My prediction for 2006 is a multiple, all connected politically. I predict that another barrage of fierce storms and hurricanes will so disturb the American people, that the Democrats will take the Senate in the '06 election and whittle away at the House in those races as well. Whether those storms can be attributed to global warming conditions or more normal meterological cycles will not matter. Americans typically arrive, albeit slowly at times, at the sensible conclusion and wiill vote accordingly. This government, ferociously and blindly partisan, has been for sale since the 2000 election. Hastert and Frist are moral cowards who wanted to hide behind fealty to their President as a means of passing the buck and all of their responsibilities onto the administration. (The results have been disastrous. Only in this universe can a fool like Ted Stevens say that defeat of ANWAR drilling is the saddest day of his life. This tired old Oil Whore has been selling the American people and his colleagues a line of this nonsense for too long. Conservation and alternatives are the answer. Not letting corrupt pols like Stevens line the pockets of their contributors.)
Secondly. the resultant Senate turnover will give Democrats greater power to launch independent investigations. The current Frist-Hastert regime wouldn't dream of doing anything to embarass the White House. No matter that honest, decent Republicans like Tom Kean have exhorted this administration regarding the 9/11 Commission's findings. No matter that Republicans on that commission have stated that America is not safer since the formation of a Homeland Security Department. Not safer since the passing of the Patriot Act. The Commission's recommendations have been ignored and America may suffer for it. But a looming Democratic Senate may cure that. And cure the Valerie Plame leak issue and the Iraqi pull-out issue and other issues, as well.
Thirdly, a Democratic Senate, and its influence on what may also be a diminished Republican majority in the House, will lead to Cheney's impeachment. Many Democratic partisans and common Bush-haters dream of ending his second term prematurely. That will never happen, nor should it. Bush is the puppet of wealthy corporate interests and red-faced Christian conservatives who know the real power lies elsewhere. Besides, keeping Bush in office through the'08 election can only benefit Democrats. Every day Bush is in office pays dividends to his opponents. Bush's incompetence is the gift that keeps on giving. Cheney, however, is truly the dark side of the Force. Nearly every controversy that this administration has created has Cheney's fingerprints on it. Secret energy policy meetings that may have unduly influenced the California governor's race? Cheney. Valerie Plame. a woman and mother who served her country and was maliciously outted in the press by way of that Hack/Weasal Robert Novak? Cheney. Lies about WMD and Iraqi-Al Qaeda links? Cheney. Nearly everywhere you look, you see Cheney directly or, more often, his shadow, ruining peoples lives, stealing their freedoms and liberties and/or destroying whole countries to serve his warped goals of an American foreign policy that seemed dated 25 years ago.
The seeds of Cheney's impeachment will be sown in 2006. He will be impeached by 2008. And with him and this administration may go the destructive image of America not as global policeman, but as a corrupt policeman. A lawman not interested in the law but in pure power. Not interested in giving aid but in taking just about anything that's not nailed down. Cheney represents a view of American political power that is old. Dead. Finished. And that, once buried, will lead to America beginning to assert its role within a new, cooperative global alignment. Not afraid to use its power, but not obsessed with flaunting it with everyone at every turn. Not a kinder, gentler US. Only a smarter one.
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