How Disposable Is Bush to the Neocons?
by James Buchanan
Republican candidates seeking reelection are trying to stay as far as possible from George Bush. Ever since Bush’s dubious reelection in 2004 thanks to electronic voting machines in several key states, Bush has done nothing but foul up.
Bush diverted money from urgent levy repairs around New Orleans for his Iraq War. Bush horribly bungled the post-Katrina response. Everyone remembers his famous remark “Heckuva job, Brownie.” Then there was the insane Harriet Myers nomination to the Supreme Court. Then Bush offered to put the Arab nation of Dubai in charge of five of our biggest ports. Then Iraq lapsed into a civil war despite repeated denials by various neocon hacks.
The neocons first instinct is to kick aside anyone, who’s lost his usefulness to them. The only problem for the neocons is that Bush is the only “likeable” guy in the whole administration and his popularity has been in the 30s for most of the last year. (You know, that’s got to be having an effect on the rest of the party. You can’t have someone perceived as a total foul up, arrogant, constantly lying about the Iraq war and NOT lose a lot of votes nation-wide for your party. The 2006 election will be a lot closer than most people think.)
Bush is just kept around as camouflage –a folksy image to mask the soulless evil of the corporate criminals like Cheney and the Israel-first neocons.
Thankfully all of the serious efforts to impeach Bush are also calling for the additional simultaneous impeachment of Cheney and Bush’s whole cabinet. The neocons can’t just dump Bush and ride out the last two years with Cheney as president.
The neocons may want to discard Bush with his recurring 34 percent approval rating. As tempting as this may be, the neocons don’t have a replacement for Bush. The truth is that Bush’s biggest failure is the Iraq War, which had the neocon stamp of approval all over it. Bush is unpopular because the neocons are unpopular.
The best the neocons can hope to do is distance themselves from George Bush if he does get impeached. If Bush goes down, the neocons will scurry off like rats from a sinking ship. They’ll form new think tanks and they’ll resurface one day hoping to hijack another Republican administration to carry out their next set of mad plans.