Occam’s Razor

The Return of Government of, by and for the People

Today marks the welcome and long delayed return of sane government.

Admittedly, it is just one branch of government that has regained its sanity, but it is a start. For many of us the end of our long, national nightmare did not occur when President Nixon resigned. It happened on November 8th when voters threw the Republicans out of both houses of Congress. Today, as a new Congress was sworn in, government of, by, and for the corporation and special interests came to an abrupt end.

While I felt the political earthquake coming before the election, I was still nervous whether its size would not be enough to dislodge Republicans from both houses of Congress. It was, but just barely. The Senate, where Democrats are in control by a single vote, still does not quite feel like it is in Democratic hands. This is because Democratic Senator Tim Johnson of South Dakota remains in the hospital, after brain surgery. While his recovery appears to be proceeding normally, he has a long way to go before he can actively participate in the Senate. If he cannot serve, you can bet that South Dakota’s Republican governor will appoint a Republican to his seat. In this event, the Senate would split 50-50, effectively putting Republicans in charge since Darth Vader, a.k.a. Dick Cheney would become its deciding vote. Due to Senate rules, it takes 60 votes to pass any controversial bill. However, by being in the majority the Democrats will be able control the chamber’s business.

This afternoon found us with a new Speaker of the House who was, for the first time, a woman. Nancy Pelosi is going to surprise many people. Republicans will be the most surprised. They see her as a far left liberal. While that may be true, that does not mean that she will govern as one. She understands that if Democrats want to retain power their impact must be broad and mainstream, rather than serving a narrow constituency of supporters. This is a lesson the Republicans never quite grasped.

It has been a while since government truly worked on behalf of the average Joe. Except for a brief period when Democrats captured control of the Senate, it has been twelve years with a Republicans Congress. Until 2001, we had President Clinton to reign them in. Not that it has been easy. In 1995, Republicans interpreted their majority status as a reason to close the federal government. Over time, their Contract with America became inconvenient to their true mission: maintaining power for themselves and their friends. Term limit promises and rules about not accepting gifts from lobbyists went by the wayside. During this decade all pretenses were dropped. Time after time legislation was passed that gave great benefits to fellow Republicans, and screwed the rest of us.

The Republican Congress and President Bush gave new meaning to the word “chutzpah”. In the House of Representatives, Democrats were effectively locked out of legislative process. All sorts of tactics were used to diminish their power, including enacting rules that excluded them from bill markup sessions. Over in the White House, President Bush signed bills into law with accompanying signing statements. In many cases, these statements explicitly contradicted the purpose of these laws in the first place. He is still at it. On December 20th upon signing the Postal Reform Bill, he said he would interpret the law as giving him the power to open people’s mail without a warrant, even though it gave him no such power. I hope that one of the new Congress’ first acts will be to bring a case to the Supreme Court to test their constitutionality. It is hard to imagine anything more unconstitutional than the president refusing to abide by the law of the land. At least when President Nixon broke the law, he knew he was doing wrong.

What were Americans smoking during the last twelve years? Virtually everything that came through Congress was framed this way: if it was good for Republican interests, let’s do it, and the fiscal consequences did not matter. Consequently, we got obscene tax cuts for the rich and favors for corporations and special interests of all kinds. We got faith-based initiatives on the taxpayer’s dime. We got politicians more concerned about the feelings of fertilized blastocytes than people who lost everything in New Orleans. The most progressive thing Congress did was pass a Medicare prescription drug bill. However, it did not do it until it made it easy for drug manufacturers to keep their profits high. Instead of carbon caps, we had meaningless voluntary quotas on carbon emissions. Throughout these years, while Congress kept increasing its salary it could not find a way to raise the minimum wage from $5.15 an hour. This is a wage so niggardly that you can earn it and be well below the national poverty line. It was selfishness run amok.

Today meant a fundamental change in this sort of wrong and selfish thinking. It may be that after a long spell in power the Democrats may go back to the kind of corruption that deservedly got them thrown out of office in 1994. On the other hand, perhaps Democrats have learned a lesson. A hopeful sign is that the House Democrats, as their first act, will prohibit representatives from accepting gifts from lobbyists.

Granted, after twelve years of Republican rule there is so much fundamentally messed up with the country that all the needed changes cannot occur overnight. The Republican Congress’ contempt for the American people, if it needed any more proof, was evident in their lame duck session. They left town without even bothering to complete passing fiscal year 2007 appropriation bills. However, a new day is dawning in Washington. Congress appears to be ready to be a government of, by, and for the people again. It may be that in 2009, a Democrat will be in the Oval Office too. In that case something quite remarkable will have occurred: two branches of government will have changed hands in just two years. Looking toward the 2008 elections, it is hard to see how President Bush can fail to be a drag on any Republican nominee. In the Senate, the number of Republicans up for reelection is much higher than the number of Democrats, which suggests that Democrats will build on their majority. In the House, it is unlikely that Republicans will be able to chip away at the Democratic majority in only two years. Most likely Democrats will increase their majority.

