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2006 – A Year-End Rantrospective
By Nancy Greggs
It was the best of times, the worst of times – depending on which side of the aisle you sat on, which side of the tax breaks your income fell into, and whether or not you had the sense of humor to laugh at the absurdity of it all.
Bush’s approval numbers plummeted while the national debt rose to unprecedented heights, the War in Iraq ran out of corners to be turned, and the citizenry started to wake up to the fact that maybe – just maybe – having a temper tantrum-prone idiot running the country wasn’t such a good idea after all.
It was a year of tears for the BushCo faithful. As Jack Abramoff announced his cooperation with investigators into GOP corruption, cryin’ towel sales skyrocketed, and DC stores had to hire extra staff to keep up with the demand for paper-shredders.
Martha Alito’s blubbering during her husband’s confirmation hearings, and Duke Cunningham’s tearful response to getting caught with his hand in the cookie-jar, may have come off as over-the-top performances – but both will undoubtedly get a nod from the Academy when Oscar time rolls around next spring.
February went out with a bang – literally – when Dick “Dead-Eye” Cheney shot his friend Harry Whittington in the face on a hunting trip. Whittington later publicly stated that he was sorry for the inconvenience he had caused Cheney, and all was forgiven in a grand display of Cheney’s brand of Compassionate Conservatism; a lesser man would not have been Christian enough to accept the apology.
In the same month, Bush denied knowing anything about the Dubai Ports deal before it hit the papers, and no one blinked an eye. By 2006, we were all aware of one overwhelming truth: When this president pleads ignorance, it’s because he really is ignorant.
Scottie McClelland was out and Tony Snow was in, a transition from deer-caught-in-the-headlights to song-and-dance-with-mindless-banter. Tony’s one-liners are good for a few yuks, though; his statement that Bush is like a guy who can play “forty games of chess simultaneously” had us rolling in the aisles.
Other prominent Republicans also said their goodbyes in 2006, as Tom DeLay and Bob Ney decided to spend more time with their lawyers and/or jailers.
Blame for the debacle in Iraq got passed around like a hot potato. It was the lack of ‘Support the Troops’ bumperstickers at home, then the nay-saying media, and finally the Iraqis themselves – a people too lazy to rebuild their violence-ridden, completely destroyed country on their own. Let’s face it; a more productive people would put that one hour of electricity per day to better use.
We were reminded that the mounting US troop casualties in Iraq were just a number, 650,000 dead Iraqis was fuzzy math, and the entire debacle created by BushCo & Pals in the Middle East was a mere comma in the world of historical punctuation.
Ken Lay conveniently died, Saddam Hussein was conveniently made dead, and Osama Bin Laden inconveniently remained on the loose and in good health.
The Rapture was scheduled, cancelled and rescheduled more often than the average celebrity wedding; Robertson got crazier, Falwell got fatter, and Haggard got high, massaged, and outed.
Ted Stevens warned against clogging the series of tubes that comprise the Internetz, and James Inhofe declared global warming as "the greatest hoax perpetrated on the American people" – apparently never having heard about Iraq’s WMDs and mobile chemical labs, which should rightfully be in first place.
On 6/6/6 (ha/ha/ha), Ann Coulter’s latest collection of plagiarism-cum-hatemongering, “Godless”, hit the cut-out bins of discount stores across the nation.
The MSM, vigilant as always, focused on the doings of TomKat and Brangelina, while BuCheney and RumGonzo gave torture a made-in-the-USA label with little fanfare.
Stewart delivered the news while O’Reilly sang the ratings blues. Olbermann rocked, and Colbert socked-it-to-‘em at the Correspondents’ dinner. Madonna adopted, Britney got un-knotted, Tom Noe got nailed, Lou Dobbs railed, and John Mark Karr’s confession to the murder of JonBenet Ramsey held water just long enough for Nancy Grace to think she’d died and gone to media heaven.
The War on Terror had two major successes in 2006. A group of semi-homeless guys in Miami were apprehended who, according to our erstwhile AG, Not-So-Speedy Gonzales, were planning a "full ground war against the United States" – all seven of them.
