To paraphrase Philip Larkin, they may not want to, but they will. Bush version 2.2 has -- not unexpectedly -- overreached badly, and with a little help from the weather, seems to have blotted its copybook at least as thoroughly as version 1.0 (the "read my lips" release). The Democrats are of course all dead men walking, plus a few women, but come '08 they will look no more dead than the Republicans. It will be "their turn" again, as their slogan in '92 so self-revealingly ran, and to them will fall the honor of hauling down the flag in Iraq, explaining the bust of the insanely overheated housing market, and very likely rationing gasoline.
Contemplating this prospect, the Republicans may find it easier to reconcile themselves to a little R&R in opposition.
After all, they have pretty much accomplished everything they really wanted to do. The lineaments of the police state are firmly in place. Taxation of the rich is derisory, social spending even more so, and the Holy Inquisition of intellectual-property enforcement is poised to insert a tendril into every laptop and iPod. Why not take a well-deserved break?
The original Hunger Chancellor, Heinrich Bruning, reminds me a lot of, well, Hillary Clinton. Like Hillary, he was the quintessential liberal: a pious, moral, diligent man, deeply respectful of institutions, possessed of a certain pallid sympathy for the downtrodden but quite unable to see the world from their angle. Like Hillary's hubby, Bruning was obsessed with balancing the budget. And, of course -- just to close the circle -- the Social Democrats supported him, holding their noses no doubt, as the "lesser evil."
but can they be stopped
we must run a plausible peace nik
and split the vote
giving
the likes
of
that manchurian munchkin
johnny boy McCain
the keys to the oval office
the 08
fix must be un fixed
above all
we need a whig shattered
donkeekong
and hey
6 more years
of full diameter
elephant plops would be nice too