Tuesday night's address by the President will be effectively satirized many times, some before it's even delivered. I can mention a few but that is not my main intent tonight. One of the most effective pieces making the rounds on the web is a female PETA activist doing a slow striptease as the staid Senators and Representatives rise to clap and cheer.
Would that the animal-rights movement had any more than a smattering of support in Congress!
But, tons of other jabs exist out there in the public domain. Of course, the usual suspects, like The Daily Show, will be getting armed and ready to fire their salvos once the highly staged event is over.
So, too, the Democrats.
The Bush administration's desire to make a good impression is almost palpable. Among recent pre-speech leaks, President Bush's proposal on health care is a case in point. The Gubernator of California tried a similar ploy last week in his State of the State address in Sacramento.
The problem with both of their plans is that they cannot possibly have an ice cube's chance of survival in hell in the poisonous special-interest environment that characterizes modern American politics.
Forget K Street. The money is everywhere now, even on the Internet.
Especially on the Internet. That's why the two most recent Democrats to enter the 2008 Presidential race -- Sen. Obama and Sen. Clinton -- chose to announce their candidacies via the web, eschewing the traditional appearance before the cabin they were born in, or the statehouse where their political birth occurred, etc.
Besides the salient point that nobody can ask you any direct questions when you announce online, Barack and Hillary clearly read Time magazine when constructing their announcement podcasts.
The tip-off was in how they addressed their presumed audiences in said podcasts -- "You."
Remember who the person of the year is?
You!
But, as some may recall, I (and others) have expressed the opinion, from inside Silicon Valley, that Time missed the point of what its editors belatedly think of as "Web 2.0."
It's not about "me," stupids; it's about "we."
It has always been about the network, not the user.
But a point that subtle is sure to be lost on the likes of Time's editors, Hillary and Obama.
***
Perhaps I have wandered a bit from tomorrow night's speech. Bush won in 2000 (to the extent he actually did win) by promising to be a "compassionate conservative."
Instead, he has been a conservative.
His last chance to create any kind of legacy for himself is to reposition himself as a moderate able to work with everyone along the American political spectrum. Thus, the health insurance leak.
But this politician is caught between Iraq and a hard place. Even his own party members are deserting him in droves. The sad thing is that, now he has committed our military might and national pride to suppressing an irrepressible civil war in a secular country he confused with an Islamicist enclave, he is right about one thing.
Unless his (or someone's) military strategy helps the U.S. extract itself and turn over power to some sort of Iraqi coalition that can quell the violence, the U.S. and its national security (read: oil) interests will suffer serious harm in the months and years to come.
The saddest thing about all of this is how many lives have been lost. The second saddest thing is how much money we have spent: $1.2 Trillion!
With that, we could have rebuilt the Gulf Coast and gotten universal health insurance in this country, not to mention countless other benefits.
My gut sense is that Bush's "surge" strategy probably will "work" for a while, at least in Baghdad. If he is lucky, and he may be, he'll be able to extract enough troops by the end of next summer to not totally doom the chances of his party's next nominee for President.
So, cutting to the quick, do you want to save months of headlines and know what the two major parties' tickets will be in 2008?
Here is one old political junkie's take.
The Democrats will run either Clinton or (darkhorse) Pelosi (P) with Obama (VP). The GOP will run McCain (P) and Rice (VP). Thus, both parties will run a woman and an African-American.
Who will win? McCain, easily, except for a startling development. It seems likely that Senator Brownback will become an Independent, attacking both major candidates from the right on social issues, especially abortion.
His challenge will split the Christian Right, thereby dooming McCain.
On the other hand, envision a different ticket for Republicans: McCain and Brownback.
Under this scenario, the Democrats need a different ticket, possibly John Edwards and Bill Richardson, the first part-Latino member of a ticket. That is a long way from running women and African-Americans, but that is quite possible.
Ah, but we get ahead of ourselves. First, tomorrow night, we have to see whether the President bombs or pulls off a surprise, which would be bringing Pelosi and Democrats to their feet by unveiling centrist proposals.
I doubt he'll succeed. This war, much like Vietnam a generation ago, will destroy a President and his party's chances as the fate LBJ and the Democrats suffered in 1968.
Only this time it will be Bush and the Republicans.
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