[Previously posted at Grok Your World by David Caploe.]
Yes, of course, it’s SOMEWHAT heart-warming to see that miserable cur – and his ratty band of cronies – sweat, as their bizarre nomination of Harriet Miers, and the potential indictment of Rove and/or Judy Miller Boy Toy “Scooter” Libby, the on-going Katrina/FEMA debacle etc. etc. etc. bring heat on them from all sides.
But whatever personal joy we might take from this moron’s embarrassing difficulties, we shouldn’t fool ourselves into thinking anything STRUCTURAL has changed …
Bush may be squirming, but the right-wing movement that spawned and covered up for him – until he appointed a gay Chief Justice, and one of his office wives (also rumored to be gay) to join him on the Court – is just as strong as ever …
Indeed, some on the right think they’ll be in BETTER shape by disengaging from the “Dear Leader” / Kim Jong Il cult of personality that Bush has so joyously promoted for himself … an attitude embodied in the – in my view, somewhat bizarre – right-wing rejection of Harriet Miers …
I mean, what do these people want ??? She’s a corporate flunky up the ying-yang AND herself a born-again who goes to a church that has all the standard social-right positions … these would seem to be PERFECT qualifications from their point of view …
And the fact that she’s not distinguished as a constitutional scholar should ALSO make the right happy … after all, they keep braying about how they want justices like Clarence Thomas – whom NO ONE has ever mistaken for Oliver Wendell Holmes …
But for whatever reason, they don’t like her, and they’re mad at Bush … which, again, is great … but also fairly irrelevant …
Why ???
Because, as we have noted a million times, in the age of “right-wing post-modern politics,” the ONLY thing that really matters is THE DISCOURSE – the terms in which issues are discussed, and positions identified …
And in THIS area, the right-wing crazies are as dominant as ever … every issue is put in the terms that THEY find meaningful – even tho, as we have ALSO pointed out –
the misapplied term “conservative” has come to mean nothing more than “whatever we happen to like at the moment” with NO content at all and certainly no consistency and NO relation to what “conservative” actually means …
So people should not kid themselves that Bush’s problems are going to presage some big positive change … because they won’t … indeed, he may try to deal with his mess by sucking up even more to both elements of the corporate / Christian right coalition …
So don’t expect anything great to happen … not least because the pathetic Democrats – like the Social Democrats in Germany in the late 1920s and early 1930s – are so obviously intimidated by a dynamic right-wing movement that has NO interest in “compromise” …
As bad as it’s all been so far since early 2000, I don’t think it’s too much to predict that the worst is yet to come … which is a VERY disturbing thought indeed …