“I’ve got a Mandate!”

From The Gadflyer:

The first month of President Bush’s second, triumphant term has sure been a doozy, hasn't it? Let's review:

•Fanatical bigot James Dobson played “I’ve got a Mandate!” and leds [sic] a mob of pitchfork wielding bible-thumpers in telling Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter, the GOP, and President Bush that Roe v. Wade will be overturned. This despite the desire of a vast majority of Americans to do no such thing. Specter got the nod as Judiciary Chair, but not after publicly supplicating
himself to Dobson and others.
•House Majority Leader Tom DeLay played “I’ve got a Mandate!” and strongarmed his Republican colleagues to change their own rule and allow him to continue wielding his hammer even if he is indicted in the Texas redistricting scandal.
•Continuing to sow their oats, House Republicans played “I’ve got a Mandate!” and torpedoed the intelligence reform bill. This was done either in defiance of Bush or because unlike the American people the President agrees that keeping brown people out of the country is more important than national security.
•Iraqi insurgents, who thanks to Bush double as the newest tag-team partners of al Qaeda, played “I’ve got a Mandate!” and almost made November the deadliest month for American soldiers since the invasion last March. Meanwhile, the U.S. continued to play a losing game of whack-a-mole, demolishing a relatively empty Fallujah while insurgents continued to wage civil war in Mosul and other cities.
•Oklahoma Congressman James Istook, apparently at the behest of a mysterious cabal at the IRS, played “I’ve got a Mandate!” and tried to slip language into the appropriations bill that would allow Senators and their staff to look at people’s tax records.
•Partisan Hack and new Director of the CIA Porter Goss played “I’ve got a Mandate!” and purged the agency of the only people in the administration who actually got it right on Iraq and the War on Terror, making clear in a memo to staffers that analysts’ first duty is to Bush, not the facts or, god forbid, the security of the American people.
•Congress played “I’ve got a Mandate!” and raised the national debt ceiling by a mere $800 billion to $8.18 trillion. In a related story, even the dollar has gotten into the act, dropping faster than Bush’s election day percentage of the Hispanic vote, which now appears to be closer to 40 percent than 44.

To recap, in just one short month, Bush and the Republican Party have taken the mandate from an allegedly realigned country and disregarded the desire of the vast majority of Americans to:

•Keep abortion safe, legal and rare
•Be safe from terrorist attacks
•See a competent resolution to the Iraq quagmire
•Have a strong economy •Have some privacy

Phew! Bush was right: Presidenting is hard work!