The fact is that the country is changing right under the Republicans’ noses. Unless Republicans reinvent themselves as a kinder, gentler and more moderate party, they are likely to keep losing seats. The 2006 election proved that the times are a changing. The Midwest is turning blue. Even the Rocky Mountain States are turning a shade of purple. As Generations X and Y age and discover their political power, they are unlikely to model the Republican Party’s values of narrow mindedness, xenophobia and a cultural monotheism. They are growing up in a different America, which is culturally diverse, and where Caucasians will no longer be in the majority.

I believe that history will show that in the first half of this decade that the Republican Party reached its political zenith. Its hold on the majority has always been tenuous because it so steadfastly worked against the people’s interests. Despite Tom Delay’s attempts at gerrymandering, the demographics no longer favor the Republican Party. America’s future is colored blue.

January 4th, 2007 at 07:38pm Posted by Mark | Politics 2007 | no comments

Our Greatest 20th Century Republican President

Sorry, he was not Ronald Reagan. I will give you a hint.

If attitude were more important than actual accomplishments then perhaps Ronald Reagan’s effigy should be chiseled into Mount Rushmore. However, Reagan had many faults. Partisans tend to excuse his gross misjudgments, of which Reagan had plenty. These included:

• The bombing of our Marines barracks in Lebanon and his subsequent decision to cut and run from Lebanon entirely
• Support for terrorists (which we renamed freedom fighters) in places like El Salvador and Nicaragua that killed hundreds of thousands. His obsession led to the Iran Contra scandal, wherein we deliberately broke the law by selling arms to our avowed enemy Iran to fund terrorists in Central America.
• An executive branch lead by so many people with no moral compass that the his administration was arguably the most corrupt presidency in modern history
• A savings and loan fiasco that cost the treasury more than $120 billion
• The largest peacetime deficits in American history

Nor was it the general who won the Second World War our greatest 20th Century Republican President. President Dwight D. Eisenhower also cut and ran, in this case from the Korean War. He “ended” the violence by threatening to use nuclear weapons on North Korea if they did not agree to a truce. If you are wondering why North Korean Dictator Kim Jong-il is so anxious to build a nuclear arsenal and lob missiles at the United States, now you know why. In fact, North and South Korea are still technically a war. Both sides essentially agreed to stop fighting but never agreed to a peace. To this day, fifty years later, we keep tens of thousands of troops in South Korea on a hair trigger alert.

Eisenhower had many noteworthy accomplishments as president. The one I give him the most credit for was the creation of the interstate highway system. In addition, he was very savvy about the consequences of the emerging military industrial complex. On the other hand, during his presidency, the Soviet Union invaded Hungary and we did not lift a finger. In 1953, he sent the CIA into Iran to kill its elected prime minister, and then helped put a Shah in his place against the wishes of Iranians. This resentment set up the conditions for the Iranian Hostage Crisis some twenty-five years later. It is one of the main reasons the state of Iran still hates us today. If it is part of an “axis of evil” we were instrumental in its creation. Eisenhower was also the first American president to send our troops into Vietnam. It would take more than fifteen years before we would get them out. Tens of thousands of American soldiers would die in the fiasco along with millions of Vietnamese. Perhaps most shameful of all, while Senator Joseph McCarthy terrorized the nation with anticommunist hysteria, the same general that fought tyranny in Europe turned a blind eye. In addition, he oversaw three recessions while in office.

Most of the other Republican presidents I can dismiss for obvious reasons. William Howard Taft would not be seen as a true Republican today, since he introduced the first federal income tax. However his time in office was both short and undistinguished. Warren Harding’s name is synonymous with the Teapot Dome Scandal, not to mention his moral misgivings. Harding had at least two long-term affairs while in office, including a documented fifteen-year affair with a woman named Carrie Fulton Phillips. Calvin Coolidge was too boring to be noteworthy. Herbert Hoover oversaw the start of the Great Depression. Richard Nixon: nuff said. Gerald Ford: an aberration of a president who was never actually elected, nor was he in office long enough to accomplish much.

Which leaves George H. W. Bush and Teddy Roosevelt.

I was tempted to give the nod to our current president’s father. Granted, of all the Republican presidents in the 20th century, I do not think any of them reached the stature of a man like Franklin D. Roosevelt. However, George H. W. generally did what needed to be done, even though it was not popular. In response to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, he showed the sort of leadership and wise judgment at which his son floundered. He organized an international coalition of forces to oust the Iraq army from Kuwait. He did it at minimal cost to the United States taxpayer and without pushing into Iraq itself. He even agreed to a modest tax increase, which was necessary, but which earned him the external scorn of the Republican Party.

However, his four years were not without other major controversies. Like Reagan, he was not amiss to a little gunboat diplomacy. He used our military to illegally invade Panama and put its dictator Manuel Noriega into a Florida prison. While he was instrumental in NAFTA, a treaty that became law under his successor, he failed to staunch a severe recession. Perhaps most troubling is that he left office by granting pardons to many who clearly broke the law, including his Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger along with five others implicated in the Iran Contra scandal.

