How long, O Lord, how long?

(Updated below.)

Should know by now to take my own advice.

I've told myself a thousand times, never write a post before checking to see what's being said by the folks at Shakespeare’s Sister that day.

Yesterday in my post on Kennedy and Nixon I said that Ezra Klein’s description of the case of a rich and charming scoundrel getting away with things a less polished, less connected, less telegenic man can was a fairly good description of the difference between Nixon and George W. Bush.

Meanwhile, over at Shakespeare’s Sister, Paul the Spud was letting go with this exasperated cry from the heart, in which he demanded of the gods to know when Bush will have to pay for a mistake, a lie, a failure, a sin, or a crime.

I'm getting really goddamned sick and tired of this.

I'm sick of waiting.

I'm sick and fucking tired of Bush never commenting on his mistakes, remaining silent when confronted with serious accusations about impeachable offenses and openly showing his contempt for people that dare question him.

And then getting away with it.

He always gets away with it.  Always always always.  And it's driving me out of my ever-lovin' skull.

Even with his horrible approval ratings. Even with thousands of Americans coming home in boxes. Even when his bald-faced lies are PROVEN to be lies. We sit around and nothing happens.

No WMD found in Iraq? No problem, just hide and hedge until you can wave around some purple fingers! The Downing Street Memo? Just blur the facts and wait for the next distraction. Whoops, Karl Rove got caught committing a felony. Just stall and wait; there's an ongoing investigation, we can't do anything right now. Wait... Rove who?

Voter fraud.  Ignoring warnings that led to 9/11.  Billions lost in Iraq.  Torture.

Wait, and soon, everyone will forget.

Well, I'm sick of waiting.  When the fuck are Americans going to stand up and demand that they stop being fed big heaping shovelfuls of bullshit every goddamned day? When are they going to stop rolling over and accepting the lies and excuses?

The answer could be, As long as Bush looks and talks like the kind of man he isn’t, as long as people mistake his outward show for his inward self.

But that’s not entirely been the case for George Bush.

The media has loved to celebrate Bush’s regular guy-ness.  But if Bush had been a real regular guy and had led the same kind of life he led when he was in his teens, 20s, and 30s—the life of a drunk and screw-up—it wouldn’t have mattered how right he got with Jesus, by the time he was 40 he’d have been lucky to have a job pushing a broom at Wal-mart’s for the rest of his life, if he wasn’t in jail or dead.

Regular guys’ fathers can’t keep saving them from their own self-destructive impulses over and over again the way Bush’s father kept saving him.

So it was Bush’s pedigree, not his personal charm or good looks that smoothed the way for him.

On top of which, Bush is neither as good looking—nevermind the swooning over him in his flight suit by certain journalists and pundits, male as well as female—nor as charming as he’s been praised for being.  His “charm” consists almost entirely of a willingness to be flattered and kowtowed to by people who are desperate for his approval and a contradictory habit of suddenly despising himself and everybody around him for all the flattery and kowtowing he inspires and lashing out colorfully at the whole Pantomime.

He’s “charming” in that he has a moderate degree of graciousness in dealings with underlings and sycophants and a moderate degree of angry honesty that he sometimes forgets to keep in check.

This is what struck me most when I saw Fahrenheit 9/11.  In unscripted moments, Bush did not seem to like being or even want to be the President.  This explains his long August vacations in Crawford, a place nobody in their right minds wants to be in summer.  He’s hiding from the job.

But if his looks and charm aren't carrying him, and his father and his father’s friends can't help him anymore, what is protecting him from suffering the fate a Nixon would suffer—and did suffer, for less?

Ezra has the answer.

A Republican Congress.

For a while the story of the day was that Bush had become a lame duck.  After the energy bill and CAFTA passed the story began to shift a little.  Bush had suddenly recovered.  Samson’s hair had grown back and he was marching on the Philistines swinging a mighty mandible.

Nonsense, both times.  Sez Ezra:

The Times has a piece lauding the enormous efficiency of the Bush machine on Capitol Hill. CAFTA, the transportation bill, the energy boondoggle -- all are passing and this duck, once thought to be lame, is soaring with the eagles.

Of course, this is really like being impressed that a waterfowl with a jetpack is able to get airborn. The media, much of the time, does not quite seem to comprehend the importance and legislative power of Bush's party controlling the House and the Senate. It's rather hard to imagine how, save for a major intraparty schism, Bush could become a lame duck in this legislative situation, at least on relatively uncontroversial issues.

