by Sebastian Ramshackle III

Created on: February 03, 2007   Last Updated: April 19, 2007

As we approach the end of the Bush administration, the Scooter Libby trial will be remembered as a footnote and as one of the events that characterised what is possibly the worst administration since the end of World War 2. Bush is nearing the end of his term and cannot, therefore, be harmed electorally. What Libby will have done is contributed to the darkening of American perceptions of the Republican Party which will make it difficult for McCain to overcome the seemingly unstoppable Democratic juggernaut in the 2008 elections.

At the time of the Libby scandal, the Bush administration had already been so badly damaged by its Iraq adventure that most of those voters who were going to desert Bush had already done so. What this trial did (and it may be continuing to do this) was to play a part in:

i) confirming for Democrats who lean towards the Republicans that the GOP (Grand Old Party) is not for them;

ii) scaring a few of the previous Democrats who have moved to the Republicans into shifting back towards the Democrats. In some states, this may be enough to decide electoral college votes;

iii) re-energizing Democrat party workers;

iv) convincing Democrat party organizers that the next election is even more winnable and hence add energy to the party organization;

v) demoralizing, even further than was already the case, Republican voters, workers and party organizations, hence making the likelihood of a successful campaign even more distant.

What we are actually seeing is the demise of the Republican majority that the Reagan team and the those who helped put him into the White House spent so much time putting together and this trial has contributed to that disintegration. Whether we will see a new Democratic majority, based on the twin appeals of Obama and Clinton to their respective racial and gender constituencies together with the traditional loyalties of organised labor, remains to be seen. If the Democrats can put this together and hold it together, they could be in power for a long time.

However, the most significant impact of the Libby trial and, more generally, of the Bush administration's activities whilst in office, is that they will continue to erode the trust of the voters (and more importantly, non-voters who are increasingly in the ascendancy) in US democracy. This is both a tragedy and also something that the Bush team seem not to care about.

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