Consequently, I give the nod to Teddy Roosevelt, who was also the first president of the 20th century. Teddy Roosevelt would be seen today as a Democrat. Indeed, he coined the word “progressive”, which is a label many liberals like me now prefer. He was the original trustbuster. His obsession with reigning in the power of corporate interests and the powerful in general would horrify most Republicans today. He coined the term “square deal” to describe a mutually beneficial relationship between business and labor. He passed the Pure Food and Drug Act along with its companion, the Meat Inspection Act to address problems in our food safety system that today would seem unfathomable. Perhaps most startlingly, he was our nation’s premier conservationist. He set aside more land for national parks than all other presidents before him did. In addition, with much arm-twisting he was able to create the Panama Canal. To do it though he had to break a few eggs. It took some gunboat diplomacy to convince Columbia to allow us to “create” the state of Panama.

He was a man that in retrospect did have some faults. He believed in active United States imperialism. In addition to the “state” of Panama, which was largely our invention, he also invaded the Philippines. His reasoning would seem familiar to our current president. He wanted to “uplift” these poor souls toward “Christianity” and “democracy”. Cuba, Puerto Rico and Guam became U.S. protectorates, but it is hardly clear that the natives welcomed our protection. Teddy though was hardly atypical for his time. Manifest Destiny seemed hardwired into our national consciousness in the early 20th century. It would take more than fifty years before we would fully appreciate the downsides of imperialism.

Still, among all our 20th century presidents, Teddy Roosevelt, not Ronald Reagan, stands out as our best Republican president. Perhaps he blazed a trail for his distant cousin, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who was inarguably the best president of the 20th century, yet who has only belatedly gotten the recognition he deserves.

Not coincidentally, Teddy Roosevelt’s graven image is already on Mount Rushmore, as it should be. If anyone deserves to be added to that modern American pantheon though, it should be Teddy’s distant cousin Franklin, not our 40th president.

December 17th, 2006 at 12:09pm Posted by Mark | History | no comments

Election 2006 Postmortem

What a difference two years makes! Two years ago this week I surveyed the results of the 2004 election with dismay. President Bush, who should have handily been defeated for bungling the War in Iraq, was reelected, although the difference in the popular vote (2.4%) and the electoral vote (35 votes) made it one of the closest wins in recent history. While the Republicans picked up only three House seats, they solidified a formidable 30-vote majority in the House. In the Senate, Republicans picked up four seats, making the odds of retaking the Senate this year so small that even most Democrats (like me) thought it was a long shot.

Now that the dust has settled, the results of Tuesday’s election are stunning. Democrats picked up 29 House seats while losing none. A number of elections in dispute are likely to add to this total. In the Senate, with the concessions today by Montana Senator Conrad Burns and Virginia Senator George Allen, the Democrats took a 51-49 majority. This majority though feels rather fragile. It assumes that the newly reelected Senator Joe Lieberman from Connecticut, who ran his independent campaign more like a Republican than a Democrat, doesn’t feel a case of sour grapes and align himself with the Republicans. Amazingly, not a single Democratic incumbent running for the U.S. Congress lost, which may be a first for either political party.

This amazing upset hardly ends at the national level. Looking at state races, Democrats will now control a majority of the governorships (28) next year, up 6 seats. Five state legislatures switched from Republican to Democrat; not one went from Democrat to Republican. New Hampshire turned stunningly Democratic. (The New Hampshire House went from 37.5% Democrat to 59.8%. The New Hampshire Senate went from 45.8% Democrat to 66.7%. In addition, it elected Democrat John Lynch as governor.) Counting state Senate and House seats nationwide, Democrats picked up 349 seats out of 7393, a gain of 4.7 percent.

You have to look very hard for any Republican successes. If Republicans succeeded, it was in not making their losses completely catastrophic. Republicans held on to a retiring senate seat in Tennessee and a retiring governorship in Florida. That was about it. Tuesday was an overwhelmingly Democratic night. Republicans can take some comfort in that the margin of victory for Democrats was in many cases achingly small. Both Conrad Burns and George Allen lost by less than 1% of the popular vote. Still, it was remarkable how in very tight major races, they went consistently for the Democratic candidate.

There is no single reason why Democrats faired so well. Clearly, the voters were expressing extreme unhappiness of the last five years of one party rule. Many were voting to express their disgust with President Bush in general and his bungled War in Iraq in particular. Many others were expressing their unhappiness with their more precarious standard of living.

However, there were also demographic changes that came into prominence in 2006. This country is becoming less white and the minorities are voting disproportionately for Democrats. As young voters begin to vote, they vote predominantly for the Democrats. These demographic forces bode well for the Democratic Party’s future.

Those who discount the force of netroots are in denial. While the netroots community is overwhelmingly progressive, that does not mean they were myopic enough to give money only to progressives. Clearly, the netroots lost in Connecticut, but they picked up impressive victories too. Donations from the netroots to candidates like John Tester and Jim Webb were not only instrumental in their election, but they also made it possible for them to mobilize in the first place. Arguably, neither Tester nor Webb would be senators elect today had it not been from the netroots. The netroots are now a proven means of winning seats. Netroots won the U.S. Senate for the Democrats. It is not your father’s smoke filled room anymore.

Having won the reigns of legislative power, it is another question entirely whether Democrats will prove to be competent to govern. Voters in general were expressing more extreme displeasure at Republicans than enthusiasm for the Democrats. Democrats have traditionally been the “none of the above” party, rather than a party with a coherent message and platform. Perhaps after being out of power for so long they will absorb some important lessons. At least our initial rhetoric is encouraging. The likely next Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi talks about being the Speaker of the House, not the Speaker of just the Democrats. She is stressing bipartisanship. Senator Majority Leader elect Harry Reid is expressing similar thoughts. If history is a guide, this spirit will not last too long, but it is a hopeful sign nonetheless.

