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The one bright spot for George W. Bush is that Mitt Romney just won the fund-raising race for the Republican elections called primaries coming up in 2008. He raised $23 million in the first three months of 2007, more than public opinion leaders McCain ($12.5 million) and Giuliani ($15 million).(1) Money is important in presidential campaigns, because U.$. voters are too lazy to involve themselves in politics except through television commercials.
Mitt Romney came into the open saying he would consider George W. Bush's brother Jeb Bush as vice-presidential material(2)--more than a year before such speculations usually appear in campaigns. At the same time, the mention of Jeb Bush was clearly a sign of desperation from Romney who had just fallen to the 3% mark in one poll. The Romney and Bush families have long-standing ties; whereas as MIM already reported Giuliani and McCain have already backed away from Bush positions.
The current regime is in a classic position where many problems stem from its being too weak and where its enemies are tempted to weaken it beyond usefulness--beyond any point where it could make any deal of any kind. At this moment, the trade deal with southern Korea is one point where it seems the administration can go ahead.(3) However, as we see with the Gonzales firing in process, the temptation was to go and finish off Rove too, as the New York Times advised in its April 1 editorial.
As Senate and House Republicans line up to oppose Gonzales, Bush is being hit by defections among his closest advisers and friends. Matthew Dowd who worked professionally to elect Bush now says he wishes Kerry won.(4)
The White House's pet ideological journal for intellectuals, the National Review is calling for Gonzales to be gone, but apparently, FOX News, Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh are still playing the issue as one of partisanship. The deterioration surrounding Gonzales is quite interesting class-wise. The partisanship issue grips a hard-core of labor aristocracy Bush supporters, the same kind of people who support other white nationalist organizations too.
CNN reported April 2 that ultra-reactionary Maureen Dowd says Bush has to listen to the Amerikan people who are saying to get out of Iraq.
At the same time, there is a severe and in some ways unprecedented fracturing of U.$. foreign policy. When have we ever seen a prime minister publicly snub the U.S. Secretary of State(5) by reminding her she still works for the president--as we just did when I$rael's Olmert told Rice that Arab terrorism has to end before any deals.
At the same time, Nancy Pelosi and some House Republicans are traveling to Syria. It's not as unprecedented as the media is trying to make it sound, but in general, when there is bipartisan foreign policy, the House Speaker would not travel to countries without coordination with the White House. Instead, the White House is condemning Pelosi and making her pay on CNN April 1 and 2, despite the fact that House Representatives who are Republicans also went to Syria.(6)
I$rael is openly speculating that Syria will attack first(7), because of its belief in the inevitability of war pitting Syria and Iran against I$rael and the United $tates. It appears that Pelosi will contribute to the message to Syria that no war is coming this summer from the united $tates and I$rael. It may be tough to convince Syria, given what the United $tates has already been doing in Iran and Syria's neighborhood, without much attention in the u.$. public. The corruption of the left-wing of parasitism was so thorough that the Trotskyists and crypto-Trotskyists declaimed "reactionary" Islam instead of putting forward the anti-war call. As of this time last year, there was a collapse in the anti-imperialism of the so-called international communist movement because of the Iran question.
Because all the Senate Democrats voted for the Iraq War, the fracturing of foreign policy we see now was in some ways inevitable in a highly partisan atmosphere. The Democrats have claimed that they were not smart enough to see through Bush's spinning of intelligence on Iraq--in which case MIM wonders why we need people that dumb for president--Clinton, Edwards and Biden for example. Nonetheless, with the line that Cheney has mucked with intelligence, now we see Democrats going to the Middle East--first Pakistan and now Syria--to check things for themselves.
MIM would not be surprised if Pelosi wants to know from Syria what the Bush administration is already running in Syria's neighborhood, given rumors that Bush not only spins intelligence but keeps Democrats out of the loop on U.$. activities. (See "United $tates pushes secret war against Iran, Hezbollah.") So it depends on how partisan foreign policy has become. If everything is "Rovian," then perhaps the Democrats have to go to Syria just to find out what is going on with the U.S. Government. It is in some sense pitiful to see the Speaker of the House have to travel to find out what is happening, but the Democrats have admitted to being misled pitifully on the Iraq War, so we cannot be surprised if they act that dumb now.
The cat out of the bag is Bush vs. Rice and obviously Rice vs. Cheney. We hear it was Rice and Gates versus Gonzales and Cheney(8) on Guantanamo Bay. Gates continues to call for closing Guantanamo Bay and has asked Congress to work something out with Bush. Interesting--in this way he wipes his own hands in the matter. We believe there may be more scandals to emerge from the Guantanamo Bay controversy.(9)
The I$rael lobby has the strength to keep any Middle East deal from going down, but it is interesting that Saudi Arabia has finally broken with its image of being Bush family puppets. The king of Saudi Arabia has now called the Iraq War an "illegal occupation."(10) Otherwise, all the attention is going to Iran as it backs off the United $tates. Others have pointed out that Saudi Arabia is going to have to deal with Pelosi too, not just Bush.
So we have a story where Rice is hemmed in occasionally. Bush himself is hemmed in by too many forces to mention-- with the Saudi King, former campaign strategists and media pundits abandoning him. It is a classic pattern of regime deterioration. The pattern of partisan fracturing and fissures is unprecedented in MIM's history of observing the united $tates. MIM would speculate that so-called realists from Bush Sr. days are attempting a comeback to restore foreign policy to bipartisan autopilot. If we picture the removal of Rove, Cheney and Gonzales, the realists may fancy they can restore an imperialist status quo.
As Bush Sr. handler Sununu said, the only rule in Cabinet politics is not to embarrass the president. At the same time, Bush is digging in his heels for Rove. It is in this sort of atmosphere where Republican Senator Chuck Hagel has raised the question of Bush's impeachment.(11) If Bush prefers to take too much embarrassment, the rulers may pitch him. MIM believes that there is enough material in the pipeline to take down Bush if he does not return to the imperialist status quo, and not even an Iran war can really change that.
Notes:
1. http://www.spokesmanreview.com/ap/story.asp?AP_ID=D8O8LHC00
2. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-romney30mar30,1,6783859.story?coll=la-headlines-nation
3. http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D8O8NJSO0.htm
4. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/04/01/politics/main2635781.shtml
5. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/844719.html
6. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,263322,00.html
7. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/844754.html
8. http://bangordailynews.com/news/t/viewpoints.aspx?articleid=148172&zoneid=34
9. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/03/30/terror/main2627764.shtml
10. http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/03/29/news/arabs.php
11. http://www.agoracosmopolitan.com/home/Frontpage/2007/03/30/01455.html