The party that's in power is in more of a position to proactively take things too far, and rarely refrains from making use of that opportunity. The Republicans are in the unusual (for them) position of controlling the presidency and both houses of congress, with particularly weak (Bush, Hastert, Frist), venal (Rove, DeLay) and surprisingly incompetent (Rumsfeld) characters in positions they really shouldn't be. Tired accusations of fascist intentions aside (yawn..), the pendulum's swung too far in one direction, and these things have a tendency to self-correct through public irritation.

I personally don't think Clinton was an especially bad president, but he and his team produced any number of actions and statements that pissed off major portions of the public as much as Bush does today. The web + 24 hour cable news constantly looking to stir up s--t wasn't in place in the early '90s, so it's not as easy to dig up incidents, but Rostenkowski going to jail, the Clinton runway haircut while LAX shut down, firing the White House travel staff, etc., come to mind easily enough. Those were more innocent days, though (post Berlin Wall, pre-911), so it seems in retrospect to be petty squabbling and "politics as usual" while the same games today are considered unprecedented, earth-shattering, and threatening the future of the republic. They're not. One major difference, the quality and gravitas of Newt Gingrich and Bob Dole in opposition was striking compared to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, a couple of old-style party hacks - the Democrats' choice of those two plus Dean to run the show makes me think they'll blow a historic opportunity for a '94 level re-alignment this fall.

It'll shake out soon enough anyway, and we'll have some new set of administration boogey-men to piss off half the country.

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81 300SD
08 MDX Tech
93 525i

05 F650GS