can’t be impeached and congress can’t be censured for finacing our national debt with short-term bills. Of course, we’d probably continue to do it even afterward.
When you’re trying to step into a power vacuum, the thing you shouldn’t do is suck.
Bill Buckley used to give the toast: “Confusion to the Enemy.”
yeah, I think that if anyone could offer any sort of organized third party, everyone would vote for it, just because they’re sick of hearing about it from the Repulicans and Democrats.