We've all seen "Part I" of "A Nightmare on Pennsylvania Avenue" -- it's only now winding down its second release. An unlikely pair of politicos and their powerful supporters swept into power on the wings of prayers, and all hell breaks loose, resulting in the most elaborately produced nightmare that the citizens of this nation and the world have ever seen. The Reich-wingers have been ecstatic; the "director's cut" re-release, in 2004, had them swooning in the streets, until the damn critics finally started showing up and giving their reviews.
Now, after a brief hiatus and a writer's strike, it appears as though the production studio for this flick has collapsed -- but a rival company has picked up the option and is reinventing the premise: now, two powerful figures from the opposition party stand ready to take up residence, and the Right is going into conniptions in anxious dread and trepidation...
Step back for a moment, now, and consider this: Many pundits and loyalists of both the Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama campaigns have said it could never happen, alternating between "it would be a good idea, but too much negativity has tainted the potential" to "it's a lousy idea and here's why" -- but I've got an angle that might just circumvent those arguments.
Yes, I'm talking about the possibility that, should Obama win the nomination, there could be an Obama-Clinton ticket. It would have a strong chance of winning, and the fight by the right to stop it would be unlike anything ever seen before. The wailing and gnashing of teeth alone would be worth the price of admission and popcorn.
Why?
Two words: fourth branch.
After seven years of the most corrupt WH Administration in history, six years of total control of the Executive Branch and Congress by Republicans, massive manipulation and subversion of the Department of Justice and the judiciary and repeatedly unjustifiable, un-Constitutional and outright blatantly bald-faced arrogant power grabs by the Presidency, we have seen two things which, alone, may make it possible to clean up this mess and defuse the majority of the damage to our nation within one single term, paving the way for a second and far more progressive term:
- The complete and utter failure of conservatism, of conservative ideology and political philosophy, of conservative rhetoric and of conservative lies; and
- the unchallenged, unparalleled and uniquely twisted justifications of a WH gone mad in the attempts to thwart oversight and accountability by hook and crook, resulting in the elevation and inscrutability of the Office of the Vice Presidency.
There are many on the radical right and in conservative circles who are already flailing madly at the thought of a brown-skinned progressive man sitting in the office of the Presidency. They haven't yet appeared to realize what that office, under seven years of their own mismanagement, is now capable of. It's an office wildly unbalanced against the other aspects of government, with very little to rein it in after the BushCheney machine finished ironing out all those pesky little potential power-throttling things called "checks and balances" through their Unitary Executive theory and the expansion of the "Commander in Chief" premise.
The Presidency is now bloated with nearly unchecked power, and Congress has not been in the habit of questioning any of that to any degree of success. If Obama takes the Presidency and the Democrats sweep into a much stronger majority, there will be little that the Republicans will be able to do to thwart proper investigation and the resumption of the rule of law. That alone should be frightening -- and it's not even the scary bit.
The scariest bit for some of them would be the return of a Clinton to the White House, in any capacity.
Hillary, even as a Vice President, would be a blow to their massively unbalanced and emotionally overwrought twisted little minds.
But there's something even more deliciously sinister to it, folks.
Under the BushCheney Administration, Cheney's method of operating has successfully thwarted oversight by Congress and accountability by all, while garnering more unchecked power for the office of the Vice President and enabling it to, in some ways, more fully complement the Presidency -- and perhaps, to a degree, act with even more power and impunity.
Fourth-branch.
Hillary Clinton, in a powerful role as re-defined by Dick Cheney and operating from an undisclosed location, able to operate in stealth and unaccountable to the vultures who would stalk her -- that, friends and fellow citizens, will make their blood run cold and their bodies break out in sheets of freezing sweat.
The piece de resistance, of course, would be the waning hours of the 2008 election night, if Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton sweep the nation. Obama would make his speech, and the crowds would do what they typically do - go wild, this time with even more reason for happiness and the added boost of well-balanced citizens the world over happy that two potent and powerful progressive forces would take the reins and start cleaning up after the disastrous BushCheney fiasco.
And then Clinton would take the stage to make a speech.
She could afford to lower her head slightly and wear a knowing smirk, a signal to us all that she "gets it" and is about to set off the wailing and gnashing of teeth among the rabid radicals who's almost successfully destroyed our nation.
She would lean forward as a hush fell over the room, and speak the words that would live in the annals of history forever:
"By the power of Fourth-Branch, I am the power!"
And there'd be a mighty crash of lightning, and the earth would lurch as reality suddenly slid back into place; the BushCheney pundits and Reich-wing lunatics would suddenly pale, quiver and quake. Their nightmare -- their worst nightmare -- had just begun.
Truth, justice and the rejection of every last bit of their corrupt fantasies would reign in the United States of America, and the twisted ideals of the "compassionate conservatives" would be finally, fully exposed for all to see.
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