Spontaneous Regeneration

Pat Ryan

Our wandering in the wilderness ended yesterday almost five years to the day after the Great Florida Election Theft. That old Pro-Lifer, senate minority leader Harry Reid suddenly showed some cojones and pretty much put the blocks to Frist and the kids in the Senate with one of those obscure parliamentary moves worthy of the likes of DeLay, Rove, and Luntz.

The Big White House Plan for the week had been as predictable and repetitive as it was depressing. Bad news were coming at the White House from a DA so squeaky clean that his character couldn't be easily assassinated, so the only other option was the tried and true (and carefully scripted) Change of Subject.

Monday was the nomination of a Supreme Court justice with the proper Federalist Society credentials.
Tuesday was supposed to be Bird Flu Day, but for some unknown reason Mr. Reid decided that it was finally time to dust off the old Senate Rulebook, and use it to demand that the investigation of the Big Stack of Steaming Lies that led our sleepy politicians to give the White House gang a blank check for the Big Adventure in Iraq.

From now on, our elected progressives (or whatever) will be in full cry. Yes, mistakes will be made. Betrayals will occur. Prominent Democrats will say some Really Stupid Things, but from here on in, they will be looking to the '06 election, followed immediately by the presidential campaign for '08.

Members of the Fourth Estate, having noticed the poll numbers as well, are now sticking up their little furry heads and making semi-coherent squeaks about malfeance in high places. CNN is running hour long retrospectives on the deceptions leading up to the Big Adventure. Papers from the NYT to The Oregonian are beginning to address issues that they should have been covering in the spring of '03.

It's all pretty sucky in the short run. The Supreme Court is lost for a generation at least. Roe will probably be overturned. We now officially live in a nation where corporations will have more rights than women, treason is a technicality, but oh the battles that will be joined.

There will be abortion rights battles in all of the 50 states. Democratic senators that voted to give the president carte blanche for Endless War, the trashing of The Geneva Convention, and the evisceration of the Bill of Rights, will be running for president as Populists. Someone may actually take the time to get on the whole corruption thing, as DeLay and his band of Merry Pranksters have made it so hard for Democrats to get at the K Street trough, that a lot of them currently have relatively clean faces.

Here in Oregon, national level Progressive politicians who have been backing administration fiscal policies that are well to the Right of that old Librul Richard Nixon, have suddenly come out as........er........progressives. Whatever on that one.

We in the grassroots, will still have plenty to whine about but inaction on the part of the Elected won't be nearly as high on our list as it has been.

Thank you Harry. We love your reactionary old hide, and we all appreciate your attentiveness to the calendar. Even though you're five years too late, you're still setting an example for other, more allegedly progressive colleagues. May they all redevelop certain........er........traits.......that have long atrophied.

By Pat Ryan Nov. 02, 2005