ROVE IS LIKELY TO ESCAPE SCOTT FREE-- THE REST OF US WON'T

I've been in DC all week, mostly playing with poodles and relaxing. It's been totally pleasant. Last night I went to dinner with some friends-- savvy Washington observers whose opinions I often agree with and always respect. One said the '08 presidential election is, in effect, the Democratic primary. The country is so repulsed by the what Bush and Cheney and Rove have come to symbolize that anything-- even Hillary-- would be preferable. In retrospect 2006 will look like a whispered warning to Republicans compared to what can be expected in 2008. The NY Times ran two editorials this morning on the probable criminality of Rove, a mild one from the editors and a devastating one penned by raving, right wing pundit and ex-Bush Regime lackey, David Frum.

The thoroughly despicable Frum makes some good points-- all at the expense of his former colleagues. The Rove-directed Bush Regime's raison d'être "was a politics of party-building and coalition-assembly. It was a politics that aimed at winning elections. It was a politics that treated the problems of governance as secondary. But of course governance is what incumbents get judged on-- and since 2004, the negative verdict on President Bush’s governance has created a lethal political environment for Republican candidates." The Bush Regime's policies have been catastrophic for America, by far the worst since like-minded confederates-- their ideological forebearers-- split the nation apart in the middle 1800s. The comptroller general of the US, David Walker, is looking at the prospects the departing Rove-- and soon the rest of the departing Bush team-- will leave our country.

The US government is on a ‘burning platform’ of unsustainable policies and practices with fiscal deficits, chronic healthcare underfunding, immigration and overseas military commitments threatening a crisis if action is not taken soon, the country’s top government inspector has warned.

Bush's legacy will be increased taxes and diminished government services. "Drawing parallels with the end of the Roman empire, Mr Walker warned there were 'striking similarities' between America’s current situation and the factors that brought down Rome, including 'declining moral values and political civility at home, an over-confident and over-extended military in foreign lands and fiscal irresponsibility by the central government.'" Obviously none of the pathetic pygmies™ are cut out for solving this problem-- or even stopping the rot-- but is the overly cautious Hillary? Is she the person of vision who can even comprehend what BushCo has done?

Frum doesn't directly address the issues that should send Bush and his cronies to prison-- at least not directly. You don't go to jail for polarizing the nation. He does ask some important questions, though:
"Can it win wars? Can it respond to natural disasters? Can it safeguard the nation’s borders? Can it fill positions of responsibility with worthy appointees?" And he points up the real problem for the right: "it has been apparent for many years that the Democratic base is growing faster than the Republican base."

Last night Taegan Goddard wrote about a new Democracy Corps poll that is dire for the prospects of the Republican Party in 2008 and beyond.

• The "opinion elite" in the country-- those with a college education and earning more than $75,000-- support a Democratic presidential candidate by an 11 point margin.
• Independents have defected from Republican candidates and now support a Democrat for president by 19 points.
• Young voters are breaking to Democrats with landslide margins.
• Married women-- a key swing vote-- are breaking marginally for the Democrats this year after swinging strongly for the Republicans in 2004.
• Unmarried women-- a key bloc of "base" voters for Democrats-- pick the Democratic candidate by two to one margin.