Twilight of the Bushies

I'm in one of those moods tonight, and I started writing a whiny, complaining post, but even I got tired of that before I was finished. So what I've got for you instead is a nice, paranoid post. There's a lot of optimism among Democrats in the last couple of days, but we need to remember where we stand now. Things look good for the fall, but until then, we've got another six months or more of the Bush administration. As Bush's poll numbers go down (he's hit 25 percent approval, a point below Jimmy Carter at his lowest [though still above Truman and Nixon], with 67 percent disapproving), he's got less and less to lose. He's never struck me as someone who'd fade quietly into the sunset, even if he does feign to be a cowboy. I've always had a nagging fear that he'd want to do something or another to prove that he's still the president, damn it! Apparently I'm not the only one. Think Progress has a couple of stories today featuring people who are in a better position to know than I am. Right wing academic Daniel Pipes suggested that Bush will bomb Iran if Democrats win the White House. Of course, it's hard to tell how much this is informed speculation and how much is Pipes trying to influence the possibility, it's not a point of view that can be dismissed as unimportant. And, in timing that might get you thinking about an intentional effort if you tend to be suspicious that way, Rush Limbaugh was talking about Bush attacking Iran before his term is up, as well. As we've come to know, there's nothing this administration does that's without its political component. In view of that, would a strike against Iran strengthen or weaken McCain's chances in November. If the answer is "weaken him," does that mean it's more likely to happen after the election? Don't forget, with only about a month and a half left in his presidency, the original Bush sent troops into Somalia, leaving it to Bill Clinton to extract them (which he hadn't done entirely before the disastrous battle in Mogadishu depicted in Blackhawk Down). The new Bush has made a conscious effort to pull away from his father's tendencies as president, but will this one just be too tempting not to emulate?