Having spurned bipartisanship, President Bush now has to embrace it if he wants anything in his last two years to be more than a footnote. His prompt dismissal yesterday of our disastrous Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was a hopeful sign. (I called for it in 2004.) Bush’s dismissal is bizarrely inconsistent with remarks he made a few days earlier wherein he promised he was never going to get rid of him. Since the plans for Rumsfeld’s replacement were clearly well along before the election, essentially Bush was lying. He probably justified it as an attempt to attempt to fire up his base in order to win the election.

No amount of bipartisanship will solve some problems. One of them is our quagmire in Iraq. Both sides are likely to embrace the recommendations of the nonpartisan Iraq Study Group. They will use it for political cover, because it will be politically unacceptable to make a recommendation for withdrawal that is not contingent upon Iraqis achieving benchmarks that they will not be able to meet. For the next two years, expect that our troops will remain in Iraq. Perhaps some small percent will come home to give the illusion to the American public that we will extricate ourselves from the war. Undoubtedly, the real responsibility for Iraq will remain with Bush, not the Congress, because strategy and tactics are the responsibility of the Commander in Chief. This bodes well for Democratic prospects in 2008. It is quite possible that in two years our government will move from Republicans in charge of all branches of government to Democrats being in charge of all branches but the Supreme Court.

For myself I am savoring this exquisite moment of victory. I would like to think it is the first of many, but I am sanguine. What goes around comes around. Without a hardnosed attention to the people’s business, Democrats will be lucky if they are still in power ten years from now, despite the carnage inflicted by Republicans these last six years. I am trying not to think about these sad political realities right now. For a Democrat like me, Tuesday night was magical. It was perhaps a once in a lifetime event. The closest parallel was the Election of 1974 following Watergate. However, in that election, Democrats already controlled both Houses of Congress. I would dance from the rooftops, except I have two left feet. Nonetheless, I am beaming, as is everyone in my very Democratic household. I helped make this election possible through my own contributions in time and money. I feel vested in its outcome and am thrilled to have Jim Webb, my netroots candidate, as my new Senator elect.

November 9th, 2006 at 09:29pm Posted by Mark | Politics 2006 | no comments

Why Democrats should punt on a plan for Iraq

There are just eight days until the midterm elections. That pungent smell of rancid urine is not from trying to litter train your new puppy. It is from all the Republicans wetting their pants. It would be an understatement to say the Republicans are nervous. They are plain scared. They can feel power slipping away. Some like Republican strategist Karl Rove feign optimism. Nevertheless, by now even Republicans can feel the political earthquake approaching. The question now becomes, what will its magnitude be?

President Bush has been running around the country engaged in, what else, blaming Democrats. This is not new of course, but what is new is that he is blaming Democrats for his mistakes. “The Democratic goal is to get out of Iraq. The Republican goal is to win in Iraq”, he said today at Georgia Southern University. “If you listen carefully for a Democrat plan for success, they don’t have one. Iraq is the central front in the war on terror, yet they don’t have a plan for victory.” President Bush has a point. It is hard to find any Democrat with a plan for winning with Iraq that passes the sniff test. Such as they are, most Democrats are calling for beginning a withdrawal of troops in 2007. They also want to involve regional powers in Iraq’s future. Mostly though Democrats sound wishy-washy on how to succeed in Iraq. Instead, they state the obvious by calling attention to Bush’s mismanagement of the War in Iraq. Hmm, maybe that is their plan.

If so, I think it will prove to be very politically effective. By calling attention to the Democrats’ lack of a plan for Iraq, what Bush is really trying to do is get the Democrats to share ownership his failure. He hopes that by showing that they are bereft of good ideas on Iraq, the cloud of doom that has been hanging over him and his party will lift. In this case, the lack of a Democratic plan should be construed as a short-term political blessing for the Democrats. It is a smart election strategy for the Democrats to keep the focus where it belongs: on Bush’s bungling the War in Iraq in particular and the War on Terror in general.

In reality even if Democrats sweep both houses of Congress next week, there is not a whole lot they can do to bring the troops home. They could in theory cut off funding for the war, but they will not have the votes to override a presidential veto. Congress’s power has never been in exercising the war, but in its oversight. However, if they control Congress, Democrats can exercise genuine oversight on the war. This has been sorely lacking with Republicans in charge. However, the power to run the war constitutionally will remain with President Bush. Iraq will remain his albatross for the rest of his life. I believe that its colossal failure will almost certainly make it impossible for a Republican to become elected president in 2008.

Here is the reality of our situation in Iraq, if it is not already apparent to you: we have lost. As I alluded before the war even started, we would lose because we had insufficient troops to secure the peace. Overthrowing Saddam and his government was a given and a no brainer. It was containing the inevitable and historical sectarian strife, along with occupying a Muslim country with forces perceived to be Christian that were the real obstacles to long term success. This is not to say that hope is entirely lost in Iraq. It is just that success at this point is so bizarrely improbable that only the willfully foolish think it can possibly happen.

