Letters to the Editor
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How nice!
It's so nice to see the circular firing squad isn't taking place on our side for once!
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It was Katrina, stupid
It was the war and the unlimited avarice of the Republicans that ended their dominance on Tuesday, but it was Katrina that first breached the Bush armor. After four years of acting all tough, the first action-figure president (but GI Joe would never go AWOL, would he?), Bush's true incompetence and corrupt nature were laid bare for all to see:
His staff was afraid to bring him the bad news about New Orleans and the Gulf, instead burning a DVD of CNN and MSNBC stories.
Four days after Katrina made landfall, flooding an entire US city, he knew nothing about the suffering of hundreds of thousands of American citizens.
Condi was shoe-shopping at Ferragamo in New York. Her "I don't do hurricanes" attitude was shocking considering that several hundred foreign nationals were caught in the storm.
Michael Brown's dumb, doughy face probably reminded a lot of people of their amiable, but similarly addled, boss. Bush's "heck of a job" compliment probably reminded people of their boss' clueless boss. A Dilbert cartoon during a national tragedy.
Bush's false words juxtaposed against the images on CNN, MSNBC, CBS, ABC and NBC made it plain the guy was lying his ass off. Even Fox News couldn't defend him on this one.
In just four days, people who had given the Bushies the benefit of the doubt that they were competent adults running a government during difficult times lost their patience. The Bushies were nincompoops who couldn't care less if thousands of people, OUR people, suffered and died during one of the worst natural disasters in our history.
Katrina forced people to look at other areas of Bush incompetence and lying: the war, no-bid contracts, surveillance programs, torture, etc.
The blindfolds were off. The emperor really is naked. He is a dumb fratboy threatening our civil liberties, not to protect us, but to expand the powers of the presidency.
So when you celebrate the Democrats' taking control of both houses of Congress, raise a glass to Katrina for opening the eyes of many of our fellow citizens.
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Kudos to Tim
Kudos to Tim Grieve who called this one:
Just a question: If you're a Republican who just lost his or her seat in Congress, are you thinking today that you're glad that the president waited until the day after the election to announce that Donald Rumsfeld is leaving?
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2006/11/08/waiting/index.html
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Irony meter pegged!
When Newt is the only repub sounding logical and straight talking, the righties have a problem.
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Newt Gingrich, Meet George W Bush
Congratulations are in order for Newt Gingrich, who appears to have just awakened from a 6 year coma to find the man occupying the White House to be a smirkingly disingenuous, thoroughly incompetent boob.
Continued wishes for improved health, Mr G....
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Couldn't happen to a nicer nimrod...
The idea that George Felix "Macaca" Allen is sitting around somewhere "shell-shocked" and "despondent" is sooooooo sweet.
After all, he left most of us in the Old Dominion feeling that way since 1994.
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I'm not usually one to agree with Gingrich...
but in this case he's right and boy am I glad the president lied and held off letting Rummy go until after the election.
I still want to slap around people like Norquist with an old fish for all their predictions about the impending armageddon that a democratic congress will be.
So, what exactly has the republican congress done in the last 6 years? I mean for anybody right, left, or in the middle? Other than approving a couple of right wing justices and some neo-fascist administration positions, they haven't done anything to move this country forward. I disagree with Norquist and his ilk that the nothing we've had is preferrable to whatever we are going to get.
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Newt Gingrich deserves no kudos
"Congratulations are in order for Newt Gingrich, who appears to have just awakened from a 6 year coma to find the man occupying the White House to be a smirkingly disingenuous, thoroughly incompetent boob."
He's a self-serving piece of trash. He only had a George Bush epiphany because they lost. If the Republicans had held the Congress he'd be singing a different tune.
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Any of those possible Republicans would lose to...
... the Democrat Dream Team: Al Gore for President and Joe Lieberman for Vice-President!
Think about it: Lieberman certainly has higher standing and more credibility than in 2000, and Gore has learned a lot. Gore has worn well over the years, and Lieberman has blossomed.
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Bush's lie
Everyone is going on about how the election would have been different if Bush had told the "truth" before the election that Rumsfeld would be dumped from his job. The problem is that he didn't lie BEFORE the election, he lied afterwards. To me, it's apparent that he had no intention of dumping Rumsfeld if the Republicans prevailed. If he had, there's no reason he would not have done it before the election. The lie he told about having decided before the election was simply to cover his ass and not look as if he was being driven by polls and election results. He wanted to look as if he made the decision on his own. He didn't. He lied about it. One more lie in a list of lies so long they are hard to count. No one should be surprised.
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No honor among thieves, OR politicians
Is there any careful observer of U.S. politics so gullible as to believe people like Gingrich are sincere about everything they say, every candidate they back, or every issue they push?
COME ON, NOW! Most politicians -- and I will resist saying ALL politicians, because that would be too depressing to consider -- are interested in themselves and their further advancement over ANYTHING else. As a result, they'll hitch their wagon to whoever they believe can be helpful, at that moment and in future; they'll also support ideas they don't fully accept if it helps their re-election and advancement.
Once the usefulness of Person A (e.g., Dubya) has vanished for Politician B (e.g., Newt Gingrich), Person A will be trashed quicker than a used Kleenex. Newt doesn't need the President any more; in fact, the quicker he removes himself from such a radioactive personality, the better.
The same is true for a given political strategy -- the scorched earth policy employed by Republicans during this 2006 campaign didn't work in the end, so Dubya espouses a "new" cooperative approach in his post-election news conference. I don't honestly think most Republican politicians truly believed that Democrats, as a whole or even in large part, are TRAITORS to this country. Sad that Bush can only admit that AFTER this poisonous campaign.
Look how fast Dubya abandons his "stay the course" pseudo-strategy after it lost the Congress for him! His experience in 2004 wrongly led him to conclude it would win again for him, so NOW he can jettison it and his Secretary of War.
Say, how about if this Congress changed the official cabinet office title from Sec. of Defense back to the old Sec. of War? THAT'S a GREAT idea, don't you think? It's sure more truthful, and doesn't obscure the reality of what the office seems to be about these days!
The old saying is that there's no honor among thieves. Sadly, there's even LESS honor, honesty and candor among politicians. Is it any wonder that the public becomes cynical about politics, when politicians destroy themselves and their opponents by their own cynical, manipulative antics?