Stop Me Before I Vote Again

Recent words of long ago House member and ace Nixon impeacher Lizzy Holtzman of New York, apropos Bush's high crimes:

"attention must be focused on changing the political composition of the House and Senate in the upcoming 2006 elections. If a Republican Congress is unwilling to investigate and take appropriate action against a Republican President, then a Democratic Congress should replace it."

Nice try, Lizzie. But the bait-and-switch is a little too obvious. Let's dream no wet dreams of a Watergate II, please. For one thing, look how much good Watergate I did: "progressive" young folks falling in love with the likes of white-sheet possum Sam Ervin. And sure, Nixon fled for rock cover like a sun-boiled reptile, but then what? New Dixiecrat Carter in '76, and then... Reagan in '80; the jim-crowing of Jesse Jackson, the DLC rat pack... need I go on? Point is, these congressional gladiator shows don't really change anything.

Let's not take this bait again. Sure, it would be fun -- an admittedly delicious show, the very best theatre of cruelty. But after the tribunal of pointy-hatted scowling dems has clobbered and reclobbered an already beaten and totally lame-duck Bush admininstration -- what will be the body count?

Best shot -- Cheney dies of a heart attack on live television. Okay, that would make for great entertainment. But after that, what? It's a meaningless, mindless pleasure. They will never remove the man from Crawford himself -- where's the 2/3 in the Senate gonna come from?

But if folks fall for the Holtzman bait, and turn out for Dems in hopes of another Watergate soap opera -- it'll just be another palace coup, like the first one, with no political content at all. Guelphs walloping Ghibellines, or Crips taking some turf back from Bloods. We the people might get a Democratic majority in the house -- but it'll be the same old dirty Democratic party that went along with the Iraq war, the Patriot Act, the bankruptcy bill, and so on ad nauseam -- a majority that empowers the worst elements of present-day donkey-party bizwiz hawks. After the big Truth or Consequences slapstick show of the hearings, we'll be watching 'em hook up their time-honored, time-tested "working majority" with the Republican cross of Christ/Chamber of Commerce thundering hunnish horde.

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