No wonder Democrats are mum about a plan for success in Iraq. Unlike Republicans, most Democrats inhabit the real world. They know the situation in Iraq is so bollixed up that even a speculator with tons of spare cash would not waste any money betting on a successful outcome. Given that nothing Democrats can say or do will change this sad reality, why should they assume part of its ownership? If they did, in 2008 voters might assume they would do something equally foolish in the next conflict. It is better to leave Bush and the Republicans holding their ball. If Bush is the nation’s quarterback, the Republicans are on offense, it is fourth down and 99 to go, and there is two seconds left on the clock in the fourth quarter, it is better that the Republicans take the inevitable fall.

If Democrats must propose plans for the War on Terror, it is far better to focus on where there is some probability of success. Success in Afghanistan is looking dubious, but it is not virtually hopeless as it is in Iraq. Besides, Osama bin Laden is reputedly in Afghanistan, or in nearby northwestern Pakistan. At least we could leverage sufficient forces to go after those who actually hurt us on 9/11.

Besides, things can only improve when those who screwed up this war are out of power. If Democrats win Congress, one of the most effective things they can do is hold many hearings on the war. It needs to be clear that people like Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld were instrumental getting us into this mess. They need to account to the American people for their actions in public hearings. Why did Rumsfeld go into Iraq without a plan to win the peace? Why did Cheney forcefully assert Iraq had WMDs when there was no conclusive intelligence? Why were we repeatedly lied to? In making these public officials account for their actions, Democrats can help facilitate their ouster and position our government to being one that is accountable again. Democrats should demand these instigators be replaced with leaders who are grounded in reality.

It is obvious to voters that Bush does not have a viable plan for victory. Stay the course is not working. Democrats should demand that Bush present a viable plan for Iraq’s success. He is after all the Commander in Chief and it is his responsibility. Perhaps in the process, Bush will realize it is time to fold his hand. The reality is he has had nothing to show for years except bluster.

October 30th, 2006 at 08:58pm Posted by Mark | Politics 2006 | no comments

Why do Republicans hate America?

According to our President and Commander in Chief, “Stay the course” in Iraq no longer means “stay the course”. In fact, according to an interview with President Bush broadcast on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos, our president asserted, “We’ve never been stay the course.”

A search of the White House web site alone shows that the President used the phrase at least eighteen times. Of course, the American public knows all about “stay the course” now. It has become drubbed into our brains, and like a catchy but annoying Top 40 song, we cannot get it out of our mind. It resonates like a loud bongo drum. Twenty years from now when someone uses the phrase, instead of suggesting steadiness, it will imply rampant and reckless bullheadedness. The unwelcome image of George W. Bush will pop in our heads.

Nevertheless, since our President now decrees that his White House has never said stay the course, it must be time for the Ministry of Truth to start scrubbing the record. This will be a challenge. Moreover, since Republicans in particular seem to have a problem with ambiguity, it leaves the obvious question. Why do Republicans in Congress want the terrorists to win?

I mean I am just shocked by what has been coming out of the mouths of heretofore-stalwart Republicans these last few weeks. No less than my own Senator George Allen of Virginia, in a tight reelection bid (one recent poll shows his rival Jim Webb marginally ahead), wants to change strategies in Iraq. “We can’t expect to keep doing the same things and get different results,” he said recently, even though a month earlier on Meet the Press he said, “Staying the course means that we don’t tuck tail and run, that we don’t retreat, that we don’t surrender.”

Senator Allen, you are either with staying the course no matter how stupid and counterproductive it is, or you must want the terrorists win. It is that simple really. No shades of grey are allowed in the War on Terror. So what is with all this sudden murkiness? Such murkiness is the hallmark of those dreaded tax and spend pussy whipped Democrats.

In fact, there is a long list of Republicans in Congress who want to change the course in Iraq. Some are calling for troop withdrawal. Coincidentally, most of them are running for reelection. In fact, soon you may have to start looking under rocks to find Republicans who still want to stay the course.

It has taken Republicans a while to figure it out, but they are finally realizing that staying the course means something even worse than letting the terrorists win: they will be voted out of office. All that message consistency apparently only works as long as the public buys into it. For some reason, probably because the massive civil war underway in Iraq is impossible to tune out and American casualties there keep accelerating, the American public no longer buys it. The American people overwhelmingly want to change the course in Iraq. The polls are consistent. For example, this recent ABC News-Washington Post poll indicates that 57% of Americans say the War in Iraq was not worth fighting and 55% blame the Republicans. It is the number one issue that respondents say will drive them to the polls in less than two weeks.

Okay, so let us agree for a moment that those of us who want to change the course in Iraq maybe do not want the terrorists to win after all. I know it is hard for me to get my mind around it. After all, a couple years ago when I expressed this sentiment someone left an “America: Love it or Leave It” note on my car’s windshield. Naturally, with this sort of peer pressure, I thought I must have unwittingly been supporting al Qaeda. Does wanting to change the course now mean that I was patriotic all along? Does this mean that those who want to continue to stay the course now want the terrorists to win?

