THE END OF EVERYTHING

There isn’t that much difference between 2004 and 2006.

In 2004, the incompetence of the Bush administration was already well on display. Iraq was already a quagmire; it was obvious to all that Bush’s government was for sale to the highest bidder; Rumsfeld and Cheney were already Rumsfeld and Cheney; and Bush was a dim-witted as he is now. Both houses of Congress were run by GOP pimps – in fact, with Tom DeLay still staining the carpet on the House floor, it was worse.

2004 wasn’t that much different than this year.

But, in the past two years, a common-sense New Majority of Democrats and independents have finally found themselves with a common purpose while they both fumbled for the lights in the same dark room. Finally managing to ignore deliberately-poisonous talk-radio lies and pushing the MSM to get off of Junior Bush’s lap, the New Majority decided Enough was Enough. That the extra 10% joined the other 48% later rather than sooner only meant two extra years of unnecessary pain and incompetence. Then was then and now is now. Welcome to reality; now, let’s get to work.

Ever since the judicial coup that installed Bush in office after the stolen election in 2000, Karl Rove had a bold vision for his Bully Party. The Bully Party would drive through a radical agenda as if on a mission from god, disparage and demonize those who would question or get in the way, and use the infrastructure of politics – from gerrymandered districts to lobbyist purges – to create the Permanent Regime, void of Democrats and other moderates. It was a drive for Power, at all costs. And, with despicably opportunistic use of the 9/11 tragedy, it almost worked.
But, somewhere between Hurricane Katrina and the disclosure of massive data-mining of personal phone and bank records, people got a clue and, on Tuesday, took the first important steps in taking their country back from the precipice of tyranny.

For so many things important to the now-dead Republican agenda, it is The End.

The End of the Politics of Personal Destruction: All across the country, Republican candidates, as usual, played race cards, lied about records and personal lives and generally smeared their opponents, without truth or scruples. The electorate finally turned a deaf ear to most of this, although Harold Ford was hurt by the most racist ad of this or any other year.

The End of Fear: And the winner is...Osama bin Laden? Nobody was buying that old line this year and shame on anybody who ever did. Not that the bastards didn’t try, not only with TV ads, but every time they opened their mouths. Again, the New Majority knew better and tuned them out. And, hopefully, punished them for it.

The End of the K-Street Project: ...and the Permanent Majority. It is hard to imagine the hubris and arrogance of what will now be known in the past tense as the Bush years. They really thought that they could reconstruct the power structure in a way that would protect them for future challenges. They governed the same way they went into Iraq – invade, conquer and wait for the flowers to fall at your feet, with the same disastrous results. Oh, and now the K-Street lobbying firms will be faced with lines of rejected Republicans outside of their doors this morning, looking for work. Sorry, they're over-stocked with Republicans, already.

The End of Home-Schooling: In his smarmy concession speech (the most radical of partisan wingnuts was suddenly Mr. Happy) during his historic blow-out loss, Rick Santorum’s kids looked like it was the end of the world. This inability to deal with loss and the real world is a direct result of their home-schooling regime, paid for by Pennsylvania tax-payers. The kids need to get out more.

The End of the Rubber Stamp: Especially if the Democrats take the Senate, Bush will have to moderate his judicial appointments and pretty much everything else. No more will a former Exxon lobbyist be put in charge of the EPA, or whatever.

The End of the Evangelicals: It always amazes me when the MSM declares the deserved fall of a sanctimonious jerk like Ted Haggard "sad". It’s not "sad". The only thing sad is that the walking fraud was able to fool so many people for so long, laughing all the way to the bank. The exposure of charlatans is a good thing. And, now that the evangelical cabal has managed to drive the GOP off a cliff, we’ll see if they still get that conference call with Rove every Monday morning. Maybe they will – I mean, Rove has to talk to somebody, doesn’t he?

The End of Government: That sound of hammers pounding nails you hear this morning is the White House, shuttering its windows and building the barricades. They can’t change and they don’t want to. They aren’t going to "work with" the Democrats or any such thing. They are going to build a moat around the White House, ignore all subpoenas, declare their imperial prerogative, and thumb their noses at Congress and the courts. Nothing will get done until 2008, when the New Majority completes its hostile takeover of our own government.