Big Ace's Five Flushers of 2006 Edition

The Bad, the Worse, the Uglier, the Smug-lier, and Hillary-Dillery: Pop Goes the Weasels

Big Ace's picks for the five prominent political characters most likely to be indicted, fired, forgotten or resign in 2006.

1. Karl Rove.
Ace says that Rove has lamely changed and updated his testimony so much he gave the last Plamegate Grand Jury whiplash. Word is, indicting Rove was the main reason Fitzgerald empanelled a new Grand Jury, after the expired GJ indicted Libby last October. Pat's plans to flip Scooter and use him as the star prosecution witness against Cheney and Rove didn't pan out, so he went to Plan B, now in operation. Bush can't afford to have indicted criminal Rove hanging around the White House -- where his influence has been curtailed anyway -- so look for Bush's Brain to be moseying back to Texas in 2006, even if he stays out of an orange jumpsuit due to a presidential pardon.

2. Dick Cheney.
Ace claims he's become a walking punchline, and even most Republicans don't trust him anymore. He's also a drag on the GOP's chances of retaining Congress this year, and even more disliked by the American public than Bush. There'll be many a dry eye when Dick retires later this year due to his 'declining health' -- he's that despised inside the official Washington bureaucracy, and his resignation will help slow his mounting legal problems, in the Plame case and elsewhere. It will also be a concession to the Bush Administration's multitude of enemies within the U.S. intelligence community, who hate Cheney more than any other player on the Bush Team. After his departure, watch the neocon media haul out the howitzers and blast Dick for Bush's bad numbers and everything else that went wrong GOP-wise in 2005.

3. Bill Frist.
Ace says black smoke is filling the kitchen from Fristy's overcooked goose. By mid-2006, he's going to have so much subpoena paper hanging off him he'll look like an inverted trash can after a ticker tape parade. Dr. Bill not only has problems with the SEC, but down in his home state of Tennessee incipient investigations are underway of campaign money fraud and other shady business dealings. Frist is out of the Senate before this time next year, Ace predicts.

4. Tom DeLay.
Ace would enjoy seeing Tommy the Hammer retain his optimistic grin after being hit with indictments emanating from the Abramoff/Scanlon trials and other investigations in the pipe. DeLay's likely to lose his seat in Texas this year, which will put him out of politics forever, but not necessarily out of jail. He's the poster boy for corrupt Republicans everywhere, and many in the GOP, even his most public supporters, have privately concluded he must go, the sooner the better. DeLay likes to quote the Bible in his speeches; perhaps he'll start spouting the lesson in Psalms: Pride goeth before a fall. Tom will be falling fast and far in '06.

5. Hillary Clinton.
Save those "Hillary for President 2008" campaign buttons, Ace advises, they'll probably be worth at least as much as Sargeant Shriver and Gary Hart presidential pins from the past, two other 'in the bag' cinches who peaked early and flamed out. Hillary has some large potholes in the road to her nomination, aside from her gender: (a.) Sizable portions of her own party don't like her. (b.) She's not attracting many independents or Republicans to her side. (c.) Nearly every 'conventional wisdom' pundit has declared her, three years out, as the one to beat for the Dem nomination, a sure hint of impending doom. (d.) The Republicans are going to eviscerate her in the New York Senate campaign; although she'll retain the seat, she'll be bleeding from a thousand cuts. (e.) She's trying to repeat her husband's 1996 'run to the middle' campaign; it's the 21st century, and times have changed, as has the 'middle' she's running to, which is trending left, not right, thanks to Bush. (f.) Everyone's sick of hearing about her already; she's too much of a 'known quantity' and what's known about her is that she's a consummate 'pander bear' politician and unparalleled Washington insider; that image is fixed in the public consciousness and she won't be able to shake it, although, in panic, she'll veer quickly to the left in 2007, but few will buy her eleventh-hour conversion. Hillary's managed to box herself in on every losing Republican issue, such as the Iraq War, the economy and 'morality'; such people (see John Kerry) don't make it to the White House; most (see Joe Biden, Dick Gephardt and Joe Lieberman) don't get the nomination. Even the VP spot will be denied to her; what candidate wants to be out-shone by their running mate's marquee name? Hillary will trudge on as Senator from New York for the next twenty-four years, unless she quits from sheer boredom, all presidential hopes as toasted as a burned American flag.