Sidney Blumenthal: The year in politics

[kskiska]

Bush began 2005 celebrating his electoral victory and proclaiming a "turning point" in Iraq. But in every crisis he faced this year -- from Terri Schiavo to Hurricane Katrina to Iraq -- the tide turned against him

In his second inaugural address, George W. Bush four times summoned the image of fire -- "a day of fire," "we have lit a fire," "fire in the minds of men," and "untamed fire." Over the course of the first year of his second term, all four of the ancient Greek elements have wreaked havoc: the fire of war and "fire in the minds of men" of culture war, the air and water of Hurricane Katrina, whirlwinds raging across the earth from Iraq to Florida, from Louisiana to Washington. Through obsession or obliviousness, rigidity or laziness, Bush got himself singed, tossed about, engulfed, and nearly buried.

He began the year proclaiming "a turning point" in Iraq. In every crisis he faced, he assumed that everything would turn his way as it always had in the past. He ended the year declaring "victory" within reach.

The first shift in his political fortunes came with his unprecedented intervention in the case of Terri Schiavo, a woman who had lain in a persistent vegetative state for 15 years, and whose husband’s effort to remove her feeding tube was upheld after 14 appeals in Florida courts, five federal law suits, and four refusals to accept the case by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Bush had won the presidency in 2004 with an extraordinary outpouring of support from the religious right. So he rushed from his Texas ranch back to the White House in March to sign the bill transferring the case from state to federal courts. Throughout the month, the Republicans strutted and the Democrats cowered. Then, on March 21, the spell that had carried over from the election campaign was suddenly broken in a single stroke. The deus ex machina that descended onto this fervent scene was an awakening public. An ABC News poll found that 63 to 28 percent backed the removal of Schiavo’s feeding tube and 67 to 19 percent believed that politicians urging that she be kept alive were demagogic and unprincipled.

more…
http://salon.com/news/feature/2005/12/29/year_in_politics/

[DELUSIONAL]

1. Wrong! bushie did NOT win in 2004

Hack the vote was the winner.