There has been much talk about why Bush 41 cried so hard talking about Jeb. Many believe it was because Jeb represented his hopes for what a Presidency could be, and what they got was the Black Sheep of the family. Jeb was the hero, the next in line, the heir apparent. Why did they ( the Pragmatista) not worry when this happened? No one thought that after he went sober that W would be this bad.

They were wrong.

None of them believed that even if the second Persian Gulf war was tough, that it would be a disaster. They all believed that W was set with the old style Reagan/Bush Republicans and advisors and they all just assumed Iraq would turn out just like the last time.

They were wrong.

I believe, as do friends of mine, that the ISG was his father trying to tell him how to win. Yes, you have to talk to Syria and Iran, even though you say you don’t.

W says “no”.

Our troops are exacerbating the situation, we need to withdraw them soon.

W says “no”.

Victory is not really possible anymore. Nor is a democracy.

W says “no”.

So this pits W against his father. This pits the Pragmatists, many who actually served with the Neocons that we all know are blowhard cowards that cheer on everyone else’s death. Keep in mind that the Neocons are not contrite at all. They think invading Iraq was a grand idea poorly executed. This by the way is the answer to the question that we are all asking: how can people be so wrong, about so many things and still stick by their guns? (There is another answer to that as well. It is because they do not have to pay the price. Your kids will, not these brilliant millionaires who have fought no wars, worn no uniforms beyond Cub Scouts, know no Arabic, and are truly impressed with their knowledge of history. History is all that stuff that already happened, such that, when you recall it, it makes you sound like a scholar.) They have their neologisms like Islamofacism and Defeatocrats. But increasingly, anyone with a three digit IQ and a heart that works is not buying this anymore. These folks are exactly like the anti-Communists after McCarthy. They cannot let go of their addiction to bogymen philosophies: Communism...Atheism...Homosexuality...and now... Islamism.

The ISG has created a president so isolated that only 20% of the people in this country agree with him. That means that one third of the one third of this country that is willfully stupid ( likes Bush, thinks the world is 6000 years old...you get the idea) actually has fallen off the Bush Lover’s wagon. From James Baker III to five cabinet level advisors from Colin Powell to Richard Clarke to wingnut George Will have already jumped ship. Thomas Friedman has stopped calling for more Freidman’s. Combat veterans have jumped ship. All our allies save the Seychelles Islands have jumped ship. The Brits have even decided that they will no longer use the terminology “War On Terror”. Senator John Cornyn, Senator Gordon Smith, Senator John Sununu, and Senator John Coleman have all jumped ship.

Today we find out that the Russians are now testing the Topol-22, a high-speed nuclear weapon that will fly to targets at speeds it will be difficult to intercept. Why did the Russians create a new nuke? Because Bush unilaterally pulled us out of a nuclear non proliferation accord. Does anyone think the Pragmatista are going to sit by while a nuke race starts? The ocean trade routes that we have negotiated all over the Mideast are threatened. The oil and the oil revenues that we sought to extricate from Iraq is not forthcoming. All this adds up to problems for James Baker and Brent Scowcroft who worked so hard to build something.

And while we’re making the point that W is isolated, imagine the bunker mentality at Faux News and CNN and MSGOP in the corners where they cheerlead this war. Imagine the pain of being Victor Davis Hanson or Tony Snow or Rush Limbaugh or George Bush or the editors at TNR that have said repeatedly “We’re winning”. Imagine the ever-deepening denial of the angry desperate little keyboard cowards who are seeing their visions of a muscular America dominating the world evaporate into a smelly and pathetic lie. These are the same delusional fascists who to this day complain that the good news in Iraq is not being reported. They will believe this like Hiro Onoda the last Japanese soldier holding on in the Phillipines. These are vermin that James Baker will have to extinguish.

Back to W.

So here is a man that commands the most powerful military in world history, almost virtually alone in his public delusion, who like a petulant, uneducated teenager, simply will not listen. No matter how many kids die. No matter how many allies bitch. No matter how many of his mentors openly oppose this. No matter the pressure he puts on the military. No matter the obvious failure happening in front of his own eyes, and when he hears about it from his own advisors. This is an emperor who has not negotiated for peace for one day during his tenure as President. This is an emperor with no clothes who is now trying to convince us that he wearing a mink stole. Here is a man with his finger on the button of massive nuclear power, who prior to his tenure at the top had never been beyond Mexico or Canada, and had to be briefed on the difference between the Shiites and the Sunnis, who kicked a Hornet’s nest and now stands with almost no support among the public, the military and now even his own deadly family. W is taking a long dip into Lake Hallucination. This is a guy who had the power to stop drinking, but cannot admit the simple awful truth that everyone else in the world can say and most all of us realize. Wayne Slater of the Dallas Morning News put it perfectly on MSNBC so far: Bush wants a legacy, and in his mind he simply cannot accept the fact that his biggest action is now so obviously the biggest bloody disaster we have participated in. So W’s deafness forces this constant word parsing that makes Blair squirm and makes Tony Snow look like he just licked the scum off the underside of a public toilet every time he speaks. Fact is, W probably hasn’t even stopped drinking.

But Iraq is not the only reason why the Pragmatista have darkened W’s door, although you would think that this is it. Iraq is only one of the things sticking in America’s craw. This is where Baker and Cheney and the rest of the war hawks are completely wrong. I do not believe Iraq was the main reason the Rethugs got trounced. It was overall miserable governance on issues that matter to people. Medicine and healthcare suck. FEMA is underfunded and cannot protect us thanks to the Bushies. The FDA has been compromised thanks to the Bushies. Forget Osama, they can’t stop e coli. Corporations have more rights than people do and that rubs us all the wrong way. Almost every important government post is manned by a Republican operative with no degree and no experience beyond campaigning. Americans want competent managers managing the government. We are tired of seeing the Gulf Coast sit in shit while all our heavy lift helicopters are in Iraq. We are tired of being told that science isn’t correct by people who have no science education. I mean this paragraph could go on indefinitely just covering the perfidy we have seen. So it’s not just Iraq. It’s everything.

Either way you slice it, the Pragmatista read the tea-leaves and realize people do not want to be governed by Republicans anymore. Americans have had it. And if the Rethugs don’t listen, America will go to the polls again and throw the rest of the worthless asshats out two years from now.

So, I believe little will happen in the short term, but if the Rethuglicans think they will lose the Whitehouse or lose more Senate and Congressional seats, you will see a real backlash, not just from the public, but from the last generation of Mideast policy advisors who got it right most of the time. Perhaps even the Pragmatists will support a chimpeachment. But if you think this war inside the government will subside you are wrong. The Pragmatistas realize that any productive long-term Mideast policy is not sustainable under W. (Think about how fast this would happen if corporate profits really started sagging because of W’s reign of terror.) That means the Pragmatista may feel they have to remove W from power and they could easily do this by allowing others to impeach him or cast him as a war criminal. This is what I believe is likely to happen if things get worse in then next two years.

And when and if this intervention happens only two entities will be staring around, babbling aimlessly and wondering what happened: Bush, and cable news.

Wathc for Round 2.

The rest of us would be happier than a herpes at a YMCA if Bush were gone. I mean he is in trouble. He might not know it. But he is.