Bifurcated democracy

By Carl 

This was an interesting op-ed in yesterday's New York Times:

OUR nation isn't facing just a debt crisis; it's facing a democracy crisis. For weeks, the federal government has been hurtling toward two unsavory options: a crippling default brought on by Congressional gridlock, or — as key Democrats have advocated — a unilateral increase in the debt ceiling by an unchecked president. Even if the last-minute deal announced on Sunday night holds together, it’s become clear that the balance at the heart of the Constitution is under threat.

The debate has threatened to play out as a destructive but all too familiar two-step, revealing how dysfunctional the relationship between Congress and the president has become. 

The article talks about how presidents have decided to exercise power unilaterally, like Obama's Libyan adventures (although the practice goes back decades to Reagan and even Nixon,) while the Congress has been unable to rally itself to challenge the President's usurpation of power. Either the Congress is divided (like now) or reinforces the person holding the Oval Office (as under Bush the Younger).

This is what the punditry tells us we want, over and over again: divided government. Given what we've experienced for over three decades now (absent the six years of Bush the Younger) is this really what we want? An ineffectual Congress hamstrung by the tyranny of the minority and a Presidency who usurps power like a king?

Mind you, none of this is partisan: Republicans and Democrats have been to blame in BOTH branches. Clinton was forced to legislate by executive order, much as Obama is. Both Bushes declared wars without making a firm case to the American people as to the need for them (this wasn't dominoes toppling or any such credible threat.) Reagan tossed American troops around like candy and American armaments to enemies.

In Congress, John Boehner can't even get a centerpiece of legislation passed trying to keep the party's dog-and-pony show from tearing each other up. When Pelosi was in charge, she had to placate Blue Dog Democrats, rather than muscle them into line.

Hell, about the only thing any Congress since 1990 has been able to agree upon is that Bill Clinton needed to be impeached and a bunch of Asian deserts bombed!

This has effectively emasculated an entire branch of government. Power seeks a vacuum. It's almost understandable that the president would unilaterally legislate.

Plus, members of Congress don't have to take a stand on anything controversial. Take the EPA actions earlier this year to regulate greenhouse gases. Now, long time readers of this blog know there are few people more concerned with global climate change than me. Maybe Al Gore. So while I don't have a problem with Obama taking the bull by the fumes... so to speak... I worry about the fact that Congress didn't vote on this.

Note: it wasn't voted down. The bill stalled before a vote could be taken. It's probably still in the hamper, waiting to be aired out. Look at what this saves Republicans from, say, Montana, where people believe climate change is real and a problem. The party would insist they vote against the EPA actions. Their constituencies would say "We need a better Congresscritter." No responsibility, yet they can parade around touting how angry they are that they didn't get their say.

The more a controversial issue remains undecided, and the more critical that issue becomes, the less likely it is Congress will ever actually take action. And the more likely it is they will cede that issue to the Executive branch. Fine for a liberal like me when a semi-liberal like Obama is in charge, but what happens when another Dumbya hits the Oval Office? One a little more clever?

Congress will still feel this is expedient.

But it is unhealthy. It is unhealthy for an economy, it is unhealthy for a Constitution and it is deep unhealthy for a society and its people.

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

This day in history - April 28, 1970: Nixon authorizes the invasion of Cambodia

By R.K. Barry

On April 28, 1970, President Richard Nixon authorized American combat troops to invade Cambodia to engage approximately 40,000 troops of the People's Army of Vietman (North Vietnamese army) and the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietman (NLF, also known as the Viet Cong) who occupied the eastern border regions of Cambodia.

A total of 13 major operations were conducted by the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN or the South Vietnamese army) between April 29th and July 22nd and by U.S. forces between May 1st and June 30th.

The stated goal for the U.S. was to strengthen the position of the South Vietnamese army to enable it to carry on military operations on its own, after the withdrawal of the American military -- the so called "Vietnamization" process.

Some things never change.

In response to American military action, demonstrations erupted on American university campuses, with protestors expressing opposition to the expansion of the Vietnam War into another country. On May 4th, Ohio National Gaurdsmen shot and killed four unarmed students (two of whom were not protestors) during what became known as the Kent State shootings.

(Cross-posted to Lippmann's Ghost.)

Contemplating a GOP win of the White House in 2012 and the dark days that would follow

By R.K. Barry

My first serious attempt at political prognostication came in 1974 when I announced to anyone who would listen that Richard Nixon would never resign the presidency. Since then I have tried not to take my own opinions too seriously when it comes to what is going to happen in politics or in elections. I still offer predictions, it's just that I know what they are worth.

