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April 21, 2006

October surprise

As the 2006 midterm campaigns begin to clear the primaries hurdle and look ahead to the fall election, it's as natural as can be--as natural as a young man's fancy turning to thoughts of love in the spring--for members of the Bush dynasty to start thinking about "October surprises."

"October surprise" rumors are a Bush family political signature--like popping off the radar screen here in the states and suddenly appearing in the Middle East.

John Dean caps an essay delving into presidential psychological types with the conclusion that Bush's type (the same, in the taxonomy he's working with, as Wilson's, Hoover's, and Nixon's) tends to (over-)react rather badly when they've lost their popularity, they're faced with criticism they don't want to hear, and their pet projects are in the tank: They start taking Hail-Mary risks.

What might Bush and his enablers do?

Dean has some suggestions--most pretty improbable to my mind, for one reason or another, at least until he gets near the end of his list (emphasis added):

As the 2006 midterm elections approach, [Bush] can be expected to take further risks. If anyone doubts that Bush, Cheney, Rove and their confidants are planning an "October Surprise" to prevent the Republicans from losing control of Congress, then he or she has not been observing this presidency very closely.

What will that surprise be? It's the most closely held secret of the Administration.

How risky will it be? Bush is a whatever-it-takes risk-taker, the consequences be damned.

One possibility is that Dick Cheney will resign as Vice President for "health reasons," and become a senior counselor to the president. And Bush will name a new vice president - a choice geared to increase his popularity, as well as someone electable in 2008. It would give his sinking administration a new face, and new life.

The immensely popular Rudy Giuliani seems the most likely pick, if Giuliani is willing. (A better option for Giuliani might be to hold off, and tacitly position himself as the Republican anti-Bush in 2008.) But Condoleezza Rice, John McCain, Bill Frist, and more are possibilities.

Bush's second and more likely, surprise could be in the area of national security: If he could achieve a Great Powers coalition (of Russia, China, the United Kingdom, France, and so on) presenting a united-front "no nukes" stance to Iran, it would be his first diplomatic coup and a political triumph.

But more likely, Bush may mount a unilateral attack on Iran's nuclear facilities - hoping to rev up his popularity. (It's a risky strategy: A unilateral hit on Iran may both trigger devastating Iran-sponsored terrorist attacks in Iraq, with high death tolls, and increase international dislike of Bush for his bypass of the U.N. But as an active/negative President, Bush hardly shies away from risk.) Another rabbit-out-of-the-hat possibility: the capture of Osama bin Laden.

If there is no "October Surprise," I would be shocked. And if it is not a high-risk undertaking, it would be a first. Without such a gambit, and the public always falls for them, Bush is going to lose control of Congress. Should that happen, his presidency will have effectively ended, and he will spend the last two years of it defending all the mistakes he has made during the first six, and covering up the errors of his ways.

(An "active/negative" president, in this system, is one who naturally prefers taking action to being passive, and who fundamentally dislikes the work that's actually involved in being a president. Ronald Reagan, by comparison, would be classed as a passive/positive president. And so on.)

As I said, most of those scenarios seem pretty unlikely to me: Cheney would never give up power as long as he had a breath in his body; the homophobic fundamentalist wing of the GOP would never tolerate a gay-friendly Veep; and even if we hadn't already pissed off most of the other "great powers," Team Bush simply doesn't "do" grand alliances (he adopts lapdogs, but he doesn't do alliances). Even capturing Osama might not lend much oomph to the Republicans anymore--the bounce Bush got in the polls from digging up Saddam wasn't much and only lasted for a short time. (Of course, if it's late enough in October, it only would only need to last a short time. And we shouldn't forget that whatever-it-is will come in the middle of a already-underway storm of Swift Boating, leaks, negative ads, push polls, whisper campaigns, poisonous talk radio, and ginned-up wedge issues.)

But that leaves the terrifying option that we've all been thinking about for some time anyway: Is the Bush administration craven enough, cynical enough--desperate enough--to launch an air war against Iran this fall to protect the Republican majority in Congress? Just to wag the dog?

That's if, of course, the war against Iran hasn't already started--unburdened by pissant little details like congressional oversight, citizen awareness, or constitutional authority?

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

Check out Dean's article and see what you think. October surprise likely? What variant?

Posted by Nothstine at April 21, 2006 08:08 PM

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