There's a crackle in the air. Another shoe about to drop. Something.
Maybe Rove's indictment is about to come down. Or maybe it's just that the long-delayed battle is finally here: the one many of us have known for at least two or three years was coming, the one we thought we were fighting a year ago and appeared to lose, the all-out fight for the sullied soul of our nation. We are fully engaged. Dems are fighting, Repubs are in dissarray; the tension in the White House must be all but unbearable.
And in another sign things are coming to a head, not just in blogland or on cable news but all across the Beltway, Josh Marshall over at TPM has posted probably his most sweeping, pointed, and scathing attack yet on the Bush administration, an attack not just their policies, or on certain high officials (e.g., Dick Cheney); not on the way they do business, merely, or even on their competence; this is a savaging of their right to be where they are at all. It feels to me like an attack on their legitimacy, front and center. (details on the flip)
JM is no stranger to harsh criticism of Bushco. But he is also someone who guards his position at the far liberal end of beltway respectability with a certain amount of caution, and a notable sense of timing. He doesn't vent spleen casually.
Thus I take the contained but seething outrage and deadly quiet tones that conclude his latest post to be an indication of more than just opinions that he has probably held for quite some time. I suggest that we can read here something about where the Dems and the more honest and introspective media elites are now trending:
What we have here is an administration under the sway of men with lawless and authoritarian tendencies. Betraying one of the county's own spies to cover up revelations about dishonest actions in leading the country to war, attempts to squelch the press to hide government policy of supporting torture. These actions are all cut from the same cloth: cover-ups and secrecy to hide lies and dishonorable acts, all backed by force and disregard for the law.
Now it seems Sen. Lott is telling reporters he thinks the leaks came from Republicans, which is at least one more sign that there are a growing number of Republicans more interested in their country's honor than in the Cheney gang's governance by violence and lies.
Let them investigate Republicans, Democrats; let them take it before judges. Whatever. Lies beget coverups which beget more law breaking into a spiralling cycle. The executive is in corrupt hands. Nothing will change till that does.
This and the incredible Sunday morning roundtable that C&J cited earlier today.
....Matthews: Sam, you were [around during] Watergate, I want you to talk about this. They've got kind of a gangrene setting in here. They've got the vice president being touched by this, clearly, because of the indictment language. We've got Scooter Libby gone, basically. Karl Rove still under investigation. Can the president amputate now or has it already gotten to him? Can he separate himself from all this mess by just a couple firings and then move on?
ABC News's Sam Donaldson: No. Because Michelle put her finger on it. The damage to him is that the American people don't trust him anymore. It's a personal character thing. It's not, `This policy doesn't work' or `Gosh, we're going to have high heating oil bills; that's terrible, I don't like that.' It's, `I don't trust you.' You can't repair that by getting rid of X, Y or Z. He's the problem in the minds of a majority of the American people.
Newsweek's Howard Fineman: But he doesn't want to repair it. He doesn't want to repair it.
Matthews: Why?
Fineman: Because George W. Bush is the guy who's going to stick with these people....He's gonna try to fight his way out...
Three more years??
What the hell are we in for, folks?