Or could this just indicate that following the same failed strategy demonstrates not just stubbornness, but stupidity? Maybe it means that the American people are now wide-awake, and recognize there is no simple solution to this complicated situation. Maybe now that we have had our national chin karmically kicked in a few times by reality, we understand what does not work, and are amenable to trying something else.

The voters will give the politicians firm guidance on November 7th. Stay tuned.

October 25th, 2006 at 10:02pm Posted by Mark | Politics 2006 | one comment

Obituary: The United States of America

In case you did not notice, the United States of America died on September 28th.

As is often the case with countries long in decline, the actual death went largely unnoticed by the public. The country first tested positive for the righteousness infection in 1981 when President Ronald Reagan was sworn into office. Tests reconfirmed the infection in 1985 and 1989. The infection though went into remission in 1993 with the election of President William Jefferson Clinton. Indeed, some doctors claimed the patient was now free of the disease. However, on January 20, 2001 it became clear that the virus had merely lain dormant for eight years. The disease metastasized on March 20, 2003. From that time on the disease became incurable. Although civil libertarians and liberals made valiant attempts to halt the progress of the disease, the Democrats in Congress refused to develop a spine, saying they did not want to be seen as giving aid and comfort to terrorists.

Death, when it came, came very quickly. The postmortem on the United States of America revealed that death occurred not from one cause, but two principle causes.

First, on this date Congress agreed to do away with writ of Habeas Corpus. Written specifically to ensue those captured in combat could appeal their detention and ignored by the President, Congress said the President could now choose precisely to whom it would apply. The writ has been in widespread use since its first use in 1305 in Great Britain. By the 18th century, the writ was so firmly established that the United States adopted it from the British legal system without a thought. On Thursday after 701 years of use, Congress decided Habeas Corpus was incompatible with fighting the War on Terror. In fact, Congress gave the President so much discretion that he can toss into prison anyone he deems an enemy combatant, including American citizens, and keep them there indefinitely. He does not even have to keep a list of these combatants. Effectively the President now has the sanction to let people he does not like disappear and with no accounting whatsoever. According to our Congress, this shows resolve in the War on Terror. It was noted that at the moment of Congressional passage, the country’s heart stopped beating.

Doctors attempted to revive the country, but were forcibly restrained by the Congress. Congress intervened in the rescue by passing another law that says the United States will comply with the Geneva Conventions by doing precisely what it explicitly prohibits. In doublespeak worthy of Big Brother, Congress declared that the Third Geneva Convention, Article Three which specifically covers treatment of noncombatants, requires them to be treated humanely and prohibits “outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment” now permits torture. Unbelievably, Congress has interpreted the Geneva Conventions to mean any interrogation techniques that in the judgment of the president does not inflict “severe pain” may be used on noncombatants. Severe pain is defined as any technique that will leave a lasting mental trauma. Although the President is not a psychiatrist, he gets to determine which techniques do not leave a lasting mental trauma. Apparently, waterboarding (simulating drowning) may not leave a lasting trauma. If so, it is lawful and fully complies with the United States’ new interpretation of the Geneva Conventions. Consequently, attempts to restore the country’s heartbeat failed, and the country was declared dead upon passage of these bills. Although the country is dead, the death certificate has not yet been signed. The President is expected to sign both bills into law shortly.

It was noted by many independent observers that the country had been acting delusional since September 11, 2001. Once a beacon of liberty, democracy and concern for the rights of all citizens, the United States became increasingly paranoid and self-righteous. It refused to hear different points of views. Traditional allies who expressed disagreement with its philosophies were either ignored or castigated. Once able to navigate successfully in a pluralistic world, and admired by the rest of the world for its broad tolerance and generosity, it became insular and dogmatic. It counted as friendly only those who followed it without question or hesitation and cast aspersions on any country with differing points of view.

Osama bin Laden was at bedside at the country’s death, and expressed satisfaction. “Frankly,” he said, “we had no idea that such a resilient country with so many constitutional checks and balances could succumb to this infection so quickly. We are delighted to have succeeded beyond our wildest dreams. We have succeeded in killing all the aspects of this country that once was the greatest on the planet. Now the survivors will be more susceptible to our message, since we now share so much more in common. We believe in torture, and so do they. We do not believe in due process or trial by jury, and neither do they. We believe we have the holy truth and so do they. We believe in using whatever means are necessary to affect our ends, and so do they. Frankly, we had no idea that three airliners could kill such a robust democracy so quickly. We look forward to more death and bloodshed in the years ahead. Together we will spread intolerance across the world and bring about a third global war. Praise be to Allah, the Merciful.”

The survivors were too distracted by their cell phones, X Boxes and iPods to notice their country’s passing. They were last seen filling up their SUVs with cheap gas and tuning in the current episode of The Lost.

October 1st, 2006 at 10:49am Posted by Mark | Politics 2006 | no comments

Rumblings of 1994

I hesitate to claim victory prematurely. Yet with less than 100 days to go before the midterm elections, it is getting harder to see how the Democrats can fail to recapture the U.S. House of Representatives in November. Even the U.S. Senate, once presumed off limits, may be looking Blue again. Could it be that beltway insiders, who are often notoriously wrong on elections but like to echo conventional wisdom, may be right this time? Could it be that I am engaging in wishful thinking? On the other hand, perhaps I really am hearing an approaching stampede of pissed off voters of all stripes.

