Something has been keeping me up at night. It's worse than the sound of the subway reaching my ears through a three floor walk up. It's worse than a leaky faucet. It's worse than bad Chinese food doing a number on my insides. Way worse. It's Joe Lieberman.
I can't stop thinking about Joe Lieberman and why President Bush mentioned him in his so-called "Surge" speech. I know I'm late to this, but it's taken me a while to sort out all the nightmarish scenarios I've worked out. As I lay awake, sometimes my brain wandered to think about the Sacramento Surge, a semi-professional football team that played for one glorious year in the World League of American Football, but inevitably my mind always went back to Lieberman. Why did Bush mention him? What's Rove planning? What was I not seeing?
Watching the speech, at first I was distracted by how gaunt, tired, and cranky the president looked and sounded. Then I was too busy thinking about the three references to Iran and what that could mean for us in the coming years. It was on the train to work, crowded amongst the throngs of black coats when I realized what had been bothering me.
In a speech that clearly showed President Bush fearful for his legacy yet eager to pass the whole mess to the next administration, he directly named a senator who has had his eye on top billing of an election ticket for more than a decade. This isn't a speech to the local Veterans Association of Humblesville, Wherever. Forget about the glow good copy can lend you, Lieberman's PR people must have been downright incandescent. This was a speech that the entire county, and most of the world was watching. Also, Lieberman is so eager to keep his little stores of power, that he ditched all pretense of party loyalty to become "Independent." If Lieberman is Independent, I'm a size 2.
So what gives? If Professor Weedin taught me to read Shakespeare line by line, syllable by syllable to get a deeper, fuller understanding of the Scottish Play, then it must have been Aaron Sorkin who taught me that no presidential speech is ever just about a single topic; it's about national politics, foreign policy, it's about everything. Now, if only President Bartlet was real, Joshua Lyman was my boyfriend, and I had Sam Seaborn's job, everything would be dandy. Instead, I've got a President who's dropping names like Tara Reid trying to talk her way into hanging out with Lindsey Lohan.
I figure there's only one possibility: Bush senses rebellion in the ranks. With the Democrats in power, The GOP can't tow the party line much longer, and the remaining Republicans are starting to call a foul when they see it. Bush can't count on them to unquestionably support him and his "plans" for Iraq. Even McCain, who was willing to chuck his soul on how we treat our POW's, knows that if he wants to make a run for in '08, he'll have to ditch the President with his 34% approval rating. It's possible that Bush lauded Lieberman's "good advice" for a "bi-partisan working group that will help us come together across party lines to win the war on terror" to put a little fear in the hearts of Republicans who are eyeing the 2008 RNC like Pavlov's dog eyed the steak. Could it be that Bush was threatening them? That if they don't step up to the plate for le petit surge, he'll cross them right back by endorsing Lieberman? After all, that would make for good PR... After the Oval Office swung left for Clinton, then right for Bush, the American people might just buy an Independent, who's supposedly in the center. If he was so quick to ditch the Dems, what's to keep him from becoming a total tool of the Bush League? He's a pretty big tool already, from what I can tell.
Of course, this assumes that the Republicans would actually want Bush's endorsement, when it's possible that it might just be more like the black mark of death. Le petit Surge, le grand mort, non?
The Bush League is up to something new, and it's got me freaked out. Maybe this is the excuse I've been looking for to blow two hundred dollars on the West Wing Box set. It's not like I'll be able to sleep, with Lieberman and Bush waiting for the moment I close my eyes. I might as well stay up watch Josh Lyman bully Republicans for a while. Le sigh.