Accidents

I certainly don't hold to any supernaturalist views of history and determination, viewing the world situation of today, as Vonnegut would put it, as the result of a series of accidents. But were I apt to credit an unseen force I would certainly believe that the Prime Mover is doing his/her best to embarrass the Republicans and provide the Democrats with sufficient fodder to make a resurgence in popularity, if only as the alternative to an endless stream of apparent secretiveness and low-and-high level corruption.

The Dick Cheney/Harry Whittington shooting derby is the latest in a string of Republican mishaps and miscalculations, and has yet to be fully digested by the press and the public, as Whittington has had a health setback that indicates the shooting could shorten his life, if not quickly stifle it. When a 78-year old person is peppered with hundreds of little metal pellets, some of which enter the bloodstream, the possibilities of one of them strafing the heart (as has happened), or clogging an already occluded blood vessel and causing a stroke, are surely potentially lethal. Whittington seemed healthy at first (but so did Reagan after he was shot), which allowed for the pundits to crack wise all over the world. Now that the jollies are out, we may have to face the potential for a Vice President to be tried for involuntary manslaughter. Try as they might, the White House flaks have no way to spin this story to their advantage, and Cheney being so Darth Vaderlike a figure, the media is not likely to let it go, even if Whittington recovers.

The best possible eventuality here--and I'm not going to root for anyone's demise, even if it is a fatcat Texas lawyer, not my favorite species--is that Cheney's embarassment is so great that he decides to resign. That is about as likely, though, as Whittington rising from his hospital bed and competing in the men's luge. After all, Cheney is the de facto president, the architect of our foreign policy, and Bush would be flailing without his so-called guidance. On the other hand, if Bush had the chance to name a new Vice President, he might do his party's prospects good by selecting someone who could actually run for President in 2008 from a position of strength. He could even name Jeb.

For now, though, the Republicans are facing a very troubling year having to deflect accusations of misuse of power and downright incompetence. If David Letterman's writers were to concoct a top-ten list of Republican woes, it could be reduced to a simple roster of ten names--Bush, Cheney, Rove, Delay, Frist, Abramoff, Brownie, Chertoff, Katrina and Libby. Not a lot of positive spin to work with, unless, like so many Evangelicals, one believes that Bush and his disciples are messengers of God. But even they would be hard-pressed not to see this as God testing us, rather than helping.

So with all this ammunition you'd think the Democrats would be dancing in the streets like peasants in a Breugel painting. But there's not a lot of noise yet, and the second a cry of dismay emerges, it is rendered a scream of stridency by the Fox News people. Nobody really listens to Kerry or Kennedy anymore; Gore is a loser, despite his plurality; Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton are harpies; and Howard Dean still has a hoarse voice from his indelicate cheerleading. On top of that, Democratic senate leader Harry Reid has had dealings with Abramoff (as I'm certain a lot of Democrats have, though not to the extent of the majority party), so partisian attacks there would be certain to generate recriminations and revelations of hypocrisy from both sides of the aisle (which I'm shocked, shocked, to discover).

It seems we'll have a stalemate this year, with Republican incompetence balancing Democratic communication ineptitude. It would be hard to imagine the Dems won't make some gains in the mid-term elections, since there is nothing forseeable in the next six months that would be very advantageous to the Republican cause, and the scandals are more than likely to widen. But unless voters are willing to, fairly or not, ascribe the sins of their party leaders to their indivdual congresspersons, there's not likely to be any change in our national power structure.