Bush should be bestriding the Potomac like a colossus.  He’s not.   A strong President wouldn't have needed, as Ezra pointed out Bush needed, an extended deadline, a midnight vote, and some possible lawbreaking on the part of Republican Senate leaders to ram CAFTA through.  A strong President with a united Congress run by his own Party behind him would not have had to sneak John Bolton in through the back door of the UN.  A strong President would not need Bill Frist threatening to blow up the Senate to get his judicial nominees appointed.

Of course, strong Presidents are usually wise Presidents.  Part of their strength comes from knowing when to fight and when to give.  They don’t persist in their mistakes.  They don’t insist on failing.  Strong Presidents don’t act like George W. Bush.  They don’t govern in fits of pique and mulishness.

Bush is not a strong President.

So we’re back to Paul’s lament.

When will he pay for his weakness?

When he doesn’t have a solid Republican Congress to cover for him.  When Tom DeLay and Bill Frist and Denny Hastert aren’t around to play the role his father used to play in his life.

This brings me to the point that’s sticking in my craw.

Reading this you probably won’t believe that I stopped being mad at George Bush a while ago.  I haven’t stopped despising the guy and his spectacular awfulness will always make me heartsick for my country.  But I’m not angry at him.

I’m angry at the one guy who could have saved us from Bush.

No, not John Kerry.

John McCain.

All McCain would have had to do was sit out the election last fall.

Instead he went to the Republican Convention and all but got on his knees and kissed George Bush’s ring.

He could have and should have broken with Bush over the Swift Boat liars.

Instead he tsk tsked a bit and went to the Convention and bit his lip when the delegates waved around their Karl Rove approved Purple Heart band-aids.

McCain surely hates George Bush and every thing the man stands for.

But he still bows before him.

He surely hates Karl Rove, who McCain knows is just Bush’s alter-ego, and yet he makes excuses for him, even going so far as suggesting that when it came to playing dirty politics in the 2000 Republican primaries he himself was as guilty as Rove, but, hey, that’s the nature of the game.

There are at least 7 Republican Senators who know the truth about George Bush and who might do something about him—not impeach him, that would be asking too much.  But they could do what the Senate Republicans did when it became clear that the Reagan Administration had fallen into the hands of rogues, pirates, and traitors.  They could go to the White House and demand that Bush start firing people.  They could demand that Bush put grown-ups in charge of things.

But they need a leader.  And John McCain is the only one who could have taken on that job and stood a chance of surviving the revenge the Bush Leaguers would have tried to exact.

But McCain wants to be President.

And although it looks to objective outsiders that his best shot at the job is as an Independent, McCain has apparently decided to try to win it as a complete Republican Party tool.

Which I think shows that Karl Rove has been able to do something to John McCain that the North Vietnamese weren’t able to do.

Scare him.

(Update:   Jeanne D'arc is back and she has a post that while focusing on the Bush Leaguers' joy of torture, highlights John McCain's growing timidity.

And I should have mentioned that Paul's psalm of righteous rage is cross-posted at his place, Adventures of the Smart Patrol.)

Comments

[blue girl]

Great post, Lance. I completely feel Paul's pain. I spent a lot of time over the last week or so with solid right-wingers. Wealthy right-wingers. The one's who benefit the most from the tax cuts. And even THEY want Bush out of there. At a get together over the weekend, they even admitted that their businesses have always done better under a Democratic president. We need this group to speak loudly too.

[Shakespeare's Sister]

Spudsy, Ezra, and Mannion all in one post--it's like the blogging trifecta!

I have been saying the same thing about John McCain for years. And I'm not quite past being mad at Bush (as might be evident - ahem), but, similar to your sentiment, Mannion, I wrote back in December:

Their party is slipping (has permanently slipped?) away from [traditional conservatives], but they say nothing, do nothing. When America has fallen into the inevitable morass that is its unavoidable destination with Bush at our helm, I won't blame the Democratic voters, and I won't even blame the wingnuts on the Right, who at least voted as they believe, foolish as it is. I will blame the large swath of traditional Republicans who refused to acknowledge that their party had left them, and made no noise about its failed leadership, choosing instead to keep handing new strings to Nero for his fiddle.

It's truly frustrating, and McCain is their bloody ringmaster.

[Paul the Spud]

Wow, thanks for the kind words, Lance! Who knew my profanity-peppered rant would actually be treated as good writing? Thank you for the nod; usually I try to have a little more class.

I, like you and Shakes, feel the same way about McCain. I used to say that he was the one Republican I felt I could respect. After shilling for the man he obviously hates, I can't say that anymore.

