As I write this, I do not know who has been elected President of the United States. My deadline falls on Monday and though, like most Americans, I can't wait for this campaign to end, I am not gifted with clairvoyance.
This much I do know: since about mid-2005, I have been counting down the weeks, days, hours and minutes until we reach the end of the George W. Bush nightmare.
Sen. John McCain, one of the few Republicans for whom I once had a scintilla of respect, has performed like a mutant spawn of Cheney these last few months. It was entirely fitting, then, that his performance smoked Dick himself out of his undisclosed location to say how "delighted I am to support John McCain." McCain's vicious campaign has provided cover for the Bush nightmare to continue apace.
While McCain and Palin were whipping up the fear and hatred, Bush has been on a little-noticed binge that will have long-term negative impacts on the nation. As the Washington Post reported this week, the White House is "working to enact a wide array of federal regulations, many of which would weaken government rules aimed at protecting consumers and the environment. … The new rules would be among the most controversial deregulatory steps of the Bush era and could be difficult for his successor to undo." They would allow power plants to operate with less restriction, ease ocean-fishing limits, allow more emissions that contribute to global warming, relax standards on drinking water that will expose us to higher levels of potentially harmful substances, and expand strip mining for coal.
Once these rules are in place, the Post reports, "they typically can be undone only through a laborious new regulatory proceeding, including lengthy periods of public comment, drafting and mandated reanalysis."
Surely Bush is also getting his presidential pardon list together. Even as a lame duck, Bush still rules as if he has an ironclad mandate. Indeed, the only people who benefited from the McCain campaign are Bush and Sarah Palin. Within the next year, Palin will no doubt have her own seven-figure book deal (I predict it will be titled Hockey Mom), daytime talk show (You Betcha!) and fashion column ("Don't Juneau How to Dress?"). McCain himself has no future after Tuesday. The repulsiveness of his campaign cannot be wiped away by a self-mocking appearance on Saturday Night Live at the eleventh hour. Richard Nixon, to whom McCain now bears some resemblance (a smart man also dragged down by his dark side), once went on Laugh-In, the Saturday Night Live of its day, to "soften" his rigor-mortis-stiff image. The sight of Nixon saying, "Sock it to me!" was one of the most frightening of my childhood.
Two other things were made clear by this campaign. First, the so-called "mainstream media"—which is really the traditional media in its death throes—can no longer dictate the framing of political issues. Internet news blogs pulled back the curtain on the Wizard of Oz and revealed a bunch of Inside the Beltway cocktail party habitu?s—what Digsby calls "The Villagers"—who are like the courtiers at Versailles before the storming of the Bastille.
Second, the nation needs to see that the Bush Administration officials who abused their power and perhaps committed criminal acts are held accountable. The overriding impulse will be to pull together to address the profound problems we face, to "get over it and move on," as the Republicans were screaming after the Supreme Court selected Bush president in 2001.
Yes, of course, we need to do that, desperately. But there must also be a reckoning for this criminal regime. It is the only way to get an honest assessment of the damage that has been done to our Constitution and the rule of law.
It is the only way the nation can honestly and collectively get over the Bush nightmare. And then move on.
