Letters to the Editor
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No one???
"No one predicted just how radical a president George W. Bush would be."
I'll post my response in a day or two, after I stop laughing...
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Battered Woman Syndrome
??? Is that what this country currently suffers from? Because after all the books I've read about how horrible Bush and the GOP are, and subsequently Blumenthal's op/ed, I still cannot understand how these smart and talented men and women who make up the majority of the country, have tolerated these moves by Bush & Co.
Recently, I heard Rep. Charles Rangel on the Ed Schultz Show, and he flat out said that Democrats are not interested in impeaching the president if they win the House, but you can count on them to start investigations! And I'm sitting there saying, WTF? I'm counting on the first women president of the US to be not Hilary Clinton, but Nancy Pelosi. The Dems MUST and CAN impeach Bush & Cheney. It's just not an option to not pursue impeachment.
Blumenthal touched on the complicity of the press, who have been so easily fooled. And here we are again, with "The Path to 9/11" docu-drama which places the blame mostly on Clinton's watch even though its the GOP's radicalism that prevents intense focus on capturing bin Laden by the administration. Just when I thought I could exhale, I realized I would have to wait again.
I hope that Americans don't just condemn Bush in the history books. For what the past 26 years have shown, is that modern American conservatism has really fucked us over and over and over. From dismantling the expansion of rights for all Americans and the policies addressing the ills of of the lower classes, to undermining the middle class, to taking us to wars, to flagrantly giving the middle finger to the Constitution, American Conservatism has tried to drag us back to a pre-Constitution mentality (heh, take that pre-9/11 mentality).
Europe suffered a long, long era of the Dark Ages which was ruled by iron fists and the elite few that emphasized religios piety and obstructed scientific advances when they could. Perhaps America is due for our own Dark Ages and therefore, it is up to us Progressives to collectively fight for our Renaissance, Age of Reason and Enlightment. I hope it starts this Fall.
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The endpoint (hopefully) of a race to the bottom
I've said enough before about the sins committed by the Clinton-Gore administration on a certain issue on which they made a major, major impact in this country by scaring the pants off of people and lying as much as they could get away with.
Does that sound familiar?
I had an argument with a friend. I proved to him that Gore was a liar. He said so what, they're all liars, but our liar is better for the world than their liar.
But I say, when we're using that kind of logic, all we're going to end up with in office is shameless liars.
Yes Bush is the worst President ever, but that's what happens when both sides lower their standards of basic honesty to pander for power and we end up in a race to the bottom -- a race that the biggest and most shameless liar is all but guaranteed to win.
Shame on us. We can do better.
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Thank you Mr. Blumenthal for not preaching to the choir
It seems obvious enough to me that Sidney Blumenthal isn't forming his argument for the converted but rather for the swing voters and middle of the roader who will probably determine the make up the next congress. Thank you and lets hope this gets to those voters.
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Re-Hashed Hash Is Still Hash
Twenty-two years ago, during Reagan's "Morning In America" re-election campaign, every single thing listed in Blumenthal's essay became screamingly obvious. The Presidency of Geoge W. Bush is the logical end-point of the Reaganite Revolution. It is the political terminus of everything that has come since "God And Man At Yale" was published, and the candidacy of that lunatic from Arizona - who, I might add, lived to regret the notion that "extremism in the pursuit of liberty is no vice." Why this is not obvious to everyone else is simply beyond me. I'm no genius. I have just always seen things for what they were.
Is the same too much to ask of my countrymen and women?? Perhaps.
And is it too much to ask of Mr. Blumenthal that he try and publish this sort of thing in, say, Time? Where it might actually make a difference?? Because here it is just preaching to the choir.
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If Ever A Case Has Been Made...
...for removal of a sitting President, Blumenthal has crafted it.
We have the Constitutional mandate. We have the Constitutional mechanism. All we need now is the will.
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none
Excellent article. When Bush's actions are condensed into a shocking, rapid list the overall effect is devestating. This article doesn't come off as partisan at all, just a recitation of scandal after scandal. This should be read by every American.
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Not fooled either
I had a very strong feeling that Bush would be a disaster for this country, and there was nothing in his background that made me think otherwise. I am not surprised that he's the malevolent force he is, but I am somewhat surprised at how weak the news media and the Democrats have been. Still, I think that's beginning to change a bit now. And I think that five hard years of bitter defeats is making our side stronger and tougher. I think that we've been pushed around enough times not to make us feel weak, but to not fear being pushed around. So I think we're just about ready to make a comeback.