[denisdekat]

There is no god, there is no justice, the world is cruel...

Yes, I too was lost all respect for McCain (the bit that I had)...

It seems money is God, as in, what is worshiped and what has power over the will of men and the world affairs...

[Kevin Wolf]

McCain never really had my respect simply because he's a right-wing conservative whose views I often find repugnant. Better than Bush? Of course - who isn't? But his hewing to the Republican line, as awful as it is under Bush, doesn't surprise me.

I do think you make some important points regarding all the Republicans running interference for Bush - that if left out in the open, exposed, he'd be seen for the lying bastard that he is and his agenda might then fall apart.

I also agree with the comment above that the GOP has simply abandoned its core - it sure as hell ain't being fiscally conservative, a favorite trope of the right - but I think the exact same thing can be said of the Democrats, who keep moving right, leaving behind their own constituents while attempting to be "rite-lite" - right-wing (only not really). Then they stand around every November wondering why they keep losing elections.

[Shakespeare's Sister]

but I think the exact same thing can be said of the Democrats

Yeah, I tend to rant a lot about that, too. ;-)

[Pepper]

As bluegirl pointed out, if big business right-wingers want Bush gone, then we need to start with that. And if that's the case, then, among all the Republicans who have stuck with Bush for so long, Frist will be the first to cave in.

Because Frist is weak. Frist is weak in the way that so many Democrats have been weak. I can't remember who said it because I read so many posts on the subject, but someone (you smart person, you! take the credit that is rightly yours!) pointed out that Frist broke with Bush on stem-cell research because of the donations from pharmaceutical companies.

McCain can be bought, but he can't be bought as easily as Frist. If Frist sees the money in a "be responsible" centrism, then he will turn on Bush and make demands. And Bush's house of cards will collapse.

[blue girl]

Ooooooh, Pepper -- you make a really good -- and uncomfortable point. About Frist being weak in the way that so many Democrats are. I agree with you and how unfortunate is that??

Still. I cannot stand Bill Frist. This is just my gut feeling -- he doesn't have a chance -- A SNOWBALL'S CHANCE! at winning the Presidency.

He is dreamin'. Yuck. I cannot stand him.

(Should I tell you how I really feel?!)

[Shakespeare's Sister]

At this point, I agree with Blue Girl. Right now, Frist is too raptured-up for mainstream conservatives (who won't soon forget his idiotic Schiavo video diagnosis) and too "liberal" (lol) for the rapture battalion because of his recent embrace of stem cell research. Without a solid majority in either camp, he's going to struggle. Let's hope he keeps trying to straddle that fence and leaves himself a loser, because even though I hate McCain, I despise Frist with the intensity of a thousand suns.

[Exiled in NJ]

Frist, McCain, all non-starters here. Every time I ask myself when will this all stop, I think to the year 2006, or 2008, when balloons will be lofted that we dare not change leadership in the midst of war, and these bags of hot air will be taken up by the right wing Wurlitzer and then the regular media, and presto-change-o, if the 2006 polls look bad, that election will be canceled and our leader will be crowned King, but not with that title.

Bloggers of Lance's persuasion will go the way of the book readers in Fahrenheit 451. Just wait, Lance, until you are hauled before the star chamber and asked by Rove, Libby, Ledeen and Novak just what you were trying to foment with your comments about Merchant of Venice.

[Mike]

Screw John McCain and the Colin Powell he rode in on.

[Anne Laurie]

Sometimes I believe the tinfoil-hat theories that Karl Rove has some kind of unspeakable blackmail material he's using to keep McCain in line. It's pretty clear McCain despises Bush the Lesser, and he has every reason to hate Karl Rove with a deep & personal hatred (if only for the Rovian 'rumors' that McCain's wife was a junkie, and his adopted daughter a halfbreed byblow, never mind Rove's more directly personal attacks). So why does an otherwise honorable individual, albeit one whose politics I don't agree with, stoop to kissing the Bush-Leaguer's ring? Is "party unity" really THAT sacred a tenet in his branch of the Republican church?

The mainstream media seems to have elected McCain to the post of Tough-Talking, Truth-Speaking Republican Maverick, no matter what the man actually says or does. In so far as they've succeeded, they've created a tableau vivant which, not coincidentally, seals McCain in amber as a gadfly, a jester, always good for a quote but never to be taken as electable. This saves the MSM pundits much wear & tear on their few miserable braincells. Having done so well thereby, the MSM would now like to turn Howard Dean into the "Democratic McCain" -- and I hope the Democrats have the good sense not to play that game.