Throwing Them A Bone
So, I’m still working on my Palin-festo, which I suppose I’d better finish before she sinks completely into cultural irrelevancy at the hands of Joe Biden. But I figured that any time the government wants to take $700 billion of our money and give it to a bunch of fucking crooks, it’s worth a brief review.
The current bill, proposed by Bush, is unacceptable on so many levels I can scarcely wrap my head around it. Amongst other things, it gives the Secretary of the Treasury complete and unlimited authority to act, excluding him from oversight by any governmental body. According to the language of the bill, neither this nor future Presidents, and not even the Supreme Court, would have the authority to curtail or regulate his activities.
I couldn’t figure it out. I mean, that sort of language would make the bill completely unconstitutional, not to mention incredibly dangerous. Especially when you consider the secrecy and strong-arm balls-blazing rush job they’re doing trying to get it passed. Usually, even the people who write Bush’s language for him aren’t so obvious or blatant. This thing stinks to high holy hell every bit as badly as FISA, and almost as badly as the Patriot Act.
I was still sitting back, utterly stunned by this realization, when I saw a new poll putting George Bush’s approval rating at an amazing 19%. He’s in the bloody teens now – higher than he should be as far as I’m concerned. But that means that even the 14% of the country that would hump a corpse if it had an (R) after it’s name is sick to death of this man. About a moment later I remembered what month it was.
This bill is a Harriet Miers. It’s designed to flop. I mean, sure, if it squeaks by the Good Ol’ Boy network won’t exactly mind. But that’s not it’s purpose. There are a lot of Republican Senate seats in play this November, and of course the entire House is up for grabs every year. Most of those incumbent Republicans are desperate to distract their voters from their party and from their previous years of Bush loyalty.
So here comes Bush with another over the top, I’m The Decider power grab for the Republican machine to suddenly stand up to. And it’s just close enough to the election that it should still be fresh in everyone’s mind when they go to vote. Suddenly every Republican is a maverick (assuming that they get permission from John McCain to use the word in public). Every one of them stands up to that no good Bush because they opposed this one single piece of legislation. And yes, it’s already happening.
Now, am I suggesting that they somehow orchestrated this crisis so they could play rogue for the cameras? No, of course not. What I’m saying is that just like 9/11, just like the crashing stock market in late 2001 and 2002, just like the threat of terrorism and the rhetoric of extremism, an unfortunate and ugly circumstance is being deftly manipulated for political gain. It’s just another application of The Shock Doctrine. If they pass their crazy bill, they win. If they oppose their crazy bill, they win. Same shit, different day.