I would like to say "who didn't see this coming?" But apparently, the Christian Right with their idol worship of George Bush didn't see this coming. And I knew when Bush was re-elected in 2004 that this would come back to bite him in the ass. He courted the Religious Right the way a slick player in a fancy car and nice threads seduces a woman that doesn't know better and then drops her after he gets what he came for. Now he won't return her phone calls. Poor thing. You thought he was different. But he wasn't. Just like all the others you've gone chasing. Christians have a long history of chasing the "gods" of power, wealth, and influence. Their God is a jealous and angry one which hates these affairs and promises destruction for the sin of idolatry. So no one who watches this should be surprised that these people are feeling about as used as a cheap whore. However, unlike the rest of us who might only have to live down the embarrassment of being fooled, the Christians also have to contend with their none-too-pleased Deity over this whole mess and pray that he'll be forgiving this time. For my part, I prayed that this day would come. Maybe now instead of calls for more worship of the "pastor-in-chief", nutbags like Falwell and Robertson will be calling on their followers to repent and humble themselves. That would be a welcome switch for all of us.

If James Murdoch takes over for his father, FOX news would actually be worth the damn to watch. Maybe this takeover of Congress and the freefall of the Bush Administration might give us our press corp back. I for one will be happy to see loudmouths like Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter relegated to journalistic obscurity and the right-wing noise machine finally SHUT OFF.

Of course, this could all just be wishful thinking on my part.

Just like my fervent hope that we will soon be delivered from this kakistocracy and get our country back. I must hope.

So...

He's admitting that he took bribes but thinks that's old news?

On to more relevant scandals, is that it?

Sorry, Congressman. You're going to have to look at this a little more closely since your next seat may well be in federal prison.

Diane S. is entirely correct. But the sudden love-in with Bush 41 is, if I may say, somewhat misplaced. George H. W. Bush was, in a word, disastrous for the country over his single term. It took nearly the entire first term of President Clinton to set the country right again economically. Bush the elder was a moderate by comparison to the younger Bush, but no one should think that his policies were any better for the country than any standard issue Republican policy is. The deck is always stacked with the GOP. In this case, it's obvious and it's worse by several degrees with the junior Bush. He is not even a real "conservative". He is a naked, brazen radical who lusts for power for its own sake, and the current GOP is now twisted into something that is wholly and irredeemably corrupt. The 41s are cut invariably from the same cloth and that's why they were silent all these years. Nothing matters but power, and the lengths they will go to have it and maintain it. Power trumps all. Country, truth, the rule of law are but collateral damage. No one should forget that. The only thing Bush 41 got right was policy relative to Iraq. Bush 43 however, has screwed up EVERYTHING. Bush 41 was bad. Bush 43 is worse than bad, possibly worse than worse. No one should look at 41's term as "the good old days", because they were not.

Someone shared a line recently from Ron Suskind's book about the hubris of the Bush Administration. Summarized, the line said that hubris is, among other things, a loss of perspective, a buiding up of oneself on such shaky claims that even the slightest questioning is an affront to the fragile construct that's been built. It's a fundamentally weak position. Now that's been proven true given the desperate tactics being used by the GOP. In my state of MA, where a Democrat is running possibly the strongest campaign for governor that we've seen in years, the Republican incumbent is trying to bash him as "soft on crime". And it isn't working. He has a double digit lead in the polls, and the experts are saying it's his race to lose. I just read that the incumbent has taken to harrassing prospective voters by phone. If that's not desperate and a sign of the ignominious failure of the GOP's whole worldview and approach to governing, I don't know what is. Then we have the president himself, unbowed, defiant as ever, insisting that Clinton's policy on N. Korea didn't work (as opposed to his that's working like a broken Swiss watch), and looking like Capt. Ahab in the process. In less than a month, if current trends hold, we'll see the denouement of this latest battle for our American soul end with a triumph of reason and sanity. And I will be the first to cheer.

Note to the Shrub: the whale won.