King George was going mad, and his council did not know what to do with him.
No, I do not speak of King George III in his latter years as monarch of England, I speak of George W. Bush, and his slide into what can only be described as a self-made mental purgatory, a form of madness as real as any suffered by George III.
The analogy may not be totally daft. The war with the colonies hadn't gone the way King George had planned, and then the whole Napoleon mess made matters even worse. King George's appointed Prime Minister, William Pitt the Younger, and all the other ministers and magistrates, didn't know what to do with the addle-brained King as he slowly and recurrently lapsed into madness.
Now two centuries later we in the colonies find ourselves strapped with our own King George, this time anointed by five appointed magistrates, but again a king who seems to be slipping inexorably towards madness. Those around him in his administration are not sure what to do with the troubled King. He babbles on about success and victory even as his blundering defeat stares him squarely in the face.
While we cannot simply replace our King George with something like the Regency Act of 1811, we can certainly consider the United States equivalent, congressional investigations followed by articles of impeachment, if they are warranted by the evidence.
When Kings go mad, the country, and the world, suffer greatly. Inaction only prolongs the suffering.
No, I do not speak of King George III in his latter years as monarch of England, I speak of George W. Bush, and his slide into what can only be described as a self-made mental purgatory, a form of madness as real as any suffered by George III.
The analogy may not be totally daft. The war with the colonies hadn't gone the way King George had planned, and then the whole Napoleon mess made matters even worse. King George's appointed Prime Minister, William Pitt the Younger, and all the other ministers and magistrates, didn't know what to do with the addle-brained King as he slowly and recurrently lapsed into madness.
Now two centuries later we in the colonies find ourselves strapped with our own King George, this time anointed by five appointed magistrates, but again a king who seems to be slipping inexorably towards madness. Those around him in his administration are not sure what to do with the troubled King. He babbles on about success and victory even as his blundering defeat stares him squarely in the face.
While we cannot simply replace our King George with something like the Regency Act of 1811, we can certainly consider the United States equivalent, congressional investigations followed by articles of impeachment, if they are warranted by the evidence.
When Kings go mad, the country, and the world, suffer greatly. Inaction only prolongs the suffering.
