Issue #50
Last Update March 24, 2007
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Commentary September 6, 2006 Congressional elections this fall may determine whether our nation survives as a democracy. The Bush administration has shown contempt for the constitution. Whether this contempt stems from a complete lack of understanding of the basic law of this land and its framework for ensuring that we remain a free and democratic people, or merely from an unbridled lust for power, President Bush, Vice President Cheney and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld have attempted to undermine our democratic safeguards in every conceivable way. With both houses of Congress currently in the hands of a Republican majority unwilling to challenge the President at any point, or even to defend the powers and prerogatives of their branch of government, no meaningful investigations of Executive lawlessness have been held. If either house goes Democratic, this may change, a prospect that must fill the Administration with dread. If the polls continue as they are, it is not unreasonable to fear an executive coup to prevent, postpone or subvert the fall elections.
The list of investigations that should have taken place is long:
• The conduct of the 2000 elections
• The failure to heed pre 9/11 warnings of Al Qaeda's intent to attack the US
• The decision to take us into an illegal war in Iraq, and to do it incompetently
• Illegal detention, rendition and torture of foreigners and American citizens
• Illegal domestic spying
• Theft and cronyism, especially in the awarding of Iraq contracts and other Defense Department largesse, and giveaways to energy, pharmaceutical and HMO companies
• The gutting of FEMA and other agencies of the Department of Homeland Security
This list is not exhaustive, merely illustrative. Many of the items contain grounds for impeachment of the President and Vice President. Other actions of the President and the Republican Congress are responsible for the highest deficits in American history, the widening of the income gap between rich and poor, the hollowing out of our military, the complete loss of American moral prestige in the world and the increasing perception that our military might can be countered effectively, the decline of the dollar, a loss of six years in the struggle against global warming, and an interruption in the influx of foreign scientists and engineers on whom we depend for our technological prowess. Without doubt, this has been the most disastrous administration in our history.
With even diehard Republicans becoming disaffected, what are Bush, Cheney and Co. likely to do? I see an escalating series of actions over the next few months: a really dirty campaign in support of Republican candidates (and like-minded Democrats like Joe Lieberman) masterminded by Carl Rove; a louder and louder beating of the war drums to rally and unite Americans against the (take your choice: terrorist, Iranian, North Korean, Syrian) enemy; pressure in swing states with Republican administrations to disenfranchise legal immigrants, poor Hispanics, African-Americans, ex-convicts and anyone else that might vote Democratic (possibly abetted by malfunctions or hacking of Diebold “no audit trail” electronic voting machines); court action to annul or reverse the results of close elections that went against them; and finally, if all else fails, a crisis so severe that the President will “have no choice but to postpone the elections (or the seating of the new House and Senate) in order to preserve democracy”.
Could this last move succeed? Probably not, since making that action stick would require the cooperation of the military, and the military is in no mood to cooperate. Nevertheless, they may try. This bunch has proven to be sore winners; being losers, even sore losers, is not conceivable to them.
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