What Gives in the Big White House Down the Street from the Capital? 0
Harold Myerson wonders why, in the face of overwhelming defeat in the 2006 Congressional elections, the Current Federal Administration and Congressional Minority Party continue to act as if nothing has changed. He points out that the really big time Congresssional investigation going on right now–into the firing of reputable and competent U. S. Attorneys–took place after the elections.
He offers four theories. I’m betting on number four, with a liberal dollop of number three mixed in:
There are, I think, four possible, partial explanations. The first is Rudy-ex-machina– the hope that the party will nominate somebody who is not perceived to be part of their current mess and who will sweep them back into power no matter how big a hole they may now be digging for him. The second is a strategy to make it impossible for the Democrats to pass any legislation, and then run against the do-nothing Democrats.
The third is that the alternative reality conveyed by the Republican media — Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and their ilk — has created a Republican activist base that is genuinely not reality-based, and from which the current generation of Republican pols is disproportionately drawn. And the fourth, pertaining specifically to the inability of the administration to stop politicizing government, is that good government is just not in their DNA. Bush and Rove are no more inclined to create a government based on such impartial values as law and science than they are to set up collective farms.