In the UK, twenty-one people were arrested before executing their plan to carry highly volatile liquids onto planes, to be mixed on-board into explosive devices. Thanks to the foiling of this totally unviable plot, travellers now have to dump their shampoo and baby formula, together, into garbage cans at crowded airports – just on the off-chance they might be liquids that will explode when mixed. I feel safer already.
Throughout the year, Bush continued to do his incredibly convincing impression of a drunk, but his world leader shtick garnered more groans than Limbaugh’s imitation of Michael J. Fox. As Israel and Lebanon went at it, the Chimp’s solution was quick-witted and concise: “What they need to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit and it's over.” Well, there you have it in a nutshell (i.e. a volatile event in the Middle East pared down to a small shell by a certifiable nut).
His participation in the G-8 Summit during the summer, however, was not without its educational impact, as Bush opined that “China is big, like Russia. Russia is big, too.” Is our president learning, or what?
Asked about his greatest moment as president, George said it was the time he was out on his lake and caught a seven-pound perch. The public agreed that it was a remarkable moment, being the only time Bush told a lie that didn’t result in someone dying – not even the alleged fish.
We also marked two anniversaries in 2006: the fifth anniversary of the 9-11 attacks, and the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Photos of the empty hole where the WTC once stood, along with footage of a still-devastated NOLA, served as a fitting tribute to the heck-of-a-job the Republicans were doing.
As the mid-term elections loomed large, a National Intelligence report attributed the Iraq war with fueling radicalism and making the United States less safe than before, Mark Foley’s romantic emails to underage boys surfaced, George Felix Allen Macacca’d his way out of the hearts and minds of voters, Woodward’s “State of Denial” hit the shelves, and the GOP’s hopes of yet again blaming everything on the Clenis via the airing of “Path to 9-11” were dashed when the film (based on actual facts that never actually happened) attracted an audience share number slightly lower than Rick Santorum’s IQ.
Republicans desperately tried to put an optimistic slant on their waning chances of retaining the House and the Senate, and FOX-News quickly came up with a sure-fire solution to their woes: they simply put an (R) next to the name of whoever was ahead in any race. Mission accomplished.
The situation turned more dire, and the Republicans trotted out their usual tactics – smear campaigns, annoying robo-calls, commercials with racist overtones – Dead-Eye-Dick warned that a vote for Ned Lamont would “encourage the Al Qaeda types”, and in a last-ditch effort to garner the sympathy vote, John McCain threatened suicide if the Dems took control (yet another GOP campaign promise that went unfulfilled).
Rove assured the faithful that he had the math, and George wasn’t about to lose confidence in a man who could still dazzle him by pulling a quarter out of his ear – as if my magic!
But as election night unfolded, it quickly became apparent that the Democrats would – as part of Rove’s brilliant plan, to hear some tell it – get “stuck with” the House and the Senate.
The GOP’s one hope of remaining in power – the ousting of Rumsfeld, signaling a change of direction in Iraq – happened after the fact, and defeated Republicans finally realized that they were – to put it in Freepereze – just a bunch of morans who had been royally screwn.
Apres defeat, all hell broke loose. Right-wingers ranted, Glenn Beck, Dennis Prager and Virgil-B-Goode went ballistic over a Muslim (Ellison) being elected to office, and discussion about someone named Barack Hussein Obama running for president in ’08 caused Conservative heads to explode across the country.
So Rummy was out, Gates was in, and Poppy Bush had a moment of shock-and-awe when he realized that his Idiot Son is perceived as an untrustworthy, incompetent liar – all based on the flimsy evidence that he actually can’t be trusted, is totally incompetent, and wouldn’t know the truth if it bit him in the ass.
As the War on Christmas raged (the only casualties being the dollars that didn’t get spent despite our booming economy), the Iraq Study Group failed their final exams, the PNAC boys packed up their “sweets and flowers” predictions and went home, and the Deciderer wandered off to Crawford to do what he does best – nothing.
The year did end on a happy note for the prez and his administration, however. Amidst the turmoil of retaining defense lawyers, figuring out ways to avoid subpoenas, and memorizing the Fifth Amendment in time for the upcoming investigatory hearings, they will undoubtedly be toasting the results of an end-of-year poll that named George W. Bush as the Number One Villain in the world – finally, an election he won hands-down, and without any help from Diebold.
Happy New Year, my fellow citizens!
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