RALL 11/7/06
Like Cornered Rats, GOP Losers More Dangerous Than
Ever
A White House controlled by an unpopular, highly
partisan lame duck, a rival party majority without
enough votes in Congress to override his veto, and the
early start of a highly anticipated 2008 presidential
campaign add up to one likely result: gridlock. Bush's
legislative and military agendas are dead. But our
long national nightmare has just begun.
"A Frightening New Security State
We'll be cleaning up Bush's mess long after his
scheduled abdication on January 20, 2009. But the
trillions of dollars in national debt he has run up
and his two losing wars will drain our economy for
decades to come. We've provoked a new generation of
terrorists. Yet even more damaging and nearly
impossible to unravel will be the threats to Americans
posed by the neofascist national security apparatus
the Bushists will leave behind--unless they use it to
remain in power.
Shortly after 9/11 Bush began the first of a long
series of power grabs that have transformed him from
the leader of a country beholden to its people to an
authoritarian despot. He signed a secret executive
order granting himself the right to declare anyone in
the world, including a U.S. citizen, an "enemy
combatant"--without proof--and order him assassinated.
Violating federal law and privacy rights, Bush
authorized the NSA to listen to our phone calls and
read our e-mail. FBI, CIA and HomeSec goons
"disappeared" thousands of people into a horrible new
matrix of concentration camps and secret prisons.
A year of crisis commences.
As ugly secrets surface, Bushists will turn desperate.
Democracy has failed their grand schemes; token
resignations like Rumsfeld's come too little, too
late. Only tyranny can save their skins. Will the
beleaguered neocons led by Cheney and Bush, cornered
like rats, unleash their brand-new police state on
their political opponents? Or will they tough it out
and suck up the fines and prison sentences to come?
The next year or two could go either way.
http://www.uexpress.com/tedrall/ The nightmare is not over."
