Is Iraq Bush’s Waco? Will 2006 be the Democrats’ 1994?

Travel back in time with me to April 1994, just one year after the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993 and the disastrous 1992 siege at Ruby Ridge in Idaho that ended with an FBI sharpsooter killing the wife of white separatist Randy Weaver who was holding their infant child in her arms at the time.

For those who forgot, in 1990, a failed rock musician named Vernon Howell changed his name to “David Koresh” (biblical tie-in) and started his own Apocalyptic religious cult called the “Branch Davidians” in Waco, Texas. The FBI had been casing Howell’s activities for months (years?) for the sale and transport of firearms across state lines, as well as allegations of sexual abuse of children (every female of at least 13 years of age was “wedded” to Koresh, and all female members were allowed only to sleep with Koresh and not their own husbands).

Republicans skillfully manipulated a wave of “anti-government” furor by every gun-nut and Evangelical in the country (the Republican base), and harnessed it into a seething hatred for all things Clinton… including the Democratic Party that supported him… which in turn became part of the fuel for the fire that carried over after the election in what would become “Oklahoma City” less than a year later in Tim McVeigh’s 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building.

The GOP used the Waco debacle as a rallying cry to whip public opinion against an Administration they sought to paint as “incompetent” with no regard for “law abiding gun owners” or “peaceful practitioners of religious freedom”… the two largest Republican constituencies (neither of which the Davidians were). Couple that with (false) allegations of criminal misconduct by the Clinton’s (”White Water“), and you had the makings of Newt Gingrich’s “Republican Revolution” that allowed the GOP to ride a wave of “gun-nut evangelical anti-Democrat fanaticism” to control both houses of Congress in 1994 for the first time in 40 years (the GOP already controlled the Senate, and has done so almost without interruption since 1982).

Flash forward to 2006.

Iraq has become a disasterous symbol of the Bush Administrations’ incompetence. 2,700 dead US soldiers later, an emerging civil war in Iraq that is killing 3,000+ Iraqis a month with no end in sight, and a flurry of recent bad news that proves attacking Iraq has made us LESS safe instead of more, a President so incapable of admitting failure that he won’t even consider making changes to his strategy to get our troops out before he leaves office in 2009 (unless a Democratic Congress impeaches him first), and a Republican controlled Congress so deep in denial that “stay the course” actually seems like an acceptable exit strategy… and faster than you can say “Macaca“, you’ve got the makings of a potentional Democratic tidal wave this November

As in 1994, the public is once again in a furor over Presidential misconduct. Add to that outrageous gas prices (that have “miraculously” nose-dived in recent weeks), incompetence in Iraq and the failed pursuit of Osama bin Laden… Republicans are in disarray, bickering amongst themselves over the Presidents’ support of torture, Constitutional violations, and a “culture of corruption” that has seen the indictments and imprisonment of several high profile Republicans, both politicians and lobbyists alike. And the issues they DO agree on are more of the same racist homophobic nonsense that barely register a blip on most American’s radar.

But unlike 1994, the Democrats have a steeper hill to climb, needing to sieze control of BOTH houses of Congress in order to regain control. The question this time around is then, will voters be lulled into inaction once again by falling gasoline prices, muted war rhetoric, and postponed divisive legislation until after the election (also & here)?

And while a Times/Tribue poll last week trumpeted President Bush enjoying his highest poll numbers since January of ‘05… a whopping 44% thanks to falling gas prices and nostagia over the fifth anniversary of 9/11… Congress in that same week polled a dismal 25% approval rating.

We may see a very favorable 2006 indeed… as long as everyone gets out and votes that is!

This entry was posted on September 28, 2006 at 12:33 am and is filed under Political News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.