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[progressivejazz]

PREDICTIONS – 9/18/2003


It’s prediction time again. My last prediction was that Bush wouldn’t attack Iraq until this coming Winter because he’d learned the lesson of his father that wars don’t translate into votes if they happen too long before the election. I was wrong. As I watch Bush’s poll ratings plummet I see he’s learned nothing.

There are strange goings-on at the White House these days. Cheney says on Sunday that Iraq was the geographical base for the 9/11 attack and everybody else at the White House then takes pains to say they have no evidence that Saddam was involved with 9/11. And the way they did it. One administration member per day, so the story would have legs. From this it’s obvious that Cheney is toast. Things aren’t going so well in Iraq, the poll numbers are down, so somebody has to go to distance Bush from the negative aspects of his own policy. And that somebody is Cheney. I predict that Dick Cheney will resign for health or personal reasons soon; probably in October.

But who will take his place? For that, we have to look at the General Wesley Clark phenomenon. Clark is a charismatic Democrat who has the credentials to challenge Bush on national security. This guy is a real threat. He’s going to point out the weaknesses in the Bush approach to the “war on terror”, and who among the Bush crowd has the stature to stand up to him? For God’s sake, it’s a four star general who’s telling us this crowd isn’t fighting a war the right way! (Bush’s own fault, he’s the one who called this confrontation with terrorism a war in the first place.) With one exception, this administration is a bunch of amateurs when it comes to war. And this one exception gives us the answer to our question. Who better than a general to stand up to another general? For this reason I predict Colin Powell will be selected as the replacement for Dick Cheney as Vice President.

Who knows? Might actually happen.