meta-scandal analysis of the lamest duck in the west

[unblock]

i have always been a cynic about politics, and the politics of scandal in particular. my premise is that EVERYONE has skeletons in their closet, or at least something that could be made to appear like a skeleton if an opposition were so determined.

in a presidential contest, the opposition might have to make a very determined fight; the banana republicans had to work overtime to make honest boy scout al gore out to be a liar. they couldn't find actual lies, so they altered gore's statements to make them appear dishonest. they also turned honorable war hore john kerry into a medal-mongerer. they had to work hard in both cases because the visibility in presidential elections is so high. the truth might emerge, so you really have to work hard to keep the truth down.

but in senate and congressional elections, it's far easier to for scandals to ruin someone's career, because most people are much more dimly aware of the actual candidates involved. thus any scandal, fabricated or otherwise, can much more easily swing a campaign.


so the question is, WHY do scandals emerge? it's NOT because they just happen organically. sure, someone dies mysteriously or someone shoots someone in the face or someone gets caught having an affair, whatever. THAT happens organically. BUT THAT DOESN'T MAKE IT A SCANDAL. what makes the difference between an affair that no one cares about and an affair that results in impeachment or major scandal is that an opposition is determined to use it to their advantage, and has decided to target their limited money and effort on that particular race.

this is why people are only vaguely aware that clinton's accusers had been far more unfaithful than he had. but no one had the money or time or inclination to target republicans in a few house districts the way the republicans wanted to target clinton.



so what's my point? my point is that the shrub administration has been one disastrous scandal after another. longtime du'ers are painfully aware of the chronicles of incompetence, cronyism, gaffes, lies, etc. from shrub.

so what's different all of a sudden that katrina, cheney shooting someone in the face, and the uae port deal are all major press stories? there's not a whole lot new here, in truth. yeah, sure, the cheney thing was hard to cover up completely, but maybe in early 2002 it might have been completely brushed under the table. unpatriotic to tease the veep in a post-9/11 world, got a war on, you know. and katrina? banana republicans promoting incompetence, valuing image management over policy, and not caring about people, especially democrats and blacks, is hardly news. in early 2002, they would have used this as a need to enhance quasi-military control for emergencies.

what's different is that shrub's last electoral moment is behind him. his administration, already unusually high with campaign strategists and low on policy people, have turned their focus to the next elections, which don't directly involve shrub.

karl rove does not have the incentive to prop up shrub, he has more specific strategies involved in whatever senate/congressional elections he's working on. NO ONE has the incentive to pay massively in time or money to continue to prop shrub up. and shrub is way to incompetent to do that himself.

so, the scandals that would have been brushed away, now are free to blossom and find traction on the airwaves. other banana republicans can now position themselves to be competent by comparison, democrats can obviously benefit from shrub scandals, too.


the bottom line is that shrub is done for. he's still in a position to siphon off funds for his buddies, get more of our soldiers killed, and generally run our great country down. but politically, he's toast. not BECAUSE of the scandals. rather, the scandals are PROOF that he was already toast before the winds came up the coast.

[bostonbabs]

1. K&R