The Puppet Masters & The 2006 Election (Dale Allen Pfeiffer)

Created by : Francis Goodwin View profile

Dale Allen Pfeiffer -- The Mountain Sentinel

Nov. 14, 2006 -- The pundits are already saying that the 2006 election was a shining example of democracy in action. The electorate was losing confidence in the system. They needed the 2006 democrat upset to prove to them that democracy still works in the United States. Nothing could be further from the truth.

What we saw in the recent election was not a Democrat mandate, but a coup within the Republican party and the White House. Pappy Bush just took Junior out to the woodshed and administered a whipping. Then he told Bush's playmate, Rummy, that he wasn't welcome at their house anymore. And he told Cheney that he would be keeping a close eye on him.

We all know Cheney was running the Bush administration, with help from Rumsfeld and others. Dubya was just a figurehead. Cheney was the mastermind behind the War on Terror, the Patriot Act, and the Invasion of Iraq. Bush just sits around the White House playing fart jokes and tearing wings off of flies. He was chosen for his job because he makes a good cheerleader.

Among the unwritten rules in Washington, two stand out above all others: don't upset the applecart and don't disrupt the game. The applecart is the economy and the game is our system of government. Well the antics of the Bush administration, with tax cuts for the rich and massive boosts in military spending, have left the applecart ready to collapse at any moment. And Cheney has all but been caught cheating at the game. He was attempting to tear up the game board in his bid to consolidate power behind the executive branch. The puppet masters couldn't have that, so they sent in pappy's team to stage a coup within the White House.

The Democrats didn't win the election; the Republicans lost it. But there will be no major change of direction in Washington. One of the first statements Pelosi made after the election was that impeachment was not on the table. Then she had lunch with Dubya and assured AIPAC (the Israeli lobby) that they could count on her. The War on Terror will go on, and our troops will stay in Iraq while Congress debates changing the strategy behind the occupation. Maybe the troops will come home, maybe not.