Like many people, I think Obama will retain the presidency in 2012, especially given the cast of misfits the Republicans are intent on putting forward for the nomination. But I do know that strange things can happen in elections, and it is worth contemplating the cost of losing the next one for Democrats and for the country as a whole.

Helpfully, Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, and Ali Weinberg at NBC offer the following appraisal:

So much for the idea that the 2012 presidential election wouldn't live up to its predecessors. While the 2012 presidential election won't feature the historic candidacies that 2008 did, and while we don't know yet whether it will be as close as the ones in '00 and '04 were, there will be so much riding on it. For starters, it could decide the future of the U.S. safety net and the basic role of government (a GOP win would make passage of Paul Ryan's budget plan much more realistic). It will determine what happens to the Bush tax cuts (an Obama win would probably end the tax cuts for the wealthy, while a Republican win would probably extend them). It could decide the fate of the health-care law (though the Supreme Court could do that next year). And it could very well determine the direction of the U.S. Supreme Court (the winner could potentially fill two or three SCOTUS vacancies). All presidential elections have plenty at stake, but this one could have more than many realize.

We know all of this. It's just sobering to have someone compile it in one place.

Like I said, this one is Obama's to lose and I do think it is unlikely that he will, though I can still see Richard Nixon waving from the open doors of that helicopter soon to fly away from the White House forever.

Put more positively, progressives everywhere really want to make sure we win this one.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost)

Yes, Nixon was a bigot. What else is new?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

More tapes, more hatred. Isn't that the posthumous legacy of Richard Nixon, as we learn more and more about him from all those White House tapes he made? The Times has the latest:

Richard M. Nixon made disparaging remarks about Jews, blacks, Italian-Americans and Irish-Americans in a series of extended conversations with top aides and his personal secretary, recorded in the Oval Office 16 months before he resigned as president.

The remarks were contained in 265 hours of recordings, captured by the secret taping system Nixon had installed in the White House and released this week by the Nixon Presidential Library and Museum. 

I'm not sure whether to sigh or yawn.

So Nixon said that Jews are "insecure" and have "a very aggressive and abrasive and obnoxious personality," that Italians "don't have their heads screwed on tight," that the Irish "get mean" when they drink, and that blacks don't have a hope unless they're "inbred" over the next 500 years.

And? Is it news that Nixon said such things?

Well, I suppose it is, as it adds to the public record of a president who was, among other things, a bitter, resentful, and deeply hateful man.

As Digby notes, "[t]he fact that so many people are appalled today is a very big sign of progress." This issue, though, isn't so much that Nixon said what he said but that so many others are still saying the same things:

I think Nixon might have lost if his language and expressions were public knowledge. People didn't particularly want their leaders to be crude racist scumbags even back then. But the idea that these people have disappeared is just wrong. They are still around and they are still in politics and some of them are in high office. Like Nixon before them, they are just keeping their mouths shut in public.

Unlike him, though, they may not be taping every word they say.

But are they really keeping their mouths shut in public? Some of them, yes, but consider the anti-gay and anti-Muslim bigotry that prevails throughout the Republican Party -- and that is communicated openly and proudly.

There has been progress, yes, but it could just be that the targets have changed.

Newt Gingrich and the Green-ey'd Monster

By Mustang Bobby.

I've never been a big fan of trying to psychoanalyze someone from long distance, but it doesn't require an advanced degree of psychology to figure out at least part of where Newt Gingrich is coming from in his recent attack on President Obama. In fact, all you need is a good edition of Shakespeare's Othello to know what's going on: he's insanely jealous of him.

It's pretty simple, really. Barack Obama, even with the funny name and the up-from-nowhere childhood, managed to achieve in just four years what has eluded Newt Gingrich all his life: respectability and power on a grand scale without seeming to grasp for it, a happy marriage to one wife, and an ability to win people over without having to bully them into it. And just like Iago, Mr. Gingrich is driven to rage and therefore must strike out.

He did the same thing to Bill Clinton. Here he was, this back-bench bomb-thrower from Georgia who first achieved notice when he destroyed House Speaker Jim Wright and saw his path to the White House, only to have this young Governor of Arkansas came out of nowhere in 1992 to sweep the country with a charm and attraction that drove Mr. Gingrich nuts. "That's supposed to be me!" he's screaming.

Those of a certain age will recognize the pattern. Richard Nixon went to his grave obsessed with the Kennedys who seemingly without having to break a sweat achieved everything and had everything he so desperately wanted for himself: good looks, charm, magnetism, people drawn to him as if by magic, and even in the face of tragedy and grief, strength and courage that he never had. Even when he achieved the pinnacle of his dream, he destroyed it all by himself through rage, self-doubt, and paranoia that somehow, some way, someone smarter and more popular would take it all away.

