Depressing Politics

Alberto Gonzales "testified" at the Senate today, with Senators of both parties not even bothering to imply that he is a serial liar and/or incompetent on important matters and functions of his office as Attorney General--they just said it outright. President Bush is at all time lows in national polls--25% approval in one. Yet he gave a long speech today demonizing his enemies and asserting his Iraq war policy, with administration suggesting that it could well go on to at least 2009.

Nevertheless, Gonzales is intent on remaining Attorney General of the U.S., and Bush retains all the powers of the Presidency. And there's not a damn thing anybody is doing about any of it. Though the talk about impeaching all of them--Bush, Cheney and Gonzales--is increasing, it is still just talk.

Apart from present miseries and outrages, what does this say about the future? That a virtual dictator can succeed in the U.S. Everyone but a few fringe characters are counting on Bush and Cheney being gone when their term expires, and they probably will leave. But the next time? I wouldn't count on it. Nixon pushed the powers of the executive so far and was pushed back, but not all the way. Reagan pushed them further. Bush II has pushed them beyond what anyone in previous decades would have believed possible. And so the next elected dictator has not very far to go to negate the last pretense of constitutional democracy, the elections. (As Kurt Vonnegut alluded in his famous quote, Hitler was elected, though it's not clear that Bush ever was.)

The 2008 campaign is also less than inspiring so far. Every time I start warming a little to the idea of Hillary as the Democratic candidate, she or her staff does something else that puts me off big time. Today it's the highly and transparently "political" and otherwise stupid and dishonest criticism of something Barack Obama said in the debate last night. There's no real disagreement--it's pure opportunism, and that's really depressing. Moreover, there's little hope for the future with that kind of politics.