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Politics : Impeach George W. Bush -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: American Spirit who wrote (44538)	10/4/2005 1:23:12 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 93284

The GOP's broken hammer by Patrick J. Buchanan October 3, 2005 The photo on Page 3 of the Washington Times was a metaphor for the Bush administration and the Republican Party. It is a shot of the most powerful vice president in history, hunched over, gazing down, as he slowly mounts the steps of the White House, with the aid of a cane. But where Dick Cheney is recuperating smoothly from knee surgery, the administration appears in need of resuscitation. The words of Claudius again come to mind: "When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions." The charge by District Attorney Ronnie Earle of Travis County, Texas, that House Majority Leader Tom DeLay engaged in a "criminal conspiracy" may be a shot in the back from a partisan prosecutor. But that does not alter history. Tom DeLay, the most powerful Republican in Congress, is the first House leader in a century to be indicted. And given The Hammer's previous problems – three citations from the House ethics committee and reports of miles of first-class travel courtesy of indicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff – it is hard to see how DeLay recovers his luster or his power. This same week, the ranking Senate Republican, Majority Leader Bill Frist, came under SEC investigation for his fortuitous sale, out of his blind trust, of his block of stock in Hospital Corporation of America , days before the shares sank on news of a bad earnings report. Frist claims he sold the stock to clear his portfolio of any potential conflict of interest, should he declare for president. But other Frist family members, who are presumably not declaring for higher office, also appear to have dumped HCA shares. The Frist case is a simple but deadly serious one. Did he and his family, as insiders, use privileged information to unload their HCA shares on an unsuspecting public that took a bath when the HCA stock tanked? Frist denies it. Thus, his integrity, credibility and career are all on the line. He will need a clean bill of health from U.S. investigators to remain viable as a presidential candidate. And even a clean bill of health will not stop cynical snickers that, by divine intervention, Frist's blind trust miraculously recovered its sight – just in time to save him a small fortune. A bedeviled Bush did not need this grief. His own White House already has ethics clouds swirling above: the investigation into the outing of Valerie Plame as a CIA covert asset; the procurement chief at the White House, David Safavian, having just been collared in a land deal involving Abramoff; and charges of cronyism in naming "Brownie" and the boys to run FEMA. Now, we learn that Ms. Julie Myers, 36, niece of Gen. Myers and currently betrothed to the chief of staff to Homeland Security's Michael Chertoff, is to head Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which is housed inside Homeland Security. All in the family. Ethics clouds, cronyism, nepotism aside, Bush's approval is at 40 percent. Social Security reform seems dead. Disapproval of Bush as a war leader is now two-to-one, and half the nation believes Iraq to have been a mistake and we ought to get out.