Parsing the Obvious, When No One Else Will

by Rich Miles

You know what my biggest weakness is as a political commentator and writer?

OK, other than that...

It's that I don't trust my instincts.

I think things that to me, seem so obvious that I simply can't bring myself even to commit them to paper, or bandwidth, because surely everyone KNOWS that already. So I don't say it, but then, neither does anyone else, and so I assume that it's just SO obvious that everyone already knows it.

But several times in the past, and lately an awful LOT, I've been seeing respected voices say the things I've been thinking for years, as if they were new ideas, or novel observations that no one had ever thought of before.

And when that happens, it really pisses me off that I didn't say it when I first thought of it. Here's an example:

Andrew Kohut, he of the Pew Research Center, agreed with me today. He said something that I've been saying since at least the middle of 2004, and I may have thought it sometime in '03.

Here's what he said: that Bush won in 2004 because the country was still being affected by the attacks on 9/11.

Now, isn't that the most obvious thing to say about that election? That a president who had actually lost the popular vote in 2000, and who may have jiggered the vote to steal the election in Florida, was helped to a 50.7% popular-vote victory because the voters were still reeling from the most horrific attack ever committed on American soil? Is that not so axiomatic as not to merit mention?

And so, I didn't mention it. And apparently, neither did anyone else, or at least no one else whose voice was heard in any real way, until Mr. Kohut said it today.

So here's another "obvious" observation that I've never seen anyone else utter aloud or on paper:

Bush started a war, now clearly on false pretenses, so he could then say, "You can't get rid of me - we're at war, and you endanger our country if you change leaders in the middle of a war."

See how it works? See what Bush and his thugs have done to this country?

Now why aren't we impeaching him?