In Depends Day

Today is 7/7/07, as others have pointed out. Somehow, I don't feel so lucky.

I thought about posting today, solely to propose renaming the 4th of this month "Memorial Day." The day the Constitution died? But no. We remember birthdays, not death days, of the important ones. Too bad. Almost had a pop music tie-in there.

Anyway, I have to think that one of the main reasons that I do nothing lately is the sad state of the country I used to love. For example: the current VP.

I am getting email from the groups you might expect, urging me to "click here" to support impeachment of Dick Cheney. If there was ever a guy whose ass needed to get hauled in front of Congress and TV, his is it. Yet, somehow, I am disinclined to support this movement. Mostly my reasons are pragmatic, as they were when I argued against impeaching Bush, and they can be summed up thus: be careful what you wish for.

Let's stipulate that we could make the first few steps, and actually get this motion through a Congress composed of 49.9% Republicans who have abandoned all pretense at rational thought, and 50.1% Democrats who seek only a stance which translates to "Man, just don't let me screw up before Nov 2008." (None of what I ask you to pretend here would actually ever happen, of course, but just play along.)

So, we've gotten the first round of votes to pass, and we're now at the point of a Cheney trial of sorts. Immediate consequences? Ramp up the right wing spin machine, and hear endlessly of witch hunts, and of the amazingly non-ironic let the President do his job. The sound bites quickly devolve to Democrats love terrorists, further to the obvious godless, and leave us not forget: treason. You know the drill. Ultimately, we witness the further bifurcation of US.

Suppose further that we get the bastard, and let's even indulge in the idea that his sorry ass gets hauled off to jail. We[t] dream, right?

Now what?

Now what is this: Bush appoints some other wingnut as the replacement VP. Leaving aside just how much worse current policy becomes, we have this further worry: said wingnut immediately becomes the presumptive presidential nominee for the Republican Party in 2008. (My guess would be Fred Thompson.) Immediately, this guy gets cred, at least among the MSM and the rest of the mouthbreathers. Suddenly, we have gone from a race in which the only worry is that the Democrats will find a nine sigma way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory to one where the contest is a toss-up.

As I have rued before, it's an awfully sad state to find oneself in the position where one's argument is to preserve the status quo. But I think that's where I'm at. Like so many others, my attitude is just to hang in there for the next 18 months: Better to have an known evil quantity to run against than to risk the anointing of a putative clean slate successor.

Happy Birthday, America.