Re point (1) (man, it's like Committee all over again - " with reference to point 1, little (a)...") There is something that can be done to stop Bush and Cheney, inasmuch as the more they lean to the right, the more they piss off liberal Reps in the Senate. Now there aren't millions of these, but the Rep majority in the Senate is so narrow that it only takes about 6 or 7 to vote against what they're doing to stop them. Not much good for legislation, which Bush can veto (although this is always a bit of a desperate option for a President) but plenty good for any crazy constitutional changes they might want to make, like, say stuffing the Supreme Court full of headbangers.
Now, the propaganda thing is interesting, but these things sometimes take time to penetrate the public consciousness. There's an interesting moment in "All the President's Men" where Ben Bradlee berates Woodward and Bernstein in the run-up to the 1972 US election (which Nixon won by a landslide) citing some opinion poll that showed that 72 per cent. of the population had never heard of Watergate.
It'll be interesting to see how the Dems do in the mid-terms next year. Given that Bush has spent most of his time up til now focusing on unpopular domestic policies like privatising social security, the Reps may have some major problems.
One of the recurring topics I mentioned on the blog I linked to earlier is how the Republican party, if not tearing itself apart, is in a state of high tension, between the fiscal conservatives, who look at the spiralling costs of Iraq, and the trillion dollar deficit with horror, to say nothing of Bush's cavalier attitude towards Congress, profitable scientific research and pretty much everything, and the nutty religious right - who generate a lot of heat, don't actually represent that many Americans in the grand scheme of things, but on whom Bush is reliant for at least half of his votes. Of course, Bush can still do plenty of damage in the mean time, but sooner or later the chickens will come home to roost.
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Now, the propaganda thing is interesting, but these things sometimes take time to penetrate the public consciousness. There's an interesting moment in "All the President's Men" where Ben Bradlee berates Woodward and Bernstein in the run-up to the 1972 US election (which Nixon won by a landslide) citing some opinion poll that showed that 72 per cent. of the population had never heard of Watergate.
It'll be interesting to see how the Dems do in the mid-terms next year. Given that Bush has spent most of his time up til now focusing on unpopular domestic policies like privatising social security, the Reps may have some major problems.
One of the recurring topics I mentioned on the blog I linked to earlier is how the Republican party, if not tearing itself apart, is in a state of high tension, between the fiscal conservatives, who look at the spiralling costs of Iraq, and the trillion dollar deficit with horror, to say nothing of Bush's cavalier attitude towards Congress, profitable scientific research and pretty much everything, and the nutty religious right - who generate a lot of heat, don't actually represent that many Americans in the grand scheme of things, but on whom Bush is reliant for at least half of his votes. Of course, Bush can still do plenty of damage in the mean time, but sooner or later the chickens will come home to roost.