On Gutlessness

Here are three paragraphs from an A-3 article in today's Washington Post by Peter Baker. The first is paragraph 3, the second paragraph 6, the third is the third from the end:

In a second term marked by one setback after another, the White House was in the midst of a rebuilding effort aimed at a political comeback before November's critical midterm elections. Now the president faces the challenge of responding to events that seem to be spinning out of control again, all but sidelining his domestic agenda for the moment and complicating his effort to rally the world to stop nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea.

- - - -

Bush advisers who have been buffeted in the past year by a catastrophic hurricane, rising gasoline prices, a failed Social Security initiative, Republican revolts, criminal investigations and a relentless overseas war said they have grown accustomed to constant crisis. "This is a new normal for our administration in the last couple years," said one senior official. "You begin to expect the unexpected."

- - - -

The White House sees the risk but is banking, in part, on the Democrats' history of not capitalizing on such moments. Bush advisers point to 2004, when the situation in Iraq appeared particularly dire, and yet the president won reelection and Republicans retained both houses of Congress.

Rove's strategy is clear: Screw up the world as badly as humanly imaginable and wait for the Democrats to say nothing! Then accuse them of spinelessness, of having no ideas, no fortitude, no stomach for battle, of not being willing to defend their own ideals (such as they are) and therefore not being willing to defend America in a time of global crisis. Imagine how craven Democrats would be if Bushco only half screwed up the world.

Except for the inconvenience of screwing the world up as humanly imaginable, it's a perfectly reasonable, perfectly successful strategy. If the Democrats cannot make significant gains based solely on the Fvcktard-in-Chief's performance - if they won't muster the guts to say what needs to be said, regardless of the political fallout - then they neither deserve power nor escape culpability for the results of the Fvcktard-in-Chief's performance. They are cowards.

UPDATE:

Tristero at Hullabaloo

Sargent at Prospect

Drum, whose post points to something I'm going to write about: when Hezbollah and Al-Q put aside their wetdreams of killing each other to compete against each other in killing us, that's some mighty wicked shit.

And especially Bowers at MyDD - the point being, move to anger, don't move to whatever position the tools tell you the twister arrow is pointing at.