The injection of machismo from the Karen Hughes emergency political medicine bag is not working. The President talks tough at a news conference, grimaces from the Oval, and whisks Vice President Cheney back from his Iraq photo opps to snarl. But the rip in the primary blood vessel of the Bush Administration - the one that traces American fear after 9/11 to make its infectious course through our body politic - is growing wider, and the killer stroke is taking its inevitable and tragic course.
The more the crooked and corrupt heart beats, the faster it pumps, the more oxygen it drains from the dying brain of this worst of American presidencies, the more blood spills uselessly upon the remains of justification, and decency, and legitimacy. Signs that, although it began with just a slight paralysis, a hitch in the step, the Bush Embolism grows (I'll note silence from the conservative libertarians who normally post comments on this blog) and this scandal of spying on Americans without the benefit of law or court is a death sentence:
- George Will tightens the strangling, bowtie noose on the leader of the party he loves.
- Noted lefty soft-shoe specialist Bob Barr hurls his worst at the leader of his own party: "The American people are going to have to say, 'Enough of this business of justifying everything as necessary for the war on terror.'"
- The more moderate Republicans are united. Here's Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania via Reuters today: "I have grave doubts as to its applicability ... they raise very fundamental questions ... about privacy and the Bill of Rights."
There will be hearings. This tear in the artery wall is growing rapidly, and I don't think there's a chance of closing it now. Especially as it begins to leak the names of the groups the Bush Administration considered threats capable of "another September the 11th." So far, that enemies list includes PETA, a Catholic workers group, and some rabid environmentalists. Finally, Bush has lost even security jock Jonathan Alter - go read his jagged Newsweek stab-wound and see if you can't see the gathering pool of blood on the snow.
UPDATE: Hell knows no fury like a justice scorned, or so my lawyer friends tell me anyway. So now the secret court that administers FISA is incensed over Bush's illegal end-run, and it seems like these judges ain't a gonna take it lying down.
from Amazon.