It's striking how similar the career path of Newt Gingrich is to Mr. Nixon. He's already been driven from power into political disgrace once by his own hand, and yet he keeps coming back for more, sure that this time will be the one.... and he would have made it, too, if it wasn't for that meddling kid from Chicago! Or Kenya....

It's been said that there are no second acts in America. Richard Nixon proved that wrong, and Mr. Gingrich is trying for it, too. Let's just hope that unlike Othello, it doesn't take five acts until the villain is dragged off the stage.

(Cross-posted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

Ronald Reagan, conservatism, and the decline of the American Empire

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I received an e-mail yesterday from an old college friend asking me why the right has canonized Ronald Reagan. I thought about it, thought about it some more, and came up with a reply, written fairly hastily, that I reprint here.

**********

I think Reagan's victory in 1980 was the distillation of years and years of conservative activism. It all got started back in '64, when Goldwater's candidacy represented a new dawn for conservatism (although, in retrospect, and compared to today's conservatives, Goldwater hardly seems all that extremist). LBJ won easily, but that defeat is what launched what I think is broadly understood as "Movement" conservatism. Money from wealthy donors started pouring into think tanks like Heritage and Cato and into universities through various foundations (some of which paid for my graduate education) and into the media. It was a concerted effort, I would say, to topple what was seen as America's hegemonic liberal establishment. It's an interesting story, and I'd recommend checking out David Brock's The Republican Noise Machine for more.

Nixon subsequently energized conservatives, but he was never Goldwater. There were Vietnam and Watergate, of course, but more than that Nixon was a sort of anti-conservative Republican, given his support for price controls and other regulations to address the economic crisis of the time, his efforts at detente with China and the Soviet Union, and his somewhat moderate social policies. (This is why, in retrospect, those who have come to admire, or re-admire, Nixon tend to be politically moderate. Needless to say, though, this is not to excuse all that made Nixon such an appalling figure.)

Reagan, meanwhile, had emerged as the leader of the new conservative movement. He was a prominent anti-Communist in Hollywood, but it was as governor of California that he became a political giant on the right. He failed in his presidential bid in '76, but he was then well-positioned to be swept four years later. Remember, the '70s were a miserable decade: Vietnam, Watergate, stagflation, malaise, the Iran hostage situation, a hardening of the Cold War with Brezhnev in the Kremlin. Reagan was seen as the heralder of a new beginning, both for America in general and for conservatism in particular. And, to conservatives, he was pretty much everything they'd been dreaming of since '64: anti-government, anti-tax, anti-regulation, anti-abortion, anti-Communist. He was, to them, he represented a turn away from the legacy of the '60s, the legacy that conservatism rejected and that continued to motivate them: civil rights, feminism, pacifism, etc.

It was a period of great upheaval in America. To liberals and progressives, it was a period of change for the better, of liberation. To conservatives, though, it was a period of destruction, and they longed for the way things were before. They still do. Watch Hannity and Beck and O'Reilly and Limbaugh. They all talk nostalgically about the way it was, about how great it was. Of course, it was never that way, and, to many -- women, minorities, the poor -- the way it really was was horrible.

But no matter. Reagan tapped into a combination of delusional optimism and abject fear. Somehow, in him, America was still the greatest place on earth, a place where women and minorities were still kept down, where military might made sure everything was right, where the haves could have what they wanted without regard for the have-nots, and whre the New Deal and the Great Society and the great upheavals of previous decades, both domestically and internationally, had never happened. It was "Morning in America," white-picket fences sparkled in the sunshine, the flag flew in the warm summer breeze, and there was no need to worry about the impending decline of the American Empire.

Somehow, that is, Reagan made conservatism right -- to conservatives, to much of the country. Liberalism had lost, not just electorally, with Reagan's win in '80, but also socially, with a turn to the right throughout the decade to come. In this sense, he was a genuinely transformational figure, as conservatism became not just a legitimate alternative to liberalism but, for a time, the triumphal American ideology. Or so it seemed, and as so it still seems to many on the right. (In actual fact, as Neil Postman once wrote, Reagan was actually a committed liberal/libertarian given his unflinching support for the free market even above this theocratic leanings, his unwavering belief in progress manufactured in and through the free market.) Even as conservatism triumphed, the country grew more liberal and more progressive during the '80s. It may be that that was inevitable, given the general liberal awakening that was the defining feature of the post-WWII years, but he did very little to stop it.

