"Look Out, Radioactive Man..."

Front paged at Booman Tribune

Last night, I did something that I rarely do – watch part of Leslie Blitzer’s Situation Room, as well as Countdown and Scarborough Country. Not for any reason other than I was waiting for the missus to come home from work and wanted to see what the talking meatsticks (Olbermann excluded from “meatstick” definition) had to say about the bi-partisan showdown with the Administration regarding Iraq.

That being said, who knew that one of my favorite non-recurring Simpsons characters would be played in real time by none other than The Decider, the Boy-King himself? But, jeez – not only were the stories slanted against Bush and his plan but the tone was, dare I say, a bit derisive. On Iraq. On relations with Congress. On the “warnings” the administration was getting from prominent republicans. On the “backtracking” (whether it truly was or not) regarding warrantless wiretapping.

And today, from Maliki regarding the situation in Iraq as well as the retired generals who are joining the chorus of those who are criticizing the escalation plan.

On cue – republicans, commentators, “experts” and anyone that can read the writing on the wall is doing as much as possible to run screaming and try to cleanse themselves of the foul stench of this administration. And while it is great to see, we must not let the fact that the elected officials were the rubber stamp for over six years. And we must also be careful to let those meatsticks know that while we appreciate them waking up from their six plus year slumber, they are NOT going to escape and shed their accountability for promoting the very policies that (1) we correctly warned them about initially and (2) got this country into the mess that it is in to begin with.

All that being said, just look at how poisonous this administration has become – which will cripple its ability to push many of its horrific domestic agenda items, especially in light of the good press that the new Congress is getting for passing some good bills and for working together in a bi-partisan manner (and don’t think that this won’t help the Democrats in the future if they can frame this as the Democratic congressional majority fostering an end to the partisan divide in Congress.

First, from Leslie’s show on CNN:

Blitzer: On Capitol Hill, more and more Republicans as Dana just noted are breaking ranks with the president on his plan for troop buildup. Some are billing it as a full-scale revolt against an unpopular commander in chief and an unpopular war.

---snip---

Brian Todd: Based on our research and conversations with senators and their aides, CNN counts eight Republican senators as firmly against the president's new plan. Five who indicate they're leaning against it. And two who have not embraced it.

Mike Allen: There's losing this large number of senators and as many as 50 or 60 Republicans in the House. That's a shocking number, something this White House has never had to cope with.

---snip---

Ken Rudin, NPR Political Director: These lawmakers know that George W. Bush can't save them in 2008. Only their instincts, political instincts can save them. And their instincts may tell them that the war is not something to rely on.

There was more. A lot more. Wolfie and Chuck Hagel discussing how bad the President’s Iraq policy is. Blitzer and Richard Clarke talking about better answers with respect to Iraq. Blitzer and Ed Henry (from CNN) talking about the reversal on FISA.

While we would expect the normal excellent showing from Keith Olbermann, there was a lot of thinly veiled contempt from Scarborough throughout the entire program. It kicked off with a bang:

But first, tonight there is open rebellion within Mr. Bush‘s own party, the same party that‘s provided the president almost unanimous support for the past six years. But no more. This Republican Party is now in open revolt.

The republican party is in open revolt. Those are seven sweet words to hear, regardless of whose mouth is uttering them. And from Joan Walsh of Salon.com:

But the other thing that‘s extraordinary to me—you know, Tony Snow tried again today to insinuate that people who are opposing the troop surge run the risk of being painted as anti-troop. And I really think we should mark the end of that war, the war of words over this war. It is no longer unpatriotic or anti-troops to be questioning this president‘s strategy.And so I think there‘s a really new way of doing business in Washington, and it is the end of the imperial presidency, absolutely.

Even Scarborough had Josh Gerstein from the Center for American Progress on to discuss Snow’s comment, and Congressman Joe let Gerstein shred Snow and Bush on this without even offering up any dissent. Pat Buchanan then talks about getting to the point where Congress will actually cut off funding (and not in a negative way – hint: it isn’t just yet).

But the money quote was from Scarborough himself – not only laying into the ridiculousness that is the proposed escalation or calling the “war a lost cause” but talking about when he first thought so.

Well, I just—to be honest with you, I don‘t know how 20,000 troops are going to stop a Sunni terrorist from walking into a university, pulling a cord on his vest and blowing up 70 people, or somebody ramming an automobile past a barricade and blowing up—I just—I don‘t think so.

---snip---

Joan, I think—I think it‘s a lost cause, Joan, and I if somebody asked me today when I thought that this war was a lost cause, I thought it was when we had the bombing of the mosque, which, of course, really created al Sadr‘s power base. And suddenly, instead of having 60 percent of the Shi‘ites for us and 20 percent of Kurds for us, we had the Shi‘ites turn on us. So now we‘ve got—instead of 80 percent of the people glad we‘re over there, now we‘ve got an overwhelming majority opposed to us.

There was more but you get the point. This president and his administration has become radioactive – not just to crazy extremist lib’ruls like us, but to members of his own party as well as many of the mouthpieces who propped them up in the first place.

This very well may save us from bombing Iran or help get us to a meaningful exit strategy on Iraq. And it very well may be a giant boost to the Democratic party agenda – no only for the next two years but also for future years if the Democrats can prove that they can reach across the aisle and “play well in the sandbox”.

Who would have thought that Bush would end up being somewhat of a uniter?