I hope you're right. But consider these two factors:

The clock is running out.

The Dems in Congress haven't even impeached Gonzo, and he's definitely "easy meat."

I saw at least one reference to the possibility that Rove et al are controlling members of Congress (including Republicans) through blackmail. I suspect that this is a significant contributing factor to the lock on power now held by Rove et al. Remember the Foley page scandal? Why didn't that scandal blow the roof off of Congress? Why was the fallout, while real and substantial, limited in scope? There were signs that Rove knew all about Foley long before the matter hit the media, yet no one ever investigated that possibility, as far as we know. My suspicion is that there was a great deal of repulsive conduct by members of Congress that never was mentioned in the media (I include in the definition of repulsive conduct knowing about Foley-like behavioral problems and not blowing the whistle.) People like Rove could have easily used their knowledge of such conduct to control the behavior of certain members of Congress to prevent the scandal from doing more damage to the Republicans than it did.

Anyone remember Strom Thurmond and his secret love child? How often do you think J. Edgar Hoover used the existence of that child to control the behavior of Thurmond?

But blackmail is just one tool these power freaks use to keep their lock on power. Corrupting the Department of Justice and US Attorneys is particularly pernicious. Then they try to dress up their power grab by devising and publicly espousing their legal "theories", theories which would have received a failing grade in any respectable law school at the time I attended law school.

The theory that the President can do whatever he damn well pleases, the Congress and the Courts be damned, is an anathema to our form of government. But the only way to prevent this theory from becoming a reality right now is to confront Bush. Congress has to lead the way. The Courts only rule on cases brought before them. And even then the rules of "standing" keep courts from issuing rulings in certain suits brought by individuals, as the recent 6th Circuit ruling illustrates. Congress must push back, firmly. Congress must lead the way.

Others must also play their part in confronting Bush, in a non-violent manner. Cindy Sheehan, when she first became a household word, effectively confronted Bush for quite a while. (I stopped paying much attention to her after she cozied up to Hugo Chavez.)

Why is effective (non-violent) confrontation by many different people and institutions so important? Because people need to understand that they have a personal stake in what is going on. Many people in the US don't understand (sometimes as the result of wilfull blindness, mind you, but certainly not always) what is at stake for them. The more people who confront Rove et al, the greater the chances that people will understand what is at stake.

One reason why Rove et al have been so effective in the past is that they make things personal to many people, often through the use of fear (one example among many: Chertoff's infamous "gut feeling").

Even though lots of people don't like Bush or his policies, they can't (or refuse to) conceptualize how Bush and his policies are going to adversely affect themselves. They feel they will be sufficiently well off even if Bush keeps pursuing the courses of action he is presently pursuing. Find a way to change that perception. Bush, Cheney and their minions will then be removed from power.

just like Chavez

sounds like these guys have been paying attention to Venezuela and decide "why not us too?"

-- Glenn A.

Because anyone who was paying attention to the true story, instead of the false one, could never come to this conclusion. Greg Palast was in Caracas at the time and he has been writing about this since 2003, as have many others. I don't care what Chavez' politics are. If he was an authoritarian dictator I would not support him. But he isn't. It's bullshit. But you should read the whole article. This is only an excerpt.

http://www.alternet.org/story/16255/?page=2

... For five centuries, Venezuela has been run by a minority of very white people, pure-blood descendants of the Spanish conquistadors. To most of the 80 percent of Venezuelans who are brown, Hugo Chavez is their Nelson Mandela, the man who will smash the economic and social apartheid that has kept the dark-skinned millions stacked in cardboard houses in the hills above Caracas while the whites live in high-rise splendor in the city center. Chavez, as one white Caracas reporter told me with a sneer, gives them bricks and milk, and so they vote for him.

Why am I explaining the basics of Venezuela to you? If you watched BBC TV, or Canadian Broadcasting, you'd know all this stuff. But if you read the New York Times, you'll only know that President Chavez is an "autocrat," a "ruinous demagogue," and a "would-be dictator," who resigned when he recognized his unpopularity.

Odd phrasings -- "dictator" and "autocrat" -- to describe Chavez, who was elected by a landslide majority (56 percent) of the voters. Unlike our President.

On April 12, 2002, Chavez resigned his presidency It said so, right there in the paper -- every major newspaper in the USA, every single one. Apparently, to quote the New York Times, Chavez recognized that he was unpopular, his time was up: "With yesterday's resignation of President Hugo Chavez, Venezuelan democracy is no longer threatened by a would-be dictator."

Problem was, the "resignation" story was a fabulous fib, a phantasmagoric fabrication. In fact, the President of Venezuela had been kidnapped at gunpoint and bundled off by helicopter from the presidential palace. He had not resigned; he never resigned; and one of his captors (who secretly supported Chavez) gave him a cell-phone from which he called and confirmed to friends and family that he remained alive -- and still president.

Working for the Guardian and the BBC, I was able within hours of the kidnapping to reach key government people in Venezuela to confirm that this "resignation" factoid was just hoodoo nonsense.

But it was valuable nonsense to the U.S. State Department. The faux resignation gave the new U.S.-government-endorsed Venezuelan leaders the pretense of legitimacy -- Chavez had resigned; this was a legal change of government, not a coup d'etat. (The Organization of American States bars recognition of governments who come to power through violence.) Had the coup leaders not bungled their operation -- the coup collapsed within 48 hours -- or if they had murdered Chavez, we would never have known the truth.

The U.S. papers got it dead wrong -- but how? Who was the source of this "resignation" lie? I asked a U.S. reporter why American news media had reported this nonsense as stone fact without checking. The reply was that it came from a reliable source: "We got it from the State Department."

Oh.

"He's crazy," shouts a protester about President Chavez on one broadcast. And if you watched the 60 Minutes interview with Chavez, you saw a snippet of a lengthy conversation -- a few selective seconds, actually -- which, out of context, did made Chavez look loony.

In the old Soviet Union, dissidents were packed off to insane asylums to silence and discredit them. In our democracy we have a more subtle -- and more effective -- means of silencing and discrediting dissidents. Television, radio, and print press obligingly sequester enemies of the state in the media's madhouse. In this way, Bush critic Rep. Cynthia McKinney became "loony" (see "The Screwing of Cynthia McKinney"); Chavez a mad "autocrat."

It's the electronic loony bin. You no longer hear what they have to say because you've been told by images, by repetition, and you've already dismissed their words ... if by some chance their words break through the television Berlin Wall.

Try it: Do a Google or Lexis search on the words Chavez and autocrat.

For who is the autocrat? Today, there are hundreds of people held in detention without charges in George Bush's United States. In Venezuela, there are none.

This is not about Venezuela but about the Virtual Venezuela, created for you by America's news wardens. The escape routes are guarded.