Treading water
With President Bush's approval rating down to 31 percent (and falling) in the latest polls, and virtually all of his policies and programs having failed miserably, the most depressing thought one can have these days is this: he's in office for 2 1/2 more years.
I can't say with certainty that a similar situation has never occurred in our history. But in the modern era, it is pretty well unique. One would have to go back to the final three years of the President Herbert Hoover's administration, 1930-32, to find a President so hobbled by the fatal combination of bad policies, ideological rigidity and bad luck that the country was essentially treading water, waiting for his successor. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who took office in 1933, brought the nation both hope and solid policies to ameliorate the worst pain of the Great Depression. But why should we have to wait so long when the need for a new approach is obvious?
It is a basic defect in our Constitutional system that there is no provision for early elections. There is no way to throw out the current government and bring in fresh faces. If Bush was the leader of Germany, France, or the United Kingdom, all parliamentary systems, his government would have fallen by now. New elections would have been held, and John Kerry or someone like him would have formed a new government.
Impeachment is not the answer, as emotionally appealing as it may be. Realistically, it can't be done unless the Congress is firmly controlled by the opposition party. That's how it was in 1974 when the impeachment of President Nixon was attempted (he resigned when it became clear he had no more support among Republicans), and in 1998, when the ridiculous and damaging Clinton impeachment for his extra-marital sex life was attempted and defeated. Even if Bush could be impeached and removed from office, we would be left with Dick Cheney as President, a truly frightening thought.
So what is the answer? Frankly, I don't know. When Nixon did the right thing in 1974 and resigned, his Vice President was the popular and competent Gerald Ford. Ford, who had been House Minority Leader, was elected by the Senate to replace Vice President Spiro Agnew, a corrupt and angry man, after Agnew resigned in 1973 over bribery and tax evasion charges stemming from when he was Governor of Maryland. I'll never forget the Doonesbury strip that appeared the day after Nixon's resignation. It showed the sun rising over the White House and birds singing, perfectly capturing the sense of national relief that Nixon was gone.
The Republicans are arguably heading for historic defeats in both the Midterm elections this year and the Presidential election in 2008, assuming the Democrats can get their act together. But until then, we are treading water, trying not to drown before the lifeboat arrives.