History doesn’t repeat, but does it go round and round? Consider these words, posted on May 17, 2004, in “Report From the Land of Is”:
If “regime change” comes in November, [Paul] Krugman said, he hoped the next administration would “throw open the records” and not be “too magnanimous” to this one. “I believe the sunshine is going to be quite deadly,” he said. It is precisely because the Bush regime has so much to hide, Krugman added, that the upcoming “election campaign is going to be so bitter.”
The campaign was bitter. Regime change not only didn’t happen, the Bullshitter-in-Chief‘s regime took over totally. Sunshine — that is, Congressional inquiries with Democrat-controlled subpoena power — hid behind Republican clouds in both the House and Senate.
Now consider these words, reported today on the front page of The New York Times, in “Rove Is Using Threat of Loss to Stir G.O.P.”
The prospect of the administration spending its last two years being grilled by angry Democrats under the heat of partisan spotlights has added urgency to the efforts by Karl Rove and Mr. Bush’s political team to hang on to the Republican majorities in Congress.
The American electorate didn’t give enough of a shit to let the sunshine in last time. We’ll see, come November 2006, if it gives a shit this time around.
Postscript: Is the unspeakable murder of Atwar Bahjat what’s called “progress” in Iraq?
