The Stages of Tragedy

It has been interesting to see the process over the past 2 years of Conservatives and their slow progression through the stages of processing a tragedy. The tragedy I am talking about, obviously, is the President of the United States, George Bush.

This whole new episode of "leaker-in-chief" is furthering the process for many. The stages are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

Denial is where you deny that the president has made any mistakes or lied to you over the course of the presidency. "he never misled us," and "he had a plan."

Anger is when you blame someone else for the tragedy that is GW. "It is all the democrats fault. If they would have just supported the president, there would be no insurgency. If it weren't for MoveOn.org, the Iraqis would have greeted us with flowers."

Bargaining is where you accept that there were mistakes, but try to qualify and mollify the mistakes with the actions of others. "Yes, ok, he knew that he was 'parsing words' and misleading us, but Clinton did it too!!!"

Depression is where you just can't take anymore and remove yourself from the news cycle. You avoid the on-line news sources and TV just because you don't want to see any more.

And then acceptance is when you finally accept that Bush is Bush and there is nothing you can do about his reverse Midas touch.

Liberals have to go through the same process. Denial that he is the legitimate president, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. I alternate between depression and acceptance. I have accepted that he will be here for the next two years regardless of how I feel about him, and that he will continue to screw things up for the next two years regardless of how much I blog or complain to friends.

My prediction is that Bush will bottom out at 30% approval rating, confirming that three out of every ten Americans will never get past denial and could watch Bush eat a baby on live TV and still think he is the greatest president ever. I, on the other hand, have accepted that we are stuck with the worst president since Taft and there is nothing that I can do about it.

At least Specter seems to be somewhere in the bargaining to depression stage. Where are you in the process?