For months now, I have had this recurring nightmare: the Bush/Cheney junta figures out how to stay in power. I used to think they’d come up with some version of an our-national-security-is-at-too-high-a-risk-to-permit-elections scenario and refuse to leave, just hanging on to the reins themselves, hunkering down against all critics. That, however, was apparently too big a leap for even these most calloused of neo-Cons to attempt (though I’m not confident the American people couldn’t have been cowed into doing without elections). Now their strategy is apparently to do what a year ago seemed beyond belief: they’ve actually found a candidate to run under their banner who promises to keep the Ship of State on the precise course they’ve steered for the past eight years.

That was certainly a very tough search. Even more incredibly, they managed to find someone to do so that seems capable of doing it with a straight face! There is in my estimation no more straight-faced person in American politics today than John McCain., and after hearing some of his recent public pronouncements, there may be no more boring politician on the American scene than John McCain. The guy seems capable of making even Fred Thompson at his most somnambulant sound comparatively exciting. However, we’ve had yawn-inducing candidates many times before. That is part of the price we pay for Democracy. What is scary about McCain is not that he is capable of putting us to sleep but that he is hell-bent on replicating every blunder of Dubya’s administration…and tacking on a few doozies of his own for good measure.

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