Until the wheels come off

I know a recovered alcoholic who says he drank until the wheels came off the car - and then tried to keep going. It is a metaphor, of course. A drunk who knows the party has got to end soon has one defining characteristic: belligerence. They have the astounding willingness to keep drinking long after all rational evidence suggests doom is in the offing.

So it goes with the GOP in general, and the Bush White House in particular. A few of today's headlines:

Indicted DeLay steps down from House post
FEMA under fire again, now for Rita effort
FEMA's Brown was warned early of shortages
SEC Upgrades Sen. Frist Stock Inquiry

To induce another belabored, tired metaphor: the other shoes keep dropping. It is, in fact, raining shoes. Delay went down today. Frist has a blind trust that apparently only he could see. Rove will be indicted. ( sounds pretty cocky from a blogger in Hollywood - but it will happen.) The strangely accurate National Enquirer is reporting that W is drinking. This too, I sense, will play out in a bigger media forum. Michael Brown has vomited all over everyone - instead of doing what ex-Bushies are supposed to do - go away and shut up. The undeniably foolish response to Katrina, prompted the a week long photo op for Bush as Rita approached. Next to no one bought it. W's handlers once again confused being present with being engaged. And the pointless ache of Iraq continues to throb. Even those who pay no attention at all - cannot avoid the gas station.

And yet, the GOP drives on. Insisting that their irrational tax cuts have kept the economy expanding slowly...slowly... it wasn't masses of people using their houses as credit cards at all. And that we must "stay the course" in Iraq - though it is self evident that continuing to "stay the course" is precisely the problem. Whatever one thinks needs to be done in Iraq, the current policy is a mess. We either need a hell of a lot more troops on the ground, or we need to get out.

W and the GOP do have one ace in the hole: the opposition party is, seemingly, drugged and in a coma. THAT may allow the drunk to keep driving a little while longer.