Albert Gore: Boy Did We Screw Up

So why have I not been talking about Gore's speech?

Because I haven't been thinking very much about Gore's speech.

OK -- now I've started thinking about Gore's speech, and I'm just glad someone in the Democratic Party besides Nancy Pelosi is showing some balls, especially after the travesty of the Scalito hearings. I've got two links to transcripts, first from The Drudge Report, the second from RawStory. Take your pick, but read it, dammit. It's important.

I know he ran a lousy campaign, and basically gave away the election (but I find it very instructive to remember that as lousy as his campaign was, Bush still lost the popular vote and had to get the presidency from the Supreme Court).

There's not really a lot to say about Gore's speech, maybe because I agree with it from the git-go. In spite of his "just folks" public persona, Bush doesn't have an honest bone in his body and never did. Add in that the record of this administration has been power, power, power, by whatever means necessary, and I think Gore is right on target.

The White House, of course, has called in the attack poodles with the usual mixture of spins, distortions, and outright lies (no, the Clinton White House did not order illegal surveillance, for starters).

David Neiwert ran an extensive series on Fascism last year (? -- or maybe 2004 -- how time flies) at Orcinus. Scroll down the left side to get the links, because it's really complex but totally fascinating.

It's probably very comforting to say "It can't happen here," but you have to realize that we have a significant group of people who want it to happen here, to wit:

- George Bush, who is starting to look more and more as though he is channelling Louis XIV.

- Dick Cheney, who believes that democracy starts -- and ends -- in the corporate boardroom.

- Alberto Gonzales, who will engage in the most tortured reasoning you've ever seen, leavened by a healthy dose of false assumptions, to justify unlimited executive power.

- Bill Frist, Tom DeLay (fortunately about to be out of the picture, from the looks of things) and a Congress dominated by fellow-travelers, who are willing to destroy 200 years of tradition to stifle debate.

- The wildmons and their hangers on, who want the feds to mind everyone else's business.

- The neocon chicken hawks in the Defense Department: war is good.

- The MSM, who will parrot whatever they're told lest they lose access to those in the know.

So, tell me again it can't happen here.

I'm going to start looking for a job in Canada.