Whatever. I have my fingers crossed. I have my toes crossed. I am glad to hop on one leg if that will improve the odd that Democrats will retake the Congress. Mainly, I just feel the coming change inside of me. I smell it in the hot, fetid, ozone-laden air that is resting here over Northern Virginia tonight. I hear it anecdotally at the office water coolers. What I am hearing is, “This country is royally screwed up. It is time to throw the bums out.”

One reason I do not think my prognostication is a result of all the glue I have been sniffing lately is this report from Charlie Cook. Cook is non-partisan and well respected. His outfit pays careful attention to the numerous House and Senate races out there. His judgments have an excellent track record.

In the latest Cook Political Report/RT Strategies poll, conducted last Friday through Sunday among 809 registered voters, only 27 percent said the country was headed in the right direction and 63 percent said it was off on the wrong track. In polling for NBC and the Wall Street Journal, conducted July 21-24 and for CBS and the New York Times, taken July 21-25, the right direction numbers were 27 and 28 percent, respectively, while wrong track results were 60 and 66 percent respectively. These numbers are about the same as they were at this point in 1994 and going into Election Day that year.

Out of touch. That is what I hear the most. I bet you are hearing it too. The Republicans controlling government have severed their connections with real life and in particular their constituents. Having control of all three branches of government, they simply no longer care what the voters think. A most recent and egregious example was the so-called increase in the minimum wage bill. It was passed in the House only because it was tied to estate tax cuts, which would exempt the first $5 million in estate taxes for singles, and $10 million for couples. Never mind our already stratospheric federal deficits. Who cares if these tax cuts would only worsen the deficit? This is compassionate conservatism in action. When fully enacted, the new $7.25 an hour minimum wage would still not come close to providing a living wage, but this bill would allow multimillionaires to pass on even more of their wealth to their heirs, who never earned it. Can you feel their love?

The Republicans whole approach to government has become faith based. It has become not just surreal but downright bizarre. You cannot make up this stuff. It reads like something in The Onion. President Bush is saying we cannot have an immediate cease-fire in Lebanon because it will not solve the long-term problem security problem. Instead, we must allow both sides to keep killing in order to ensure peace. Big Brother has been proven right: War is Peace, at least according to George W. Bush. We can cut the deficit by taxing less and spending more. We need to give public school students vouchers to attend private schools even though a Department of Education report shows that public schools and private schools perform equally with the same class of student. We can solve global warming by allowing corporations to choose if they want to meet emissions standards. Medical savings accounts will solve our high cost of health care, even though most people simply do not have the disposable income to contribute to such an account. Of course the biggest, baddest, most egregious and most insidious lie of all: we are winning the war on terror. If winning the war on terror equals Armageddon, it is time to throw a victory parade.

It would have been nice if Americans had sobered up in time for the 2004 elections. My belief is that they are fully sobered up now. All signs point to governmental incompetence on a level never seen in this country. Perhaps Americans would have preferred to keep their heads stuck in the sand. It is no longer possible. This current sensory overload can no longer be ignored. The country is badly off track and the current crew in charge does not even realize the country is off track. They think things are just fine. The lunatics are running the asylum.

I do not seeing it getting any better for Republicans before the election. Indeed, Republicans should be praying their house of cards does not fully collapse before then. Household savings rates are in negative territory: we are living off credit cards and our equity. Could a recession be in our near future? Iraq, if it is not yet is civil war, is likely to devolve into large-scale sectarian genocide, and our troops will be in the middle of it. Housing starts are down, and house prices are going down too. This means the equity on which we depend to live beyond our means is shrinking too. Interest rates are up. Stocks are trending down. Arguably, the NASDAQ is in freefall. Domestic car sales are off sharply. If Republicans are lucky, gas prices will not increase, but they too are likely to go up before November.

It is too bad that the Democrats, for the most part, do not have a plan. Actually, there is a Democratic plan out there; it is just that it was badly marketed. Most Americans have no clue as to what the Democrats would do if they recaptured the Congress. In such a situation, most political parties would loudly be marketing solutions that would assuage the public’s concerns. The public is now ripe for a real solution to health care costs. They want to hear that we will get out of Iraq on a rapid time schedule. Yet my party cannot seem to say these things. It does not believe that the tide has turned in their favor. It does not know how to capitalize on the moment. Here is the truth: one hard smack to the Republican Party and it goes down. Winning through intimidation has been their preferred tactic. All Democrats have to do is laugh at them and the whole country will laugh with them. Their mojo is gone.

It may not matter that the Democrats do so little to win this election. There is no other path out there other than to keep the current pillagers in charge of the government. Perhaps there is hope that once in power again the Democrats will develop something resembling spine. Instead, they seem more worried about being Swift Boated.

Billmon has said he does not want the Democrats to win. He argues that this mess is so big and so deep and so tall that Democrats will be blamed when they cannot clean it up. It is not often that I disagree with Billmon, but I do on this one. Democrats have a responsibility as citizens to put our country back into order again. We need to be a respected country in the world again. Someone has to throw out the bums out on the street. Someone has to take out the trash, sweep the floors, patch the window screens and tidy up the yard. Someone has to cut that national credit card in half and throw it in the trash.

