High Rollers At The Table

Tomorrow are the elections.   So what are we to think of the current political climate?   In the year of the strange, Democrats learn the value of becoming savage. And now Republicans are looking for anything to hang their hats on. Bush, who is currently back on the campaign trail and is still touting the war in Iraq as a success, despite the fact that the country is a stone's throw from being in a civil war or worse. Still others are pointing to the recent numbers that show the unemployment rate is down to around 4%. What they don't mention is that people who are out of work for over one year are no longer counted. This is, of course, the Republican way of dealing with pesky problems, ignore them and say you solved the problem. It doesn't matter it it's really true just as long as it stays out of the news.

Democrats are finally feeling their wild oats. With any luck the Karl Rove stigmatism has finally faded. First up is Donald Rumsfeld who is like a fighter beaten to a bloody pulp with manager Bush refusing to throw in the towel. And for Bush this isn't such a bad thing. Rumsfeld has been taking the heat for the Iraq war all along. He is still their useful idiot who doesn't know when to go down. How can he not? Even the military newspapers are calling for him to resign, as are generals beneath him. If he stays on, there will be mutiny in the halls of the Pentagon. But he will fall as will many after him.

Scandals in American politics have a funny way of taking on a life of their own. Lewis "Scooter" Libby has once again taken on the role of fall guy, only now it is for the outing of Valerie Plame. Tom Delay was taken down with connections to Abramoff. Mark Foley's messages to male pages set the fastest fall of a politician since William Harrison. And don't forget about the scandal that made newspapers then disappeared rather quickly.  We now know that those in the White House who claim they are the best defense against terrorism are the same ones who managed to ignore the desperate warnings from the head of the CIA, George Tenant, only 2 months and a day before 9/11.   Oh it's been a bad year for the GOP - - and it will only get much worse.

Until next time.    

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