Furious @ George

Bear with me. I’m furious.

Newsweek has reported that the Bush administration is exploring the possibility of postponing the national elections. I’ve heard various shades of justification for this as an option – for instance, if there’s an attack on election day, or (more sinister by far), as a reaction to an attack before election day, to prevent terrorists from “influencing” the election (“like they did in Madrid,” as the familiar and off-key Republican refrain goes). Since the campaign is shaping up to be all about terrorism and our reaction to it, doesn’t it occur to anyone that they’ve already influenced the election, and the next half-dozen along with it?

As much as I hate to admit it, a contingency plan for the first possibility is a good idea. If an attack on the scale of 9/11 happens, it will certainly skew (and drastically suppress) voter turnout. But otherwise?

I admit, another terrorist attack on U.S. soil could influence the election. And SHOULDN’T it? If Bush and his cronies can’t protect us, shouldn’t we be kicking their asses out? What about if they capture Osama bin Laden on October 25? Would they postpone the vote because that would influence the election? Get real.

Whatever happened to "if we change our lifestyle at all, the terrorists have already won?" Does that just apply to shopping and gassing up our SUVs?

Look, we’ve all heard about emerging democracies that either have an election every few months or keep postponing elections for years. Neither situation is desirable, and neither is the sign of a mature government. If the party in power can keep changing the rules, it will stay in power, barring a violent overthrow of the government – the very thing that our voting makes unnecessary. But I listen to these news reports of these countries, and I chuckle a sad little laugh, knowing that whatever the faults of our system, that crap doesn’t happen here.

Except now it may. Thank you, George W. Bush, for bringing us to the Third World. Welcome to fucking Paraguay, you dimwit.

Look, every eye will be (or should be) on the Bushies this November because of their dirty tricks in Florida and elsewhere in 2000. And any movement on the date when we’re not smack-dab in the midst of a national crisis (other than the Bush presidency itself, that is) will be viewed with the utmost scrutiny. You’d think that an administration with such tenuous legitimacy would avoid any hint of taint. But it looks like that’s not how it’s gonna be.

Let’s put it this way: if someone drops the big one on election day, survivors will be able to see my charred shadow on the walls, proudly going to the voting booth to serve this moron with his walking papers, so he can scuttle back under whatever Connecticut fridge he crawled out from under in the first place.

Rob

(like I said, furious)