Another $50 billion for Iraq? So, what's the tally to date?

I just saw in the news that of the $60 billion promised for New Orleans rebuilding, barely one-tenth of that was actually delivered to the area and the survivors of Katrina, and that New Orleans, two whole years after the Katrina disaster, is still mostly a wreck.

It takes some serious imperial brass balls to fork over yet another mountain of money across the sea to fund a lost war of opportunity (or is that a war of lost opportunity?) while an American city right here at home continues to fester and rot from not-so-benign neglect. It says everything about Bush/Cheney's character, or lack thereof.

I have to laugh at the politico language encoded in this Edwards blurb (parens added, since that's who he's referring to, even if not by name)...

"We cannot triangulate (Clinton) our way to real change. We cannot compromise (Obama) our way to real change. But we can lead (Edwards) to real change."

I like how his writer narrowed the candidates down to one-word buzzwords, in hopes that things would stick in people's heads. While I certainly object to finger-in-the-wind triangulation and running from the Democratic base in favor of courting right-moderates, I think a vital component of leadership is compromise, so I think Edwards' attack doesn't hold much resonance against Obama.

So, given the Bush League's performance with government agencies to date, has Bush/Cheney decided to eliminate the GAO in the interests of the war effort?

Where the Unitary Executive is concerned, no news is good news! I find it amusing that the Government Accountability Office takes issue with Bush's view of the war, given that government accountability is the very antithesis of what this administration has been about, from the very get-go.

Gov. Butch Otter? For real??! What a great name for an Idaho Republican governor! Maybe this immediate ousting of Craig will mean that the GOP can save Craig's seat in 2008.

Amazing how decisive they can be when it comes to saving seats and preserving their power, and how indecisive the GOP can be when handling things like hurricanes in the Gulf Coast and responding to threats of terrorist attacks.

A couple of other things that, I think, kept Reagan from being Reagan (or from being Bush, who is Reagan on steroids and PCP, apparently) -- there were actual Democrats in Congress, even old New Dealers (though a diminishing minority) who offered actual resistance to Reagan's foolish policies, instead of rhetorical opposition coupled with supine capitulation. This very real resistance forced Reagan (and his handlers) to moderate his positions -- if Reagan had the 21st century Congresses enabling him, he'd probably have been made El Presidente for Life.

What's more, in Reagan's time, there was no Fox News, shamelessly and cynically manipulating popular opinion for reactionary purposes. Related to that, the Fairness Doctrine (where the media were expected to offer up balanced time for opposing viewpoints on controversial issues -- the original "fair and balanced," except for real, versus a marketing slogan) was still in effect for most of Reagan's presidency. Cable news and partisan news, 24 hours a day, wasn't the norm, yet.

The GOP itself was different then, too. The pathological economics of supply-side hadn't yet come to dominate the Republican Party, so despite the rhetoric of trickle-down economics, the boot in the face of Banana Republicanism that supply-side represents wasn't yet the coin of the realm among Republicans. There were still actual conservatives (and liberals and moderates) in the GOP back then, folks who'd served during Nixon's reign and who were wary of unimpeded presidential authority. There were Republicans who still had the ability to write good legislation and work with the other side, pursuing national interest over party interest, who understood that you still had to pay taxes to get things done.

Our supercharged atmosphere these days has the airwaves full of partisan drumbeating for the Unitary Executive and hysteria for any wrongthink that appears, while pretend Democrats offer only the feeblest, most token of resistance to the most rogue presidency in American history, and an ideologically goosestepping (and far less politically diverse) GOP strains to ramrod a deeply reactionary agenda down America's throat. I imagine somebody actually like Reagan wouldn't have found this environment appealing.

Reagan tried to rhetorically unify an American "Us" against a Communist "Them" -- but today's GOP has set itself up as the only real "Us" and everybody who opposes the GOP as "Them," and, by and large, the DINOs have let this happen, as has the LINO (Liberal in name only) media. Bush's attempts to buttress his maladministration with Reagan's ghost only highlights how unlike Reagan his tenure has been.