Tethered Swimming

“My mother was a saint.” - Richard Nixon

“Yes, I’m sure she was un-impeachable.” - Jay Sherman

Exactly two years ago, on 26 August 2005 (three days before Katrina hit New Orleans), I wrote an e-mail to a friend of mine in which I laid out my reasons for believing that Bush the Younger would be impeached and removed from office prior to 20 January 2009.  From the e-mail:

     Short of alien life making first contact on the White House lawn or a 180 degree turn in Iraqi violence/American deaths (I’d say the two are equally likely) he is a millstone around the necks of Congressional Republicans. 

     Brutus killed Caesar, it will be the Republicans who take down Bush, the same way they took down Nixon.  When it’s all said and done, the party is bigger than any man.  Nixon resigned when a bunch of Congressional Republicans rode to the White House and told him he had lost the ability to govern.  It will happen again.

     I seem crazy when I say that, but there are two immutable truths that are going to collide on George W. Bush.  The first is that Iraq is not going to get better any time soon.  It is going to get worse, a lot worse.  Think about Yugoslavia and the words “civil war” will materialize in your mind.  The second is that his popularity (upon which all else chiefly rests) is inextricably tied to Iraq. 

     At some point his numbers will sink below the total of registered Republicans, below anything that could even be called viable.  There is a level where he will no longer be able to deal with Congress, no longer be credible to foreign governments, no longer have any ability to act on even the slightest political issue.  That’s when he’ll go.

That was two years ago, and while I underestimated the continued effectiveness of Administration bullshit when it comes to Iraq, I think Bush is now in more danger than is generally understood.  His poll numbers are low enough that the word ‘Nixonian’ is being used to describe them; the money for his precious war is in the hands of very angry Democrats; and Senators from his own party are publicly pleading with him to at least consider bringing troops home.  If his ludicrously insane historical analogies and unwavering attitude of exasperated contempt are anything to go by, Bush seems to have hardly noticed any of these developments.  John Warner’s suggestion of a small, Christmas timed drawdown was as polite and harmless as humanly possible.  The White House dismissed it immediately and outright.

Congressional Republicans, especially those running for reelection in 2008, need some compromise and flexibility from the White House when it comes to the war.  The great majority of them would like nothing more than to let Bush limp through the rest of his term and slink quietly into disgrace next winter, but the war in Iraq cannot be ignored that long.  Ignoring the war is the main reason that they have fewer friendly Republican faces in Congress this year than last.

Polls about the unpopularity of the war prior to the 2006 election were easily dismissed as media generated hyperbole, now those polls have a proven electoral bite.  (A rarely mentioned footnote to that election is that the popular vote totals skewed Democratic by millions, more than anything else that ought to put real fear into Republican electoral strategists.)  All those states and house districts turning from red to blue proved that the country, far more than our government, is done with Iraq.  Raise your hand if you think the remaining Congressional Republicans care more about salvaging Bush’s presidency than they do about keeping their cushy jobs.  Nobody?  Okay, let’s move on then.

Congress can put the war to bed, politically speaking, by establishing a solid, bipartisan blueprint for ending American combat involvement in Iraq.  The broad shape of the compromise is that we fund the war with a definite withdrawal date, blame the Iraqis and call it a day.  It is in the interests of everyone in Washington not named George Bush or Dick Cheney to do so sooner rather than later.  A spectacularly truculent Administration tantrum might, maybe, garner another token extension, but one way or another it has to be settled soon.  Everyone is looking for some sign of compromise from the White House and the Administration’s political survival depends on showing a sliver of flexibility about the war.

If Bush doesn’t compromise, and he has given no indication in his speeches or past actions that he will, it will come to a grand showdown.  In such a contest Bush will be a lame duck president (with historically low approval ratings responsible for launching a disastrous war) pitted against a Congress comprised of Democrats who despise him and Republicans who would like nothing more than to be rid of him.  A fight like that is a test of political strength in its rawest form and this is a politically weak Administration.  Just this summer they’ve been hit with the ongoing embarrassment of Alberto Gonzales, the Scooter Libby saga, the ever increasing subpoenas (any one of which can explode into a Watergate tapes level catastrophe), the departure of his last foreign friend in Tony Blair and the recent spats with Nouri al-Maliki and Hamid Karzai over Iran.  The odds are decidedly against him.

Even knowing that, I think Bush will still choose to fight rather than compromise.  If he does lose a veto proof vote on a war spending bill then he’s been neutered as commander-in-chief.  Two thirds of Congress ranks him, and no amount of signing statement chicanery can change that.  While there are doubtless a lot of Republicans who would want to stand by their man, fight it out and let the chips fall where they may next November, there are probably even more who are ready to desert him over the war if given the right political cover.  From there it’s a small step to deserting him totally.

It is inconceivable that Congress is going fund this war through next November in a way the current White House finds acceptable.  The Democrats are opposed to the war in general and on top of that it would be politically disastrous for them to do so.  The Republicans may have once loved the war, but they are far more willing than the President to admit that it isn’t going to end the way we hoped and they have their own electoral futures to consider.

As public disapproval of the war rises (and it will) the pressure to end it builds accordingly.  That pressure is most squarely on Congressional Republicans.  They’ve got elections to worry about and they know that if the war is still a political issue in 2008 it’s going to be an apocalyptic nightmare for them.  To avoid that they’ll squeeze Bush to do something other than mindless cheerleading, but he’s said on multiple occasions that the job of removing American troops will fall on the next president.  He is probably right about that, it’s the timing that might come as a surprise.

People tell me I’m crazy when I say that I think the odds of Bush finishing his term are less than 50-50, and maybe they’re right, but those two truths from my two year old e-mail remain true.  The war is getting worse all the time and the President’s popularity continues to decline.  I have yet to see any kind of plausible scenario for how the war can be wound down with Bush the Younger still in office.  If he were willing to roll over, accept some kind of bipartisan compromise that blames the Iraqis, declares victory, and ends the war, it’d be different.  But I don’t think he has it in him.

It has occurred to me that the real reason I think he’s toast is because I find the idea of Bush the Younger being president for a further year and a half so unpalatable that I’ve talked myself into something foolish.  I don’t think that’s the case, but appearing foolish seems a small price to pay if it lets me laugh at this monstrous man.  I know too many otherwise bright people who are reduced to furious anger when he becomes to topic of conversation.