Hubris

Don't national leaders read Shakespeare any longer? Do they never worry about Nemesis?

I have spent the last six years on a see-saw. One side is "the world is going to hell in a hand basket and the people in power don't care" and the other side is "you can't fool all of the people all of the time". One side up, I watch this horrible war and the erosion of the Constitution and the loss of civility in our country and our country's loss of international respect and people listening to the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly and people like Alberto Gonzales and Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld and G.W. Bush occupying positions of power and despair of what world we are leaving our grandchildren.

Other side up and I celebrate all of the liberal bloggers and internet news sources, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and Keith Olbermann, who see what is happening and are not afraid to say it. I see that some of the scum are being driven from office. and I have hope that the American people are seeing what is happening and will act to stop it.

Part of the problem with trying to maintain optimism is that, although Mussolini was hung and Hitler shot himself, before they came to their bad ends, they did more harm than can ever be calculated. The thought of just how much harm can be done by our current authoritarian leaders is truly frightening.

In that one up position on the see saw, I look at how rapidly things are unraveling at present. One scandal after another, with barely enough time to catch my breath. Some of these things we have been reading about, from Echidne to Salon.com, for years now. As they hit the main stream media, people who get their news in more traditional ways are finally seeing. (Of course, those people who rely on Fox News still aren't getting the truth, but you can fool some of the people all of the time, after all.)

Scooter Libby, and the not-so-surprising evidence that outing Valerie Plame came from the White House and that this administration is more interested in punishing critics than in protecting the country. Building 18, and the awareness that the White House doesn't care enough about the troops to equip or train them properly before sending them into their fourth or fifth rotation, and it doesn't care enough about them to house the wounded in vermin free quarters. The announcement that the new pumps put into New Orleans didn't work when they were installed last year and still haven't been repaired. (And how, I ask, do we have newly manufactured pumps that need repair?) Plans for Halliburton to gather together its ill gotten gains and move operations to Dubai, where they will no longer have to even pretend to pay taxes or follow regulations but will continue to overcharge and under produce on no-bid contracts.

The firing of the US Attorneys, allowing us to see exactly how politicized the Justice Department has been. As if Alberto Gonzales deciding that the Geneva Conventions are quaint, that it isn't torture unless it feels like you are dying or your organs are failing, that the Constitution is wrong and we don't have checks and balances but rather a unitary presidency, that the Constitution doesn't guarantee the right of Habeas Corpus isn't enough, he now fires US Attorneys with excellent performance evaluations who either don't investigate enough Democrats, don't leak to the press that they are investigating Democrats, or do too good a job investigating Republicans.

People thought we were conspiracy theorists when we believed that the GOP has been stealing elections since at least 2000 and were concerned about the 2006 election might be next. And now we find out that purging voter lists and not supplying enough voting machines to Democratic districts and redistricting Texas to create more GOP House seats and pushing through laws to require picture ID to vote in states where many Democrats (such as tribal elders) don't drive and would be gravely pressed to obtain a picture ID and voting machines that are manufactured by GOP supporters and are simplicity itself to hack and have no paper trail is not the end of it. Harriet Meir* Karl Rove wanted to fire 93 Republican US Attorneys and replace them with men who would be more willing to investigate Democrats and leak about it right before elections. Alberto Gonzales settled for eight.

It is amazing just how far into the muck that hubris will drag a person. The idea that he is above the law and somehow special and entitled to do and take what he wants has led Bush into an amazing path of self destruction. Finally, Nemesis looms over his shoulder and may just take him down.

So, enjoy. I'm getting off my see saw, modeling my behavior on The Man With No Name and pulling up a chair on the boardwalk in front of the saloon, and watching the show.

* Let no one say I allow a fall gal to stay a fall gal when I learn better.