TPMCafe || HITTING BOTTOM

TPMCafe || HITTING BOTTOM: "I think that many in the majority party are finding themselves in the same psychic shape as alcoholics a few months before they finally seek sobriety, except for George Bush, who apparently does not have a clue. With alcoholism, other people can see that the alkie is, to quote one of my friends, in a state of pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization; but it takes what it takes for the alcoholic to realize that. This is why we have Karl Rove saying that when liberals saw the savagery of 9-11, we wanted to give the terrorists aid, comfort, and aromatherapy. So if the disease model of addiction holds true for this administration, there is something SO stinky and bad that has not quite yet had the light shined on it, that is the rock bottom truth of their madness, and that, tragically, even worse stuff than we already know will be revealed.

"Rove's behavior this week reminds me of three things, besides my own sorry alcoholic collapse: one is what my very wise friend Gil says-and Gil has been sober since before God-that there are three stages in the disease: fun, fun and trouble, and trouble. Fun, for the White House, was the fall of Baghdad and Mission Accomplished. Fun and Trouble held, up until a month or so ago: you had huge body counts, grave global dismay, etc, but you also had the elections here and in Iraq, with all that courage and the purple fingertips. Now?

Well, I don't see where the fun is anymore: I think we are now leaving the fun and trouble stage."

"Trouble" and "even worse stuff" hmmm

The political analysts, who were not distracted by Rove's obnoxiousness, have noted the "coincidence" of rising corruption scandals. Corruption scandals, if combined with other events, have the potential to, literally, destroy the Republican Party and Republican power. Corruption is the one thing, which could blow apart the Republican coalition -- if that part of the Republican coalition, which is not in it for the money, comes to believe that it has been betrayed by the greedy and corrupt, and the Republicans are even more corrupt that the Democrats possibly could be -- well, then the Republican Majority is dead, a corpse.

And, how bad is the Republican corruption? We don't know . . . yet. We may never know, given corporate control of the Media, but then again, we might, nevertheless, gain a clue. Billions disappeared in Iraq, without accomplishing a thing. Somebody got that money. Halliburton is a poster child for corruption. Missile defense is one huge boondoggle. "Duke" Cunningham. Tom DeLay, that ol' drunk, with his K Street project, may have succeeded in cleansing the Democratic Party sufficiently to make at least a few Democrats credible critics of DeLay's corruption.

Corruption scandals, which have the potential to build in a series of crescendos, as more and more is revealed, are a nearly essential part of a political storm. Their dramatic evolution, in which a series of revelations, repeats a damaging message and feeds and gradually confirms a terrible suspicion, is what convinces large numbers of people that something has to be done, something has to change.

The country needs a corruption scandal of gargantuan proportions to undermine the Republican majority. We might just get it.