But that is of no concern to conservatives, who have come to regard his presidency with the same utopian nostalgia that they regard that earlier and supposedly better time in American history. And at a time when conservatism is largely without ideas, a failed and bankrupt ideology, that nostalgia sort of makes sense. If only America could return to Reagan, they say -- to his policies, but also, and more poignantly, to what he represented, to what he symbolized. The bad stuff -- Iran-Contra, notably -- they ignore. With respect to policy, it's the anti-government, anti-tax, pro-"family values," hawkish foreign and military policy stuff that guides them. But, again, it's much more than that. It's the flag-waving, and all that means, that seems to be the driving force. Americans, and not just conservatives, badly want to believe in America, or "America," again, and it's difficult to, given where America is in the world today, given all that has happened.

Obama, to me, is much closer to the spirit of America than Reagan ever was -- think back to Obama's brilliant speech on race in Philadelphia in '08 -- but Reagan remains much more accessible, in an emotional sense, than Obama ever will be (despite his historic victory in '08 and all that that victory meant especially to black Americans), and, to conservatives, Reagan not only fits the narrative as Obama never will but actually wrote the narrative that continues to define them.

You see, I think America is in decline, and, deep down, I think Americans sense that, if they don't know it already. This is more true of conservatives, who have divorced themselves from reality, than is it of liberals, but it is a phenomenon that transcends partisan divides. What I sense from Americans now is fear, fear of a world that has passed them by. Many are afraid of what is happening at home -- increasing multiculturalism and the recognition of gay rights, for example -- as well as of what is happening internationally, with the rise of China, the threat of Islamic jihadism, climate change, and so on.

This explains, in part, Obama's success, as many Americans have come to embrace, courageously and with open minds, the sort of change that he campaigned on -- even if we haven't seen much of it yet. (Obama is about hope for a better future that may come to be, whereas Reagan conservatism is about longing for a past that never was.) But it also explains, in part, in large part, the rise of the sort of fanatical conservatism you see on Fox News, in the right-wing blogosphere, and throughout much of the Republican Party -- the politics of fear, the vilification of the Other, ideological extremism, the complete inability to deal with the harsh realities of the world with anything other than simplistic notions of good and evil.

And it explains, also in large part, the canonization -- indeed, the deification -- of Ronald Reagan, in whom conservatives trust, and who used the flag and patriotic happy talk to shield America, and the American people, from the truth.

Much ado about showing respect: Obama, the bow, and the right-wing smearfest

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Politico's Ben Smith has posted a clip of Nixon bowing to Mao -- see below. (It's more of a head bow, with the shoulders, but it's still a bow, and it was to a brutal totalitarian dictator.)

Please, can we all just shut the fuck up about Obama's bow to Japanese Emperor Akihito?

As Laura Rozen reports, the State Department says that Obama was "simply showing respect."

Correct protocol or not, it's hardly the big deal so many of his right-wing detractors are making it out to be. Was it a sign of American submission? Hardly. If you think that, you must think that America is so weak that a simple bow can bring it down. Besides, it was no worse than -- and certainly less embarrassing to the country (and the president) than -- holding hands with a Saudi tyrant.

But, then, conservatives think the U.S. president should basically be an arrogant prick, as should the country, and, given that they're trying to smear Obama with anything and everything at their disposal, they're not likely to give this up until they've bled this non-story to death.

As for the bow itself, Obama is no weaker for it, America is no weaker for it, and it's time to move on.

Nixon on abortion

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I realize that Nixon improved his reputation somewhat during his post-presidential days -- and, with Watergate receding into history, friendly historians played along, as, of course, did Nixonian Republicans, many of whom rose once again under the Bushes -- but, a sensible policy here and there aside, he was still a terrible president and a rather reprehensible human being.

Take his views on abortion, for example.

As The New York Times reports, newly released tapes show that he was ambivalent on abortion, the legalization of which, under Roe, was one of the key developments during his presidency. Legalized abortion would lead to "permissiveness," in his view, and harm "the family," but -- and here's where it gets ugly:

There are times when an abortion is necessary. I know that. When you have a black and a white. Or a rape.

That's right. Abortion is necessary, perhaps primarily necessary, when interracial procreation is involved. Because you don't want those mixed babies being born, do you? I mean, that would just destroy the American way, wouldn't it?

Sure, abortion's bad, but if it can keep the races pure, well...

We knew Nixon was a racist. This just adds a new twist to it, while providing yet another glimpse into the mind of a twisted man.

Most unpopular ever; or, why Bush will not be another Truman

By Michael J.W. Stickings

A new CNN poll finds that Bush is "the most unpopular president since approval ratings were first sought more than six decades ago," with disapproval ratings above 70 this year.