The other day, I was watching someone clean up dog poop. Nowadays, everybody does that. When I was growing up, no one did. Things change. Sometimes they change for the better. We've seen five years of change for the worse. But I think it's time for a new kind of change. I have been hopeless for a long time. But now, I'm just beginning to feel a new kind of hope. It's in my bones and in my gut. I think things are going to start getting better.
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re Bush the most radical, worst president in US history...
Great article by Sydney Blumenthal, one of the most accurately insightful commentators in the US media, and certainly one of the fightin'est Dems around.
But, sad to say, Mr. Blumenthal overlooks one of the most important "enabling" forces in the Bush-Cheney-Republican rise to near monopoly powers over the US government, business, and "4th estate" press/media. Is this confluence or alignment of powers - "enabling" powers from those who should be vocal critics and should be offering some tangible opposition - pure coincidence or does it reflect skillful politics on the part of Bush and those close to him? It doesn't really matter, because Bush-Cheney-Rove have indeed been so skillful at exploiting it, and thereby quashing so much meaningful resistance in the government, congress, and press/media.
Allow me to "tease" just a moment further, and explain that much of this is laid out, recounted, and explained in the "most important book of this decade," Michael Lind's "Made in Texas: George W. Bush and the Southern Takeover of American Politics." (available at Amazon, etc). Lind explains that while the Bush regime is indeed RADICAL, they have been extremely effective in playing to the myths, icons, symbols, fears, and unifying forces that drove manifest destiny in the slave state south, namely the "Herrenvolk" social structure that elevated violence, conquest, subjugation of lesser races, hierarchical society, and subjugation within that society to the "warrior-planter" ideal, the dominant and autocratic leadership at the apex of the clan-like social structure, with strong religious or theocratic elements . And the pink-elephant in the room that no one, anywhere, wants to talk about is the ALIGNMENT of the (a significant) Jewish portion of American society with that aggressive, hierarchical, expansionist, anti-democratic agenda.
No where is this better illustrated, of coure, than the person of Joe Lieberman, who back in the 60's aligned with the Civil Rights movement because that was the path to upward mobility. But in 2000 Lieberman, at the top tier of American society and political power, had no use for defending Black voters disenfranchised in Florida, and he, like all the other Dem senators, sat on his (their) hands as that election was stolen, REFUSING to allow even one Dem. senator to sign on to the Black Congressional delegation's call for JUST ONE senator to sign their demand for a congressional investigation into ILLEGAL disenfranchisement and vote fraud in Republican-dominated Florida. This "sell 'em down the river" attitude was of course repeated in 2005, as, literally, bodies of New Orleans poor went floating down flooded streets, while Democrats COULD NOT FIND their voice, or the (media) means, to loudly and aggressively condemn the Bush-Cheney White House and FEMA for neglect and incompetence (much less massive reconstruction contract fraud). This dreadful dynamic of RESTRAINED CRITICISM - effectively Free-Pass opposition party whitewashes of admin. and government misconduct - is STILL with us even days out from the 2006 mid-terms, as even the most 'liberal" Dem senators (Boxer, Feingold, etc.) are relatively muted and restrained in confronting either Lieberman's turncoat campaign, or confronting the continuing BushCo incompetence, corruption, dictatorial secrecy and arm-twisting.
Indeed, Barbara Boxer's (the most 'liberal' senator in that body) first impulse was to campaign FOR Lieberman, which of course effectivly quashes or negates any anti-war posture on her part, and thus effectively boosts or supports the Bush-Rove-Cheney one-party rule.
Ned Lamont (with the help of alot of great supporters) HAS been able to CONFRONT the Lieberman pro-Bush record, but Lamont's campaign has largely been FORCED OUT of the front-pages of "mainstream media." And therein, in the DEMOCRAT'S ability to FORCE confrontational news, leaders, and policies OUT of the front-pages and top-of-the-story news hour leads, is the story of these past 5 years - how DEMOCRATS have ENABLED the Bush administration, by MUTING and RESTRAINING their opposition and rhetoric under a blanket of "we CAN'T do anything!" or "those big bad media bullies Won't LET us say anything bad about Mr. Bush and his administration." AS Mr. Lind points out, this haplessness and muted opposition is not entirely happenstance, and does indeed lie in an alignment or realignment of forces within the Democratic Party sympathetic to the "Herrenvolk" ideal that Mr. Bush so effectively calls up among his most ardent supporters.