If you haven't caught the March 8 Rolling Stone article, "Post-Bush Syndrome: In Washington, euphoria gives way to a strange emptiness," you should. It's hilarious and dead-on accurate in many ways. For instance, I love this riff by the author, Matt Taibbi, on Republicans trying to "protect the president" from a non-binding resolution on Iraq:
Protect the president? From what? From a fucking nonbinding resolution? Are these people insane? What's next, a "sense of the Senate" vote calling Bush a "meanie"?Probably -- and if the Republicans filibuster that, then the Democrats will get really mad. Maybe they'll hold their breath, or go sit in a corner during recess.
Nice.
Or how about this description of Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky:
One thing that's obvious is that the Bush era is not only dead, it's buried. You could see that easily enough watching the plight of poor Mitch McConnell, the gray-faced Senate minority leader put in charge of rebuffing the Democrats' half-assed anti-war effort.The mumbling Kentucky senator has the tired, semicompetent look of a post-Rommel German field marshal -- a middling, potbellied bureaucrat who happened to be the only guy left to throw at the front after Patton broke through Bastogne. While the early-model Republican leaders of the DeLay-Frist-Hastert genus were all smug, toothy jerks who grinned for the cameras like they'd just written America a big fat ticket for a broken taillight, McConnell carries himself in public like a dour old lady; throw a habit on him and he could easily be the lead in Nunsense. The mere fact that he's the guy rallying the Republican troops these days proves that it's time to stick a fork in the once-terrible Bush machine.
Hehe, very funny. All kidding aside, though, it's an interesting argument that the Bush presidency is basically over, and that everyone's kind of just waiting until 2008 at this point. Which is very unfortunate, because there are a ton of pressing issues that the country needs to deal with, ranging from Iraq to immigration to global warming. Are we just going to kill time until January 2009? Would that even be a smart political strategy for the Democrats, sort of a political "four corners offense" or "rope-a-dope?"
Anyway, the Rolling Stone article goes on in the same vein as the previous quotes, skewering everyone in sight, with a seriously scatalogical comment about Chris Wallace of Fox News that I will not repeat on Raising Kaine. But trust me, it's very funny if you like that kind of humor. Check it out.