Letters to the Editor
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You say "courage" I say "cowardice"
“Democratic Sens. Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.) and Dianne Feinstein (Calif.) showed such courage Friday when they announced their support for attorney-general nominee Michael B. Mukasey." ~Fred Hiatt
Fred Hiatt may think that betraying all your constituents is the very definition of “courage.”
Not surprisingly, Schumer’s constituents have a completely different take on his “courage” and I do believe the word is “cowardice.”
See the YouTube where they express this opinion quite clearly.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TU1ABD7LscE
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Will any of this matter?
Unless an actually independent and liberal Democrat runs against and defeats Feinstein when next she runs, none of this matters.
It boils down to whether or not California Democrats are paying attention.
Any of them out there? What is the mood these days? Can she be dumped?
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So what are we to DO about this?
I call, I write, I send money to Dems in any state if they do something I approve of and I make sure I tell the other Dems like Feinstein and Schumer that I've sent money to the Dems they've betrayed. I vote. I help register voters. I work getting out the vote during elections - and I've worked in swing states not my own doing same.
Seriously. What's left for me to do? I am but a mere citizen. I honestly don't know what we are to DO about this sorry state of affairs.
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Madame Bechtel
Madame Bechtel makes me puke.
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Trent Lott's all choked up over Dianne
"She took a tough stand and showed a lot of courage," Lott said, tears collecting in his eyes and his voice quivering. "
Oh. My. God. Dianne moves me to tears also; I get all teary eyed when I reflect on her egregious behavior, how she's enabling the worst and most unpopular President ever to continue his assault on the remaining vestiges of democracy and freedom in this country.
I used to try to fathom the ignorance and mendacity of Republicans. Since 2006 I've been forced to ponder the abject complicity of the Democrats. I'm not sure which is worse.
I watched Bill Moyers Journal last night and he had on Thomas Cahill, talking about his new book about the death penalty. It's impossible to enter the EU, if your a country that still executes people. The gut-wrenching moment was when the camera panned a graveyard near the site where the state-sanctioned killing takes place. Acres and acres of cold, cement crosses with nothing but numbers on them. Stripped of their humanity in life, for crimes at least some of them assuredly did not commit, they were further demeaned in death with gravestones that had no names.
Cold, brutal, heartless executions. Millionaires are not executed (the rare exception proves the rule). They can afford competent legal representation. Large corporations, like coal mining companies, big tobacco, the telecoms, etc., can evade legal accountability and punishment, while the poor, the minorities, the Muslims are subjected to a travesty of justice and are punished unfairly or held without charge.
What a mockery we have made of the Declaration of Independence, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it..."
Exactly. Anyone making this statement today would be put under surveillance -- oh, wait, they already are.
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Ahem. You might want to take a look at Feinstein's approval ratings
Noted with interest that you present SurveyUSA's Bush approval ratings, which are in the toilet, but not Feinstein's -- which are still in the Stratosphere (she being California's Most Popular Democrat and all). To wit:
Do you approve or disapprove of the job Dianne Feinstein is doing as United States Senator?
Overall:
Approve: 55%
Disapprove: 39%
Not sure: 6%
Among Dems:
Approve: 70%
Disapprove: 24%
Not sure: 5%
http://www.surveyusa.com/client/PollReport.aspx?g=7b20ec7f-5ac5-43ed-b41a-d77d69bea681
And the reasons for this massive approval of a Liebermanesque Bush Enabler when Bush is so wildly unpopular?
So far, at any rate, she has not been linked with Bush in the public mind in California (though she did tour the fire devastation with him recently.) Her actions to support and defend her Leader (Bush) in the Senate are not widely recognized yet. Her apparent corruption is not widely recognized yet. It's been reported, but it falls into the category of Pelosi's rich husband's winery in Napa. Getting on her case for something her husband is doing (or not doing as the case may be) is a purely political smear.
And among California pols (Dem and Republican) DiFi is very well liked. Whereas the Abrasive Barbara Boxer isn't so much.
Oh. And of course DiFi was re-elected last year (overwhelmingly) and has apparently indicated this will be her last term. There is nothing anyone can do to her now. She can do whatever she wants, and no, she doesn't have to listen to her constituents. Not that she ever has.
DiFi's actions in the Senate are revolting, and they need to be hammered hard, but ultimately, like so many other things, it's too late to do anything about it.
I guess the Good News is that Schwarzenegger allowed as how he wasn't going to run against Boxer in 2010; whew.
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Invasion of the Party Snatchers
Dianne is in Lieberman territory now. She'd been hanging around the border, occasionally daytripping to Liebermanland, like frat boys hitting Tijuana. But now she's squarely in Lieberman territory.
Sometimes I get the queasy feeling that Dianne is at the vanguard of the neocon invasion of the Democratic Party. The neocon's existing host, the republican party, has been all but destroyed by the parasite, and it is just about time for the neocons to return to return to their spawning grounds in the Democratic Party. Remember the "Scoop Jackson wing" of the party? Well, now we'll have the Lieberman/Feinstein wing of the party, sure to be a favorite of the Broders and Brooks's. They'll be well funded, lionized in the media and certain to draw increasing support from "centrist" democrats. They won't be as gonzo as Cheney, but they'll love big defense spending and they'll support smaller, Iraq-lite interventions that will feed the military-industrial machine.
It won't be the same as pulling the strings on a Manchurian President. It won't be a return to the glory day of post-9/11 hysteria. But the Democratic Party will do quite nicely until the republican party can be rehabilitated.