Which makes him more unpopular than Nixon... and Truman.

Yes, yes, I know, look what happened to Truman: Vindicated by history, now considered to be one of the best of the last century, if not one of the best ever, celebrated by Democrats and Republicans alike.

All I can say is, W. is no S.

Truman was the great exception, assuming the presidency at a difficult time, upon FDR's death, and ending up in Korea. Bush's admirers, ever optimistic, if delusionally so, point to him precisely because he was an exception -- because, of course, they hope Bush will be one, too, deeply unpopular at the end of his presidency but ultimately resurrected.

One has one's doubts. Truman may or may not deserve his vindication -- I would argue that he deserves some of it but that the pendulum has swung too far in his favour -- but he was nonetheless an admirable man who presided over the early years of post-war America, laying the groundwork for so much of what was to come both in terms of foreign and domestic policy, much of it positive.

As for Bush, he has presided over the implementation of a mostly right-wing agenda, cultivating the culture of fear and division and weakening America both at home and abroad. Some historians may eventually give him some of the benefit of whatever doubt remains, but an exception like Truman he will never be.

Political history

By Mustang Bobby

One of the recent Questions of the Day at Shakesville was "What's your first memory of a political campaign?" or something in that vein. Mine was in 1956 when my older sister and brother taught me "Whistle while you work! Stevenson's a jerk!" I was four and I had no idea what it meant. Then when I was eight my Cub Scout troop was recruited to canvass for Richard Nixon's run in 1960 against John F. Kennedy. All of my Catholic friends were Kennedy supporters, so I came to the logical conclusion that Catholics were Democrats. I dutifully went along with my troop, and I remember being in a political parade down Louisiana Avenue in late October 1960 in Perrysburg. There was a big cardboard "X" plastered on my bike basket and I was in a row of riders that spelled out N-I-X-O-N. It would be another ten years or so before I found out that my parents, going against their friends and long family upbringing, voted for JFK in 1960.

I don't need to bore you with my entire political-junkie life story. Suffice it to say that I have followed politics more as an observer than a participant, even though I have worked on campaigns, national and local, since I was old enough to understand the difference between the political parties and the issues that matter to me both as a person and as a citizen. My first crush, so to speak, was Bobby Kennedy, and in many ways I have never really gotten over it. I have not been as excited or energized about a candidate since then, although it's fair to say that like all teenage crushes, the intensity is never the same as the first time. And now, forty years later, I find that my ardor has mellowed and tempered with age and experience. No candidate is perfect; they will disappoint you and show their flaws, and at some point you will seriously ponder what it was you saw in them that attracted you in the first place. But unlike the mercurial passions of youth, you know that compromise, tolerance, and forgiveness are a part of every relationship, even if it's with someone who doesn't know you exist and only appealed to you for their attention because they needed your vote. As long as you realize that, you can put it in perspective: you're only choosing the leader of the free world, not your prom date.

Every candidate says that "this election is the most important in our nation's history." Well, of course they're going to say that; otherwise, why should we pay attention to them? But in truth, this election of 2008 is very important, and not just for the prospect of either electing the first black man to be president or the first woman to be vice president. This election comes front-loaded with expectations above and beyond the events that will occur after January 20, 2009. And while there is no doubt that the next few years are going to be difficult in many ways, not the least of which will be recovering from the last eight, they will be anticipated as being important because of what this election brings with it. It wasn't always so. The election of 1980 was not foreseen as momentous; most of the conventional wisdom said that Jimmy Carter would be re-elected over Ronald Reagan and the 1980s would go on as before. No one really saw the tectonic shift in the Republican Party coming, either, at the hands of the evangelical Christians. Now, half my lifetime later, we are seeing what a lot of people consider to be the end of the aftershocks of that election, and the beginning tremors of another. That may easily be; only history will tell. But I have the feeling that no matter what happens tonight, this election really is one of the most important in our history. I can't help but feel a little more than amazed that I've been a participant and observer.

So, if you haven't already, participate in history and vote.

(Cross-posted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

Sign of the Apocalypse #51: George and Britney

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Watching Back to the Future yesterday for the millionth time -- yes, it's that good, and the two sequels aren't far behind -- I was struck once again by the scene where Marty and Dr. Brown meet for the first time back in 1955. This part, in particular:

Doc: So tell me, Future Boy, who's president of the United States in 1985?

Marty: Ronald Reagan.

Doc: Ronald Reagan, the actor? Ha! Then who's vice president? Jerry Lewis? I suppose Jane Wyman is the first lady.

Marty: Whoa, wait Doc.

Doc: And Jack Benny is the secretary of the treasury. Ah.

