John Scalzi over at the Whatever has an interesting question: what would it take, in the next 20 months or so, for Our Only President to produce a record of Anything But Failure? And the amazing thing is, there really isn’t much, is there?
I mean, is there a realistic chance that the situation in Iraq will noticeably improve over the next two years? I don’t think so. Is there a realistic chance that our national infrastructure will noticeably improve over the next two years? I don’t think so. Is there a realistic chance that Our Only President will have a democratic epiphany and begin to run his Administration on principles of transparency, reason and law? I don’t think so.
The only thing that is remotely conceivable is that somehow somewhere in the government-funded research and design labyrinth, there are half-a-dozen things that if combined properly will be the Magic Bullet for dealing with global climate change. Someone could theoretically discover this in the next six months, and Our Only President could have an environmental epiphany and ride that Bullet into history, putting the might of the federal government into making those Bullets and distributing them.
Then, in fifty years, when we are routinely using the Bush Bullets to—what? Float our coastal cities? Zap hurricanes down to zephyrs? Ship goods and people by instantaneous low-power TransMat? Colonize Titan?—people might say that the bastard got something right, anyway. Of course, this goes largely against what I think Our Only President is like, and against how I think technological advance works, and so on. But it’s kinda plausible, isn’t it?
Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.