Whig Revival in 2012

The brouhaha over the contract for a United Arab Emirates state owned firm to manage shipping operations in some of the largest and most strategic ports in the United States demonstrates clearly that George W. Bush is a lame duck and that he has been corrupted by his own power. He has handed the Democrats still another golden opportunity to win at least one of the houses of Congress later this year and the presidency in 2008.

The main Republican charge that Democrats are weak on national security issues has blown up in the faces of the president's loyalists on Capitol Hill. The Democrats can stand by innocently as the GOP coalition once again is shown to be torn and tattered. Neoconservatives simply cannot understand what the fuss is about while classic Republicans are going bonkers in public against the president who has led them so disastrously down the path of elective destruction.

The president alleges that the shipping firm should be treated like a company from any allied nation and can’t understand why an outfit from an Arab state is not treated with the same level of trust as one from The United Kingdom. Surely, the man is tone deaf. His own rhetoric about nations that have been associated with international terrorism rises from the background; citizens of the UAE were among those who attacked the U.S. on 9/11.

That he is satisfied that national security will not be jeopardized by the change from a British firm to one from the UAE is not really the question. What is important is that the country is frightened – largely by the overblown rhetoric of the president and Dead Eye Dick Cheney. This pair has scared the bejesus out of the country, implying that Arab terrorists are working everywhere to blow us up. But in the case of old cronies, not to worry, we can be assured that they’ll be perfectly trustworthy and would never blow up a container ship in New York or Miami.

Mr. Bush is killing his supporters on the Hill. Peter King of New York pleaded with the president to stop the fiasco, but Bush told him to go fly a kite. King lamented to CNN that he had supported the president on the Iraq war and the Patriot Act – clearly implying that his heart had never been with either. (This will be seized upon for gain by Democrats later.) The president has not had to work in a hostile political environment in Washington. With control of both Houses of Congress as well as the White House (and, if truth be told, the courts too) Mr. Bush has when the chips were down almost always had his way, particularly with the Republicans in Washington.

His reaction to what he perceived to be simply a little political hay making by GOP members was completely tone deaf. He’s been too used to willing what he wants and flogging the Republicans until they knuckle under to understand that their constituents really believe that this is a major issue for both parties and for residents of more than enough Red and Blue states to assure that it will not go away without tender loving political stroking which he denied them absolutely.

Last night, the president threatened to exercise the first veto of his presidency on this matter, thus painting himself and his party leaders into separate and far distant corners. With both the president and his congressional loyalists threatening to go down and dirty, what’s the opposition to do? This situation is so good that even the Democrats in their limitless incompetence appear unable to self destruct on this gift from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Since no matter what they do from crying crocodile tears to supporting their colleagues in a fit of bipartisan comity to simply pulling out of the limelight as the GOP flames out, the win-win lamp is lit for the Democrats. Of course, we haven’t heard the final position from the liberal wing of the party.

If the Dems can’t pull at least one House and the presidency out of this hat, we ought to be seriously looking to the Whigs to make a comeback in 2012. Can the Democrats self destruct once again? Stay tuned.

Blog on!

Wild Bill