An op-ed in the San Fransisco Chronicle urges readers to mark their calendars and set a long date alarm on their watches because in just on a year, Americans will go to the polls to elect a new president, and the "long national nightmare of George W. Bush" will come to an end :
"It is now less than one calendar year until the next presidential election. It is less than one year until the country finally takes a deep breath and flexes its atrophied muscles and opens its bloody, Cheney-punched mouth and lets it be known to the world, to the universe, to its own numb and dejected soul just exactly how unwell it has felt, how much pain has raked its heart, lo, these past seven (eight, by then) years, by ushering in an entirely new political era, as we all exhale a massive sigh of long overdue relief..."You think maybe it's too soon? Too early to let the tingle of positivism and hope take hold? Far from it. After all, the signs of decay and utter GOP desperation keep pouring in. For example, it has now been officially recorded in history what everyone already knows: Bush is nearly exactly as unpopular as Richard Nixon was at his lowest point, and no president in history has had as long a streak at the bottom of the job-approval rankings as Dubya. Heckuva job, Bushie!
"What's more, the glorious collapse of the evangelical Christian right marches on apace, as Pat Robertson, now a dejected, lonely widower after the death of secret boy-toy husband Jerry Falwell, has officially endorsed pro-choice, pro-gay, thrice-married, massively unbalanced moral pit bull Rudy Giuliani for president, which is a bit like a militant vegan endorsing Hot Dog on a Stick for the title of Lord of the Food Court. Desperate times indeed."
I would say that as the nation moves closer to the date when President Bush finally exits the White House, such an adrenalized, semi-incoherent editorial will look positively tame compared to what other writers will be saying.
In the last few months of his presidency, there will be many mainstream media journalists who were always too afraid, or bound by ethics, who will cut loose with the secrets of the George W. Bush presidency they could never before disclose. It will come on like a tidal wave. People will expect the Big Secrets to stay secret until after Bush is gone from the West Wing, but once a few start singing like canaries, most of the rest of the White House press corps will follow, and fast.