Marty: Doc, you gotta listen to me.

Doc: I've had enough practical jokes for one evening. Goodnight, Future Boy.

To Dr. Brown, it is inconceivable that the president in 1985 is an actor -- particularly, one imagines, such a second-rate actor and right-wing blowhard as Reagan. He wants proof that Marty is from the future. This fact is a joke, however, not proof.

Marty soon provides ample proof. He knows how Doc bumped his head, knows about the flux capacitor. And then, of course, he shows him the De Lorean. And the video camera:

Doc: This is truly amazing, a portable television studio. No wonder your president has to be an actor, he's got to look good on television.

Doc is right, of course. Presidents, and presidential candidates, need to be telegenic, and tech-savvy. They need to look good on television -- as well as on YouTube and the campaign videos they put up on their websites. Policy, principle, and character still matter, but image matters, too, more than ever. I'm not saying anything new here. Everyone knows this.

But consider how far we've come. The line between entertainment and politics has been blurred -- by Clinton, to a great extent, but any president of the '90s would have blurred it, been required to blur it. Bush is less Hollywood than Clinton, but he is no less a product of our multimedia age, a politician-president dependent on the manufacturing of image, on how he is sold to the American people and to the world beyond. And we all know what he and his manufacturers wanted that image to be: a man of conviction, of deep religiosity, a common man, tough, determined, strong, the virtuous leader who stands firm against infidels at home and abroad.

But what a joke he has become. Are we even in a position to understand this?

Nixon was unpopular, too, a generation ago, and for good reason. He was a crook, a drunk, a paranoid, and there was Vietnam and Watergate. But my purpose here is not to compare Bush to Nixon, and certainly not to diminish the gravity of that horrible period in American history -- liberating, in the end, but horrifying, at the time. It is, rather, to remark on the appalling poverty of George W. Bush and of the Bush presidency generally.

For all that he has done wrong, for all that has gone into making him one of the worst presidents of all time, and his presidency one of the worst of all time, and without diminishing the gravity of this horrible period in American history, Bush has become a laughingstock, the butt of a perpetual political joke, an embarrassment, to himself and to his country.

His address on the Iraq War and Occupation this week was but the latest episode, predictably appalling. There was an attempt to present the manufactured image, a resolute president, but the image is transparent now, and has been for a long time. We all see through it, at least those of us who aren't trapped by delusion, and the content and substance of Bush's address could be, and was, observed and analyzed for what it was: as much of a joke as the man who delivered it.

Just how much of a joke? I wasn't quite sure until I read an intriguing post by Michael Currie Schaffer at TNR's The Plank:

On Sunday night, it seemed pretty clear that Britney Spears' performance at the MTV awards ceremony was the biggest prime-time fiasco of the week. Then came Thursday night and President Bush's Oval Office address on Iraq. At first blush, coverage of the white trash kid turned tabloid fodder and the rich kid turned good ol' boy would seem to have little in common (besides, of course, the four years of high-profile futility that followed the respective 2003 triumphs of Spears' In the Zone album and Bush's "Mission Accomplished" speech). But what's astonishing is the similarities in this week's coverage of the two fallen ingenues.

Schaffer goes on to compare the coverage in juxtaposition. And it fits: Bush is Britney, Britney is Bush, they are two sides of the same coin, the same joke.

Whatever one can say in retrospect about Nixon, what is now abundantly clear is that the best comparison to Bush is a white-trash pop tart with a drug problem and possibly serious mental-health issues.

What more do you need to know about the state of America today? This is a Sign of the Apocalypse, to be sure, but it is also, if there ever was on, a Sign of America's Imminent Collapse.

Thankfully, he'll be gone by January '09. But how much more damage can he do, jokes and all, before then?

Fear and loathing at breakfast

By Capt. Fogg

"This is the horror of American politics today -- not that Richard Nixon and his fixers have been crippled, convicted, indicted, disgraced and even jailed -- but that the only alternatives are not much better; the same dim collection of burned-out hacks who have been fouling our lives with their gibberish for the last twenty years."

I often wish Hunter S. Thompson were still around. Anything I've tried to write about what has happened to the country we both mourned has owed something to him. I've recently begun to read and re-read his voluminous work and Fear and loathing in the Bunker, which appeared in the New York Times on New Year's day 1974 was this morning's breakfast.

Our feelings about Nixon's villainy, his dishonesty, his ambition to rule can easily be transferred to George W. Bush, whose coven includes many of the accessories to Nixon's crimes and in a way, looking at what we're enduring now with only small traces of the reaction that forced Tricky Dick out of office, produces more of those signature emotions than all the fear and loathing of the early 1970s.

