No Bailout for Bozo

(to the tune of "What Now My Love?")

What now my Prez,

Now that they've spurned you,

How can you lead

for another day?

What now my Prez,

Now that they've burned you,

Are you toast

In the USA?

George Walker Bush adds yet another distinctive PR (Presidential Record) to his astonishing list: the single largest single-day drop in the history of the Dow Jones Average - over 777 points. Sure, before he had already been the first president ever to institutionalize torture of human beings as official U.S. policy; the first to launch an all-out invasion on information that was one hundred percent wrong in every particular (that's the one I still think of as his Sistine Chapel ceiling); the first to forgive one of his own operatives for blowing the cover of one of our spies, even after the aide had been convicted of several felonies; the first to let an American city drown; the first to arrest, detain and deprive of all Constitutional rights American citizens apprehended right here on American soil; the first to run a concentration camp offshore so that foreign combatants could be tried unfairly; the first to knowingly and intentionally, even proudly, violate the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and the Fourth Amendment against his own citizenry; the first to suspend habeas corpus other than in a time of war; and so very much more.

Yet some wondered if maybe Bush had lost his touch.  There was Robert Gates, who seemed kind of reasonable; the tentative deal with North Korea, even though it's now sort of eroded; a better job with Gustav and Ike than with Katrina.  Rumors circulated that maybe he was inching his way up toward mediocrity.

My own faith in W never wavered.  I knew he still had it in him, that innate capacity to fail, not only spectacularly, but in ways previously unimagined.  It's what makes him special.  He can screw the pooch even when the pooch doesn't seem like a pooch at all, but some other kind of weird species, screwing up even when his technique doesn't look much like screwing. That's how unique Bush is. This time around he lost his bail-out because the Republican Party in the House took a position diametrically opposed to his.  By a two-to-one margin.

Stunning.  Awesome.  Unforgettable.  Of course, one sad thought that occurs to me as I watch the Republican dissidents carried to victory on the shoulders of the Common Men and Women of the American hinterland.  What if the Democratic Party, at some point in the last two years, had ever found the inner strength, the personal resources, to tell Bush what to do with his Iraq War? They could have had their moment in the sun, and one that didn't run the risk of ushering us into Great Depression II.  Then I reflect, how probable was that under the anemic leadership of La Diva & Mr. Mumbles?  Not very, I guess.

But as for Bush: I still think he can do it.  Bankrupt the country and lead us into an economic abyss.  He doesn't have much time, but he's got something more important.  Talent.  A God-given gift.  I feel it, I guess, in my gut.