CNN has an article proclaiming Bush's new low approval ratings. Only a third of surveyed Americans approve of the job he's doing.
As anyone intelligent and altruistic enough to mind interest in matters of State and World has seen, the press is becoming more and more audacious of how they report on the presidency. Whereas the White House was no-man's land on 9-12-2001, it has since fallen from such impromptu grace.
It has finally begun. Bush is beginning to lose his old friends in the media and in Congress. He is becoming an albatross, weightily tressed across the shoulders of every politician and civilian who made the choice to support him. With the liability of acquaintance comes the liability of similarity; both of person and policy. As the public is reminded daily of where such vaunted conservative ideals as those espoused by the Bush White House have brought us, the revulsion will grow until it's near-orgasmic release in the polling booth.
Yes, the election will resemble some twisted peep-show where instead of a bleach-blonde tart, writhing in feigned ecstasy, an incompetent morass of immoral robber barons is marched out for public display. Or, on a line of thought more resembling ipecac, Condoleezza Rice. Americans will flock to the polls that day, stride into the booths, and achieve the release for which they have been yearning so long.
The public has seen the faces of corruption, and they have seen who those faces look to in order to do "business." They have seen the DeLays, the Cunninghams, the Abramoffs, and have found, one and all, where their loyalties lie. It's human nature to understand that smoke begets fire, and that is where the assumptions are leading us: If we find dirty hands, who have they embraced?
We have seen where such "conservative" policies have led us abroad: A world in opposition to our nation. a disaster called Iraq in which we've "turned the corner" so many times, we're clearly lost. A failing hunt for the leader of our enemies.
In solemn addition to our mountainous failures abroad, we have economic and social turmoil at home, families are feeling the sting of a light wallet more and more clearly as they see the numbers at the gas station rise uncontrollably with no sign of stopping; A hee-haw crew of yokels in Congress floating criminalistic immigration policy, prompting marches of hundreds of thousands of protesters in our greatest cities; A slowness in response to the greatest natural disaster in living memory, a slowness which proved fatal to far more souls than any act of God; The most vicious cut of all, the drastic widening of the gap between our most and least wealthy citizens.
The Bush presidency will be remembered as the one that spent too much time campaigning, and not enough time governing. The group of spin doctors on their payroll has poured salt and bile in the cleft between the religious and the secular, the mainstream and the alternative, and the belligerent and benevolent at heart. In 6 brief years, they have managed to fragment our nation to a point not seen since the days of racial segregation.
All in all, it seems tough to see any genuine good from the past 6 years. We've been spurned by our allies, and humiliated by our enemies. In response, we have made faux pas an art form and projected the image of the swaggering, angry drunk in our foreign policy.
As our leaders begin to beat their chests at the new prospect of a war of aggression with yet another sovereign nation, the old spectre of the nuclear mushroom cloud rises from the ashes in which we thought we left it buried. Our war chief's conduct in our current conflict has left us with an oily taste in our palate. Can any of us honestly expect better conduct in a new fight? Can we risk such conduct with the prospect of a second nuclear holocaust weighing against our conscience?
The final chapter in the Bush presidency has yet to be written. Congressional elections are approaching, and only with resounding victories can America begin to cast open the shutters and chase out the shadows. There are one thousand days between now and the scheduled inauguration of the next President. A new Congress can choose to draw this horror story to premature closure. The question before us all is whether we can risk the revealing of this finale, whether we feel our society can survive intact what this presidency may do in order to preserve it's grasp on the reins of power.
Each of us has a single vote, a single mote of ink upon a freshly dipped pen, aimed at the blank pages of the history of the future. How will you choose to write?