On that New Year's day, Thompson was taking some pleasure at the discomfiture of " the main villain of my political consciousness for as long as I can remember." He correctly predicted the coming resignation, but speculated on what tactics President Nixon might chose to remain in power, including:

"A long-term treaty with Russia, arranged by Henry Kissinger, securing Moscow's support of an American invasion, seizure and terminal occupation of all oil-producing countries in the Middle East. . . and give the Federal Government unlimited Emergency powers."

Of course, we don't worry too much about Russia any more and don't need their support for the other part of the plan which was a nuclear strike on China. Yes, we have some different pawns on the chessboard. China is more threatening for making plastic toys now, but we have Iran and its "terrorists."

Nixon did of course resign, but Nixon's entourage re-entered the mainstream and Pat Robertson and Don Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney and all the Neo-cons and ex-cons and Nixonians who populate the Republican Party are carrying on the legacy aided by a much more scientific and powerful ability to manipulate opinion and create false scenarios.

Pat Buchanan compared the Nixon debacle to the tale of Sisyphus: "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain... and it rolled right back down on us." Pat has certainly found other rocks to roll and Bush has rolled that same rock nearly all the way up a new hill and rolled it over us in the process. The fear that he will succeed where Nixon failed and the loathing I feel thinking about how we have done nothing to prevent it and much to promote it must be emotions I shared with the late Mr. Thompson who of course finally succumbed in that second year of Bush's War on Democracy and ended his life.

"Despite all the savage excesses committed by the people he chose to run the country, no real opposition or realistic alternative to Richard nixon's cheap and mean-hearted view of the American Dream has ever developed."

Yet there was optimism in 1974:

" It has been a failure of such monumental proportions that political apathy is no longer considered fashionable, or even safe, among millions of people who only two years ago thought that anybody who disagreed openly with "the Government" was either paranoid or subversive."

It didn't last:

" Political candidates, in 1974 at least, are going to have to deal with angry, disillusioned electorate that is not likely to settle for flag-waving and pompous bullshit."

Perhaps he underestimated the memory of our born-yesterday, dumbed down, entertainment oriented and gullible fellow Americans and the power of our eternal enemy.

I don't think I'm the suicide type, but I understand the Sisyphean horror, the frustration, the hopelessness that comes from loving the country this should have been; that we hoped it was; that we thought we could make it.

(Cross-posted at Human Voices.)

Go to your room, George

By Capt. Fogg

You're probably not old enough to remember the Checkers speech, or the "you won't have Nixon to kick around any more" outburst, but there's something vaguely Nixonian about Bush's rejoinder to Press Corps questioning today while he was cutting a ribbon to officially open the newly renovated briefing room. The condescending implication that the press are just rabble, asking questions just to be annoying and acting like a patient but very sarcastic martyr, had tricky Dick written all over it. I may be imagining it, but I sense that he senses his inevitable helplessness:

Let's do this. Let me cut the ribbon... and then why don't you all yell simultaneously. Like, really loudly. And that way, you might get noticed. I'll, like, listen, internalize, play like I'm gonna answer the question, and then smile at you and just say "got it. Thanks. Thanks for such a solid, sound question."

That's vintage Nixonian martyrdom mixed in with the snottiness and sarcasm of a born loser who knows he's losing again and knows that we know it. There's something in it of Ratso Rizzo banging on the car hood and shouting, "I'm walking here!"

We're not to the tearful resignation stage yet, and I don't think Boss Cheney will let him declare he's not a crook, but the martyr complex is showing. It showed in Ohio when another caustic reply to a 13 year old girl's simple question about immigration made her break into tears -- upstaging his spoiled child act.

Of course, it's an act that comes from his nature; he is a spoiled brat with an arrogance that comes from long experience with self-contempt over mediocre achievement, multiple business failures, weaseling out of military service, and now a crusade turned to ashes. He's been surrounded with sycophants since daddy became an important public figure and he's employed an army of world-renowned yes men to prop up his rickety ego, but it's falling apart. People are leaving. People are standing up to him and so he barks at a little girl.

But he's a spoiled brat with an army and a navy and nuclear weapons and sometimes when you send a naughty kid to his room, he burns the house down.

(Cross-posted at Human Voices.)

Fred Thompson, Nixon flack

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Forget his one-note TV and movie persona -- you know, the same character he plays time and time again. Who is the real Fred Thompson, the man who has so many Republicans swooning with delight? The second coming of Ronald Reagan? A McCain-like maverick? A mainline conservative through and through, the Republican savior for '08? Er, maybe not. Let's peer back into the mists of time...

