We've had the Shrub around our necks, stinking to high heaven, for long enough. McCain has shown he offers the identical stench. Perhaps we're being cured of it. Molly Ivins hoped this would happen.
Very soon after the last presidential "election", Molly Ivins (whom I miss dearly) wrote a piece about how to cure a chicken killing dog. What you do is tie a dead chicken securely around the dog's neck. As the thing rots, the dog becomes so sick and offended that, afterward, the dog won't go near chickens anymore. Molly said she hoped four more years of the Shrub would teach the chicken-killing dog that is America to keep away from the offensive and destructive policies of the corrupt conservative right.
This election season seems to indicate her hopes were fulfilled. All the signs point to an America finally sick to death of Rovian politics and Shrubbish policies.
We have seen McCain pulling out one lowbrow ugly gimmick after another. Remember the tire gauges? Remember how the only thing we were supposed to recall about Iraq was the "surge" - never mind the judgment that led us there in the first place? The nomination of Palin, the suspension of the campaign to handle the economy, Ayres, reminders that no McCain is not talking about Rev. Wright (that's spelled W-r-i-g-h-t), accusations of socialism, Joe the never-was-a-Plumber (not even named Joe), voter suppression, ACORN, one gimmick after another, one accusation and bit of ugly politicking after another. That's all McCain has had to offer us.
And maybe, in any previous year, it would have worked. But, apparently, not this time. Not this year. We've had the Shrubian dead chicken tied around our throats for far too long, and we're sick to death of it.
But the Shrub himself, clearly, is not. In a final act act of simple meanness (let's hope to the Gods it's his final one), Shrub is, by executive order, removing regulations from safe drinking water to environmental protections to education. If there had been a actual reason to alter these regulations, he could have done it any time in the last eight years. He didn't.
We know he hasn't been shy about this sort of thing - we found that out when he unilaterally withdrew, by executive fiat, from the ABM treaty and the nuclear test-ban treaty in the opening days of his first term. We had further proof when he made those many hundreds of signing statements which simply said he was choosing to ignore the laws Congress had the audacity to pass. We've seen it again in the secret domestic spying programs, the secret torture prisons, the firing of federal attorneys because they actually took their jobs seriously. Shrub has proven, time and again, he was perfectly capable of doing whateverthehell he thought needed doing. So if these regulations needed altering, he would not have waited this long to alter them.
There is no possible reason for, nor benefit from, removing these regulations - other than sheer, unadulterated, stupid cruelty. It is the Shrub's parting shot. "You don't like me any more? Okay, fine. Screw you. On my way out, I'm going to see how many people I can simply hurt."
That is the sort of petty meanness we've had in the White House for far too long. McSame has shown, by his ugly gimmicks and by the actions of his campaign, that he would continue this senseless cruelty.
We've had it up to here. We're done with it. It's time to take that damn chicken off our neck and go in a different direction. And all the signs are pointing that way.
Molly Ivins would be cheered, I think.