The theme du jour on Pumpkinhead's Sunday morning show (two days after a laconic Bush mumbled something about Libby's "great service" and then made a beeline for the getaway chopper like he was in a Chuck Norris movie on late night TV instead of the leader of the free world) referenced previous presidential mea culpas as a way for scandal ridden administrations to stop the bleeding, and suggested that the First Chimp might likewise benefit politically from publicly uttering the S-word. Now, the only person I've ever seen (over the age of 5) with a bigger aversion to saying "I'm sorry" would have to be The Fonz ("I'm sssss... I'm sss ss ssss ss... I'm ssssssssss ss sss sssssss... you know"); however, in this degenerating situation of public approval it is possible that one of the Chimp's trainers will teach him this difficult trick at some point, and when that happens you know that faster than a battered wife in a trailer court a certain percentage of American swing voters will forgive him and his poll numbers will start to climb back out of the cellar.
(more on the flip)
How do we prevent that from happening? We need a visible protest movement set up outside the White House demanding an apology for the illegal and unethical actions of this administration. We need them to be there continuously, like Cindy Sheehan in Crawford. Each day they are there it will not only draw attention to the fact that the president has not yet apologized,
it will also make it just about impossible for him to apologize in the future because it would seem like he was caving in to pressure from the protesters.
Bush wouldn't be able to fucking stand that! He's such an egomaniac that he would rather see his whole presidency crash and burn than do that, just like a little kid who would rather not get any ice cream than apologize to his sister! Everybody says that Bush would have been better off if he had just met with Cindy Sheehan the first day she arrived in Crawford; no one would have ever remembered her name. But the little baby couldn't bring himself to do it and so a whole peace movement was born from one woman's campsite.
I would add that the protesters should stick to only this one subject, and it should be very solemn and demure - no screaming or chanting slogans. The reason that Cindy Sheehan was so successful, the reason her story resonated so well with average Americans was precisely because she was so quiet and respectful and polite in her style. It made people empathize with her and it also made it impossible for any credible person to criticize her. It is crucial to our success that demands for a Bush apology follow the model of Cindy Sheehan's crusade; if not, the wingnut media will portray the protesters as a bunch of anarchist sodomite baby-cannibals.