Fred Thompson gained an image as a tough-minded investigative counsel for the Senate Watergate committee. Yet President Nixon and his top aides viewed the fellow Republican as a willing, if not too bright, ally, according to White House tapes.

Thompson, now preparing a bid for the 2008 GOP presidential nomination, won fame in 1973 for asking a committee witness the bombshell question that revealed Nixon had installed hidden listening devices and taping equipment in the Oval Office.

Those tapes show Thompson played a behind-the-scenes role that was very different from his public image three decades ago. He comes across as a partisan willing to cooperate with the Nixon White House's effort to discredit the committee's star witness.

Ah, well then. He may have asked the right question, but he seems to have been something of a Nixon loyalist even late in the game -- which hardly speaks to solid character credentials.

For his part, Nixon thought Thompson was "dumb as hell". Thompson may have been a partisan loyalist looking to protect Nixon, but the White House obviously thought he wasn't up to the task. (And, as it turns out, they may have been right.)

Make sure to read this piece for exchanges between Nixon and his cronies, including this one:

"Oh shit, that kid," Nixon said when told by his chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman, of Thompson's appointment on Feb. 22, 1973.

"Well, we're stuck with him," Haldeman said.

If only that could be put into a campaign ad by one of his opponents. (Maybe Anthony Hopkins could play Nixon again.)

Nixon thought Thompson was "friendly". Awesome. Let more -- much more -- about the real Fred Thompson come out. It's time for the balloon to be burst.

Only 564 days left to top Tricky Dick

By J. Kingston Pierce

There’s not really much that George W. Bush can be grateful for nowadays. U.S. Senator Pete Domenici (R-New Mexico), who’s long denounced Democrats wishing to fetter Bush’s war-making in Iraq, today joined a growing chorus of Republican’ts who want to withdraw nearly all American troops from Iraq by the spring of 2008. Meanwhile, as the fallout continues from Bush’s extraordinary effort to save ex-Cheney aide Scooter Libby from a prison sentence, the House Judiciary Committee has scheduled public hearings on the scandal next week, and U.S. Representative Robert Wexler (D-Florida) has drafted a resolution to censure Bush for his commutation.

Still, as Salon’s Tim Grieve pointed out yesterday, Bush can be happy about one thing: “he isn’t the most unpopular president of all time.” Not yet, anyway. According to a new Rasmussen Reports poll, that distinction still belongs to Richard M. Nixon of Watergate scandal fame, who has the highest unfavorable rating of any of the 43 men who have yet served in the Oval Office--60 percent. By comparison, Bush is viewed unfavorably by 59 percent of those Americans surveyed by Rasmussen.

As this polling company explains, only three other U.S. chief executives score an unfavorable rating of at least 40 percent: Lyndon B. Johnson (42 percent), Bill Clinton (41 percent), and the current prez’s father, George H.W. Bush (41 percent). Of those, however, two enjoy favorable ratings that exceed 50 percent: Bush Sr. (57 percent) and Clinton (55 percent). George W. Bush’s favorable rating is a scant 41 percent, only slightly higher than Grover Cleveland’s (40 percent) but not as high as William McKinley’s (42 percent).

So who comes off best in this poll? Just half a dozen presidents are viewed favorably by at least 80 percent of the respondents: George Washington (94 percent), Abraham Lincoln (92 percent), Thomas Jefferson (89 percent), Theodore Roosevelt (84 percent), Franklin D. Roosevelt (81 percent), and John F. Kennedy (80 percent).

Such findings aren’t particularly surprising. Those last six chief execs are usually ranked well by U.S. historians. And people have fairly short memories; their opinions tend to be strongest about leaders who have served recently, and they often contrast them unfavorably against those who served in the halcyon past--especially, in this case, the first four presidents: Washington, John Adams, Jefferson, and James Madison.

What I do find remarkable is that eight presidents are barely recognized by Americans today. Seventy-four percent of respondents, for instance, have no opinion whatsoever about John Tyler. Sixty-three percent don’t voice a yea or a nay on William Henry Harrison. And the “no opinion” rankings go up from there: Franklin Pierce (59 percent), Martin Van Buren (58 percent), Millard Fillmore (56 percent), Zachary Taylor (55 percent), and James K. Polk (52 percent).

In addition to his being slightly less disparaged that Nixon, I guess George W. Bush can rest assured of one other thing: He’s done enough damage to the United States, both at home and abroad, that--unlike Tyler, Harrison, and those others--he’s not likely to be forgotten at any time soon.

READ MORE: “GOP Senators Who Voted for Clinton Impeachment Dead Silent on Libby,” by Bob Geiger.

(Cross-posted at Limbo.)