Every day, I still see people driving around with their Bush/Cheney '04 bumper stickers proudly displayed on their cars. (Often they're right next to the American flag stickers collecting auto exhaust and road grime, which strikes me as real desecration, if you want to get into desecration, bubbas.)

Despite his low approval ratings, Bush continues to skate on all the crap he's pulling on the American people, such as:

• Signing laws, and then declaring that he's not going to follow them;
• Crying gloom and doom about the "evil-doers who will stop at nothing to destroy America" ... and then complaining that people don't believe him when he says the war on Iraq is just jim dandy;
• Continuing to babble the same talking points about the Iraq war as a year ago;
• Spying on Americans, and sneering at anyone who criticizes such illegal behavior;
• Dodging and squirming and doing everything he can to avoid owning up to his shit, like leaking Valerie Plame's then-secret status as CIA operative;
• ...and more of the waddayagonnadoabowdit behavior we've seen from him and his homies.

There are some obvious implications to this arrogance that we all should be considering.

Personally, I find the fact that fully 1/3 of Americans fully approve of Bush's conduct to be rather disheartening. I'm also, let's say, "disappointed" that Democrats who were so eager to jump on the Clinton-bashing bandwagon over oral sex refuse to even consider censure -- let alone impeachment -- for a president who is lying to the American people every day.

I remember all the hubbub over Monica's blow job, but have trouble seeing anywhere on C-SPAN or any of the mainstream media any critical discussion of Bush's own compensating for his own shortcomings. I mean, we're talking about another order of magnitude of the fragile male ego.

So boys will be boys, and middle-aged men will miss their cock-sure clarity of their 20s. But in counter-constructive acting out behavior, Bill had an affair, but George launched a war on a country quite a ways down on the national security threat scale. Collateral damage: an intern's career vs. tens of thousands of lives lost. Clean-up: removing cum stains with a long-overdue dry-cleaning, vs. banning the press from covering the return of flag-draped coffins of Americans who gave their lives as a matter of doing their duty.

One-third of Americans just love how Bush is doing. And about another third have reached a point of not really giving a crap.

And the last third -- us -- are relegated to the ranks of "extremists" and "protesters." (Somehow the people who oppose the Administration count for less than those who support the Administration. And those who are cashing in? Well, they're just great, aren't they?)

Accountability? Don't look for it soon. Because the Republicans are starting to eat their young, and the Democrats don't want to get in the way. Sadly, we're also seeing an instance where the Democrats don't want to be held accountable, either. Because let's face it: They supported the Iraq folly, and they're completely intimidated by the right-wing spin machine.

Which is why, I believe, that this election is the election where the electorate is quietly hoping against hope for change, but the politicians are not at all willing to deliver.

I'll tell you this: Newt & company didn't sweep into the House majority in 1994 by being silent and staying out of the Democrats' way. They stood up and took some positions, and declared some ideas. And in the absence of any real counter-proposals, they won by default.

Now the Democrats hope to default their way back in?

I don't think so.

Reid? Pelosi? Any comment?

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