Kucinich fears October Surprise

[The impeachment of] George W. Bush . . . ought to top the nation’s agenda. . . . Because the past six years provide sufficient evidence that President Bush is not up to handling another crisis. . . . And I maintain it is reckless . . . to assume that there will not be some major national or world crisis within the next two years. One simply can’t rule that out.

- Jotman, Oct. 22, 2006

This week we learned Bush Administration is not sufficiently trusted to lead Americans out of the financial crisis. Bush spoke to the country and Congress about the urgent need to pass legislation to forestall a financial meltdown. And what happened next? Supposedly urgent national emergency legislation was rejected. Many Americans seem to have assumed that President Bush was simply crying wolf (again). Clearly, the White House is not able to provide possibly critical leadership during a time of national crisis.

The United States is today faced with precisely the kind of situation I had warned about.

Once Bush had clearly lost his credibility in the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq, Congressman Kucinich was one of a handful of US politicians who recognized that the only responsible course of action for Congress would be to impeach the Bush Administration. Of course, this did not happen.

Today, looking at new polling data that shows Obama ahead -- but Americans still convinced McCain would be the better "Commander in Chief" in wartime -- I wrote up this post (about an "October Surprise"). Then I did some Google searches and discovered that Kucinich is also concerned about the prospect of the particular "October Surprise" which I described. Here is an extract from his August 22 interview with the NY Times Magazine:

But why bother with impeachment when Bush is on his way out of Washington anyhow? This president is capable of taking us into war, in October, on the eve of an election, to try to change the outcome of the election. We need to keep the ability to impeach at the ready in the event that this president continues to exercise a wanton approach toward the use of power, particularly the war power. The events in Georgia are a premonition.

A premonition of what? A premonition of an attack on Iran. When Georgia moves against South Ossetia as the Olympics are starting, the Bush administration begins its own Olympics — the war Olympics.

Are you saying the Bush administration is likely to declare war soon just to help Republican candidates pick up some votes? Well, you know, they increased the funding to Georgia a while back for military purposes.

You think President Saakashvili of Georgia was encouraged, possibly by the American government, to cry victim? Look. Saakashvili had an American lobbyist who is now part of the McCain campaign, and I am sure he was given advice. The idea of striking during the Olympics would have to come out of Madison Avenue. We have to be able to see through this. And the one thing I have shown an ability to do is to cut through the b.s.

The invasion of Georgia provide a huge boost to the candidacy of John McCain. Kucinich may be on to something.