John Kerry has managed to underperform George Bush, XLIII, academically, aeronautically, and electorally. So, it's no surprise that, whatever jokes history tells on XLIII, Kerry's won't be among them. Cheney's on Kerry--"First he was for the joke, then he was against it"--was better than Cheney meant it to be. But, as the saying goes, who laughs last, laughs best. The Democrats are odds-on favorites to recapture the US House of Representatives on Tuesday. Who'll be laughing then?
It won't be you and me.
The polls indicate that the populace is ready to put in some Democrats because Democrats are assumed to be able to extricate the US from Iraq.
Wrong.
With a brilliant head-fake two weeks ago, XLIII disavowed his former rallying-cry, "Stay the course!" The credulous (including this blogger) assumed that James Baker III, consigliere to La Cosa Bushtra, had shouldered Karl Rove aside and dictated political policy for the impending midterm elections. But since then XLIII has made it as clear as only he can that he, as Commander-in-Chief of the "unitary executive," intends to make no changes in Iraq or Middle East policy between now and when he leaves office on January 20, 2009 (yes, when--not if, yet...). From the yellow carpet on the Oval Office floor to the original Rumsfeld on the wall, everything stays--redecorating is for the faint-of-heart.
Sidney Blumenthal, for OpenDemocracy, explains that Baker is on the verge of being chumped, like Colin Powell and Condi Rice. But won't a Democratic House give Baker the whip-hand? Karen Tumulty and Mike White write for Time (Oct. 29):
If lame-duck Presidents are to achieve anything, they often have to look for ways to go around Congress, especially when it is in the hands of the other party....White House press secretary Tony Snow [quotes Bush:] "He told all of us, 'Put on your track shoes. We're going to run to the finish,'" Snow said. "He's going to be aggressive on a lot of fronts. He's been calling all his Cabinet secretaries and telling them, 'You tell me administratively everything you can do between now and the end of the presidency. I want to see your to-do list and how you expect to do it.' We're going to try to be as ambitious and bold as we can possibly be."
In other words, expect the signing statements, agency regulations, and executive orders to fly like cherry blossoms in two May breezes. Tumulty and White:
[W]hen it comes to deploying its Executive power, which is dear to Bush's understanding of the presidency, the President's team has been planning for what one strategist describes as "a cataclysmic fight to the death" over the balance between Congress and the White House if confronted with congressional subpoenas it deems inappropriate. The strategist says the Bush team is "going to assert that power, and they're going to fight it all the way to the Supreme Court on every issue, every time, no compromise, no discussion, no negotiation."
And why not, with Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito safely confirmed? Tumulty and White continue:
some clarity on Iraq may come after the elections, when Bush receives a much anticipated report from the Iraq Study Group, the commission headed by former Secretary of State James Baker (Jimmy, as the President calls the longtime family consigliere) and Lee Hamilton, vice chairman of the 9/11 commission. Administration officials say they expect the report no sooner than December, and they hope it includes recommendations they can embrace rather than a menu of options that would put the ball back in their court [ed.--emphasis added].
Baker has said he wants the panel of Republicans and Democrats to come to a consensus--which has some Administration officials skeptical about how much clarity will emerge. "I welcome all these efforts," Bush said at his news conference. "My Administration will carefully consider any proposal that will help us achieve victory." That gives Bush a lot of leeway for a real course correction without saying--perhaps even knowing--what is to come from the Baker-Hamilton group. A senior Administration official says, "The only things we've ruled out are getting out immediately, phased withdrawal without any reference to events on the ground and partitioning the country into three parts. Those are all nonstarters." That's a very narrow [sic] range of exceptions; even the Democrats, by and large, aren't advocating those approaches [ed.--Oh?].
If, as Blumenthal has concluded, "now, it's Baker's move," then indeed the ball (a/k/a unwelcome punchbowl garnish) remains outside of XVIII's court. Pelosi's House Democrats will field it at their peril. Finally, Tumulty and White relate the following:
[Film] producer Alexandra Pelosi--who, as it happens, is the daughter of the woman who has the most to gain in these elections [sic]--tells of being invited to Bush's private compartment on his campaign plane when she was having a low moment.
[Ed.--AIDE: Mr. President, I have a Mr. Baker on the line, and Representative Pelosi's daughter is out here in the corridor having a low moment. POTUS: Tell Jimmy I'll get back to him.]
"They can say what they want about me," she remembered him saying, "but at least I know who I am, and I know who my friends are."
The rest of us know who we are, too. And that we are not his friends.
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