White House Shuffle

White House Shuffle

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After a week spent manhandling the Chinese President and kicking ScottMcClellan to the curb, The Decider finally got around to downsizing his brain. Karl Rove is giving up his policy role to focus on politics, a distinction without a difference in this White House.

With even Fox News reporting Bush’s poll numbers (33 percent) threatening tofall below the Nixon line (28 percent), the best thing Bush could do for hisbeloved Republican majority is decide to resign. Or failing that, sincehe fails at almost everything he tries to do, Bush could simply fireRove the way the CIA fired Mary McCarthy. After all if Ms. McCarthy wasfired for a ‘pattern’ of inappropriate contact with reporters, thensurely Rove deserves the boot. Everything he does is inappropriate.

Instead we’ve learned that the Bolten recovery plan to bump up Bush’snumbers includes extending the tax cut for capital gains and stockdividends and more tours of the country to “brag” about the strength ofthe economy. This makes a certain amount of sense, since the onlyAmericans who will be able to afford a tank of gas to go see thepresident will be those who are rich enough to be affected by the taxcut on stocks.

Oh, and one more thing. The Bushies want to regain their securitycredibility by threatening Iran with war.

The White House can shuffle all it wants, but we’ve seen this dancebefore.

We cannot back down

We now confront a second Trump presidency.

There’s not a moment to lose. We must harness our fears, our grief, and yes, our anger, to resist the dangerous policies Donald Trump will unleash on our country. We rededicate ourselves to our role as journalists and writers of principle and conscience.

Today, we also steel ourselves for the fight ahead. It will demand a fearless spirit, an informed mind, wise analysis, and humane resistance. We face the enactment of Project 2025, a far-right supreme court, political authoritarianism, increasing inequality and record homelessness, a looming climate crisis, and conflicts abroad. The Nation will expose and propose, nurture investigative reporting, and stand together as a community to keep hope and possibility alive. The Nation’s work will continue—as it has in good and not-so-good times—to develop alternative ideas and visions, to deepen our mission of truth-telling and deep reporting, and to further solidarity in a nation divided.

Armed with a remarkable 160 years of bold, independent journalism, our mandate today remains the same as when abolitionists first founded The Nation—to uphold the principles of democracy and freedom, serve as a beacon through the darkest days of resistance, and to envision and struggle for a brighter future.

The day is dark, the forces arrayed are tenacious, but as the late Nation editorial board member Toni Morrison wrote “No! This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.”

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Onwards,

Katrina vanden Heuvel
Editorial Director and Publisher, The Nation

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