Translation: Ooops! My bad!

Now Paul, not at all. People from your POV are never going to agree with people of mine on a great many issues, and it didn't make sense for libertarians to favor Democrats for quite some time. (Tho it did make sense not to vote, which I had taken to doing.) What binds us right now is that the things the left (excluding Stalinists and allied types) has always had in common with 'tarians are the most pressing matters du jour -- civil liberties under attack and authoritarian power running amok and beyond control. Not to mention opposition to a neocon war cult.

But we can return to our regularly scheduled disagreements when the immediate crisis has been averted. In the meantime, do you realize that I put you on the frontpage of LGF, albeit Johnson omitted my link to your Altemeyer post?

Well no, na ga happen.

What's "Normal" -- by anyone's definition at this point?

Not to throw cold water on the Celebration (I know, I know, no one is dancing in the streets yet, anyway), but we've been precipitously plunging off a cliff the past however many years -- depending on when you want to start your count -- and we haven't hit bottom yet.

We can see it coming up fast.

But the crack up is yet to come.

And there's no turning back. There is no Normal to return to.

There is only whatever Future we can cobble together out of whatever wreckage remains.

Are we going to restore the Constitution, for example? It doesn't look like it. Not to say it can't happen, but the likelihood is low considering how little is said about it in the Public Square, and how much every branch of government has already acquiesced to the shredding of the Constitution -- and its substitution with Autocracy. Yes, for the moment, this Autocracy is being rejected, but not the concept itself.

A New New Deal would be worth looking into, to try to redress some of the worst aspects of recent income redistribution efforts toward the wealthy, but that's not likely, either, is it? The idea is almost laughable.

How about ending the Iraq Debacle, then? Surely, that's going to happen, yes? I would beg to disagree. There is really no sign at all that our Mesopotamian Satrapy is going to be let go any time this century -- though it may be wrested from us by the Natives with or without the assistance and encouragement of the successors to the Persians and the Ottomans. We know we don't belong there and never did, but our Governing Class cannot -- to save their own skins -- let their Overseas Departments... depart. So. Carnage will continue indefinitely.

Yes, there is a sea change in that the Republican Ascendancy is Done. Period. End of rule by those Overlords. Bush's pathetic mewlings about how "sorry" he is it's come to this are, well, pathetic. And Raging Bull Cheney's pronunciamentos are met with yawns more than even the ridicule and laughter they deserve these days. Stern lectures from the congressional Busheviks and their Media enablers are left to wither.

There are still those who assume the Dems will cave yet again as they "always" do, but we've gotten to this point because they haven't caved since being elected to the majority of both houses of Congress (the Senate, of course, always iffy), and the resolve they've shown in the face of Bushevik and Media assaults is really all that was required to put the catcallers in their place. The fact that the Dems are telling them to STFU (and turn over the documents) -- finally -- is having a tremendous effect, yes, but not to get us back to something "normal" (unless I'm misunderstanding the term), but to move us forward into the frankly Unknown.

We do not know how this is going to turn out. There is much reason for hope, and much reason for dread as well.

From appearances, it looks like the right wing authoritarians are going into full, panicky, screaming retreat. They know something bad has happened to them, they don't understand what it is, and they see they can't stop it. The American People have turned on them Big Time, but they don't know what it means, any more than we do.

What does a Post-Bushevik world look like? How do we undo the damage? Or do we undo it?

Our tendency is to just move on. Leaving the debris of failed experiments to be dealt with eventually -- or not as the case may be -- and coming up with something else again to fill in temporarily, which routinely becomes permanent.

It's more than fair to call the Reagan through Bush II "conservatism" a failed experiment, and yet some of it is bound to continue. The Old New Deal through the Great Society might be characterised as a failed experiment in "liberalism" as well, though parts no doubt will be preserved and continued long after all of us have shuffled off our mortal coil.

The beauty of the American experiment is that though we do fail, repeatedly and sometimes spectacularly, we try to get things right, and -- at least so far -- have been able to move forward no matter what else happens.

But do any of us know what comes after Bushevism?

Don't be a dope.

Bush won't be remembered as anything other than complete failure and the worst President in American history so far.

Prophet? Don't make me laugh.

Nabalzbbfr: "Bush [Jr.] will be seen in hindsight as a great Prophet, who set in motion the forces of freedom and prosperity both here in the US and throughout the world."

Sadly, no. There is not a chance in hell that arrogant prick (or his satanic veep) will ever be remembered fondly by anyone, save a handful of churches in the American midwest and south in which snakes are handled and/or the faithful are wont to speak in tongues.

Junior will be remembered (if at all) as just another failed Texas president who came to office through extraordinarily tragic events and not by the votes of We the People; who lied to ignite a foolish and unnecessary war that turned out very badly; and yet who, unlike LBJ, had no civil rights agenda or other redeeming qualities and lacked even the human decency to step aside when the full magnitude of the disaster became apparent.

In other words, worse than LBJ or Nixon, but perhaps responsible for fewer victims than Attila, Genghis, or Timour. Probably somewhere in the same ballpark as King George III.

Sincerely,

History