September 30, 2005

The main topic of conversation hereabouts is the nailing of the odious Bush ramrod, DeLay, for money laundering. He will not go quietly into the good night of political oblivion and is rushing around the Beltway, pretending that he is still in charge and attacking the Texas authorities for nailing him on charges that everyone here knows are dead on. In spite of his bluster, many Repubicans are eying DeLay’s position with barely concealed interest and already, there are groups meeting here and there debating who is going to get his job and all the money that goes with it. DeLay is a nasty shit but he kept the Republicans in the House under his iron thumb with a nice mixture of bribery and threats. His loss will put paid to the Bush/Robe plan to cinch up a permanent Republican majority in Congress for decades to come. With the Mid Terms coming up and Bush’s popularity falling (29% by the latest private GOP poll) you will see more and more legislators moving away from Bush’s extreme right position and more towards more publicly accepted fiscal moderation. Moderate Repblicans will be the first to move towards the center and then the others will slowly follow. Three men now run the United States: VP Cheney, until he was caught, DeLay in Congress and Karl Rove, the Evil Puppet Master who was Bush’s pet character assassin and head schemer. It now looks like the Machinery is going to cut the balls off of Rove (if in fact he has any) and without these two men, Bush is, to be crude but accurate, up shit creek without a paddle. He is helpless and utterly useless without a powerful support system and he will pretty soon get so frightened and helpless that back comes the bottle. I can’t wait for him to slap his wife on camera or start mumbling incoherently at an ad hoc press event. The latter is more probable and his immediate staff, who love the power that comes from licking his bum, are looking all over the Oval Office for the Hidden Bottle.