Wayne's Warnings

October 24, 2006 -- There is something afoot, in a very Shakespearean way, in the White House. Preparing for a post-election massacre of the GOP and the resignation of Donald Rumsfeld as Defense Secretary, two factions are emerging within the White House. One is the neo-con faction surrounding potential scapegoat Vice President Dick Cheney. This faction includes Cheney's own staffers and his and Rumsfeld's sympathizers in the Pentagon, National Security Council, State Department, and media and think tanks. The other is the faction coalescing around the other potential scapegoat -- George W. Bush. This is the most interesting faction as it consists of George H. W. Bush and his closest friends -- James Baker III, Lee Hamilton, former CIA Director Robert Gates, Alan Simpson, Sandra Day O'Connor, and other past luminaries of the George H. W. Bush administration. George W. Bush has had to admit that his presidency has been a failure and now must have his father and his father's friends bail him out. The Iraq Study Group of Baker and Hamilton, which is negotiating with the Iraqi Resistance, Iran, and Syria against the wishes of Cheney's faction, was a step in the direction of bailing out Junior.

This editor was recently approached by someone close to George W. Bush and White House Press Secretary Tony Snow who made it clear that George W. Bush was fighting elements "further to his right." Flabbergasted, I responded that I didn't think many people were further to the right than Bush. But that was before the impending scapegoating issue became clear. "Further to the right" means Cheney, some members of the Christian fundamentalist Right, and their followers.

But with the long knives soon to be out for scapegoats -- what will happen in the White House will be one of the the nastiest political purges in U.S. history. Cheney, whose ideological fervor knows no bounds, is not about to concede that Iraq was a failure. He and his neo-con advisers do not intend to be scapegoated. The Bush faction, eager to protect the Bush family name during a series of intensive congressional investigations but more likely to admit to mistakes, does not intend to bear the brunt of blame for the Cheney faction's misadventures.

2007 may turn out to be a dangerous year for America. The scapegoating will not be limited to the two emerging White House factions. If Joseph Lieberman wins re-election and then decides to accept the invitation of replace Rumsfeld at the Pentagon, thus allowing a Governor Jodi Rell in Connecticut (a good reason not to re-elect her) to appoint a Republican replacement, that could tip a 50-50 Senate or a 51-49 Democratic Senate to either total Republican control or turn it over to Cheney's gavel-wielding tie breaking vote. Any such scenario could result in an American version of the infamous Dreyfus affair in France. America must be on guard against those with secret agendas to find scapegoats where they do not exist.

Wayne's website may be accessed here.