Craig Crawford: Apocalypse Whenever

[Rose Siding]

The outbreak of hostilities between Israel and its Arab neighbors is always a cause for worry, if not nail-biting fear. You never know how it will end or what it could lead to. Newt Gingrich’s call for President Bush and Congress to declare “World War III” strikes some as coldly logical and others like crying “FIRE!” in a crowded theater. But having seen this picture before, it’s not hard to catch his drift.

As threatening as this tinderbox appears to world peace, it’s safe to say there is no significant political downside for Bush in this latest eruption on Israel’s borders. The painfully long and famous history of this struggle suggests that few voters will hold the president personally responsible for what goes right or what goes wrong. For decades we have watched presidents flail away at this mess, and the result, as The Gallup Poll recently found, is that by a 2-to-1 ratio most Americans see no chance of peace there — ever.

Indeed, Bush could have been speaking for all of his recent predecessors, and possibly most Americans, when he used a barnyard epithet last week in summing up his view of the situation. Even if he could miraculously lead the way to peace, there is little to suggest it would help him or his party politically. Jimmy Carter is the only president to achieve anything of lasting significance in the region — the accord between Egypt and Israel — but it did him little good in his 1980 re-election bid.

Then again, Bush and his Republican allies in Congress do have something to gain by the sudden shift of world media attention to Israel and Lebanon. There is nothing like a new war in the Middle East to take our minds off the old one and create a climate of crisis, which tends to argue against change in the midterm election. Wars during elections call for a political accounting, and the math on Iraq was not looking favorable for the president and his party. The opening of a new hot zone west of U.S.-occupied Iraq scrambles the electoral calculus, potentially re-setting the numbers to GOP advantage — especially since leading Democrats are tripping over themselves to agree with Bush’s support for Israel in this fight........MORE.........

http://www.cqpolitics.com/2006/07/craig_crawford_apocalypse_when.html

[KoKo]

1. Well...that's pretty depressing.... Unless folks start to "connect the

dots" that this is a DO NOTHING P-Resident who allows civilians to suffer while he sits on his hands waiting for things to sort out. Maybe memories of Katrina and 9/11 will come back out of the dark recesses of American Minds when Bush did nothing.

His pattern of behavior is starting to be evident. But, Crawford is correct. No one of either party will challenge him, prefering to hitch their start to Israel's efforts in aiding against the "terraists" that Bush has convinced us to invade a country for while we watch another country be bombed.

We are cooked according to Crawford. But shouldn't we hope for better than another "marketing campaign" on the backs of innocents by the Bush Regime?

[MidwestTransplant]

3. The thing in Lebanon will be done in a matter of a couple of weeks

if it's not, that means there is a wider war which would mean big trouble and I am not talking political.

[Reckon]

2. "declare war"

is probably the key words this Admin wants so they can claim presidential powers they currently do not legitimately have.