Killer Rabbits Whose Time Has Come

The Troops are Cold. The lead is hot, but the troops are cold. President Bush got a stiff reception among American troops at Fort Benning, Georgia today. Bush used to get wave after wave of enthusiastic ovations from soldiers and Marines. Now, he gets the same stare from the soldiers that he would get from Cindy Sheehan.

Ideas Whose Time Has Come. And Gone. In "The Case Against Tokenism," Martin Luther King cites Victor Hugo as saying "that there is nothing more powerful in all the world than an idea whose time has come." That applies for bad ideas as well as good ones. In late 2002 and early 2003, the Bush administration's invasion of Iraq was a bad idea whose time had come and anybody who resisted was castigated as a feckless wimp. Almost four years of failed occupation later, the original power of the idea of invasion only enhances the disgust over its failure.

The Rabbit and the L. Like his father, President Bush's popularity was never very stable even when his job approval ratings were 90%. In my posting for the Slate's Fray, I portrayed this instability through images of killer rabbits coming into Bush's boat just like one came into Jimmy Carter's and an "L for loser" appearing on his forehead. Now that 70% of the population disapproves of the surge, it's safe to say that the killer rabbits of helpless incompetence began to fill Bush's boat during the Katrina debacle and that the failure of the Iraq occupation has stuck the "L" permanently on Bush's forehead.

The Countdown. There are 740 days until the inauguration of the next President. After that Bush with his killer rabbits and his" L for loser" on his forehead head back to Texas. Now, that's an idea whose time has already come.