Bush's Tug of War

OK, it's not been a day since we learned that Democrats would control the Senate as well as the House, and already, with a nervous grin, Bush is ready to stick the knife in.

Seeing his lame duckedness looming even larger come January, as in the gloves could come off and the shackles come on, Mr. Bush today asked the current Congress to make sure it gets a bunch of sorry old-Bush/Cheney school stuff done.

Two contentious matters in particular, and these really show the president's stubborn hand. He wants John Bolton cemented in as American Ambassador to the U.N. and, even more significantly, he wants to RETROACTIVELY make legal his domestic surveillance program.

RETROACTIVELY. That's because right now the President's ass is hanging in the winds of wrongdoer, illegal-activity doer, what he might call, should it have been an act of the enemy, "evildoer." (As Bill Maher says, "self loathing is the greatest love of all," meaning Bush hates the evil in others because he hates the evil in himself -- the guy NEEDS enemies. He thrives on the clash of civilizations, the bombast of war. He is a vampire for Baghdad.)

Mr. Bush broke the law, and with the shreds of an upper hand left to him with the clock ticking, he is running for cover. Not that he should be impeached any time soon for his breaking the law. That can wait until the Dems prove they really want to get some stuff done. But the President's breaking the law should not be forgotten or forgiven. He wants to grandfather his own actions. He seems desperate to turn his own crimes into acts of necessity and even heroism.

Fortunately, these further acts of hubris, post-midterms, do not sit well not only with the newly invigorated and emboldened Democrats but with many Republicans who are just now catching glimpses of the Bush administration's Nixonian darkness -- and who want to keep their jobs past 2008.