If not the Democrats, then who?

August 2nd, 2006 at 08:19pm Posted by Mark | Politics 2006 | no comments

Appalled

If you need more proof that our social fabric is unwinding, this story “Health Care Creates Dilemma for Tennessee’s Poor” today on NPR’s All Things Considered should scare you and make you very angry.

You can read the story on the NPR site, but please listen to it online if you can. As shocking as it is to read, it is even more appalling to listen to it. Linda Warner is a great grandmother who lives on a $600 a month disability check in a doublewide trailer in Cocke County, Tennessee. She is mostly confined to a wheelchair and helps take care of her three-year-old great grandchild. Because she is poor, Medicaid covers her. However, Tennessee got permission from the federal government to provide the poor with a cut rate version of Medicaid called Tenncare. As a result of a state budget crisis a few years ago, the state’s Tenncare program was cut back. Way back.

So this is what is left of our social safety net. Despite being disabled through no fault of her own, despite doing good for her family and her church, the state set a limit. No Tenncare patient, unless their circumstances are “unique and complicated” can receive more than five prescription drugs per month from the state. As you might expect if you are a great grandmother who is living on $600 a month, that does not leave much money for other prescriptions you might need to stay alive. Therefore, Linda Warner, like many of people in the program, has to make painful choices about which medicines she will or will not take.

She gave the pharmacist her prescriptions, but told him not to fill the bladder medicine. Normally, she takes it four times a day.

“It stops me from wearing a diaper, a disposable diaper,” Warner sighs. “I really hate to do without the bladder medicine because I can’t go anywhere without it.”

Along with the bladder medicine, she decided to skip her pain medication for the month. That way TennCare would cover the $28 worth of antibiotics she needed.

“You have to choose,” Warner says. “And I have to have the inhaler … because I have to breathe. It’s OK that I’m wet, but I got to breathe.”

One would hope that she were the exception, not the rule. This is not quite the case according to local physician Dr. Edward Capparelli:

In fact, says Capparelli, since the drug limits took effect, he’s spent almost as much time figuring out how to take people off medications as figuring out which medications to put them on.

“This is a real problem because the clock resets on the first of the month,” says Capparelli. “So if you happen to get your meds on the first, and then on the 15th you get sick, you really are not allowed to get any more prescriptions on that limit until the first of the following month.”

Capparelli says that for relatively healthy people, the five-prescription limit hasn’t been much of a hardship.

“But for people who have more than one chronic illness, it’s impossible to try to pick which is more important,” he says. “And unfortunately, physicians have often had to choose for what’s life-threatening today and give up on what might be life-threatening tomorrow.”

Here is what is left of our social compact. If you lead an honest life, earned an honest wage, yet can no longer work and have to live on a disability payment that keeps you in deep poverty you get to enter a medical Twilight Zone. You probably will not get the health care services you need. You may have to choose between breathing this month and accidentally urinating all over the house. Perhaps when the state’s coffers are a little flusher they will allow you to have an extra prescription per month. You may die or suffer some chronic illness needlessly but that is just too bad: the state only pays for five prescriptions per month. Here is your best advice: stay healthy. Never get sick. The state cares, but not enough to matter if you are old and chronically sick. Moreover, consider yourself lucky that you get any care at all. There are thousands of others in the state worse off than you with no health insurance.

There is no question that health care is expensive. On one level, it makes complete sense for Tennessee to cut back on these rising costs. Unlike the federal government, they do not have a printing press to manufacture money. Yes, there are other expenses for which the state has to pay besides ballooning medical costs for its poorest citizens. Those schools, roads and law enforcement officers do not come free.

Still, how can societies which call themselves civilized being just accept this? How can anyone see this as a situation where the glass is half-full? Why can we not summon the political will to raise our taxes so everyone at least has the medication they need to live their life with some modicum of decency?

Apparently, we are a first world country with third world values. We should be ashamed of ourselves.

June 20th, 2006 at 08:59pm Posted by Mark | Politics 2006 | one comment

America’s real enemy is from within

While in Boulder, Colorado last week, my brother and I stopped by Boulder Books. There I found on the rack a new collection of Tom Tomorrow cartoons. His latest book is Hell in a Handbasket. On the cover, it depicts our president, Dick Cheney and political adviser Karl Rove. Each has devil horns coming out of their foreheads. It is subtitled, “Dispatches from the country formerly known as America”.

I am a big fan of Tom Tomorrow and his weekly strip This Modern World. Looking back on this collection of strips though, which begin in late 2002 as the Iraq War was being sold to the American public, it is as easy to cry as it is to laugh. In fact, it is hard not to laugh and cry and the same time. Not all of us were deceived by the lies coming from the Bush White House at the time. For me, the Iraq War was nothing more than a simpleton’s paranoid fantasies fully realized by 150,000 American troops. I raised holy hell at the time. I attended peace marches. I wrote letters. I called senators. This preemptive war to remove a despotic dictator with delusions of grandeur (but zero influence outside his own country) to me symbolized everything that was wrong with my country. Tom Tomorrow got it right. The day we invaded Iraq, my country lost its soul. I no long live in the United States of America.

As Sparky the liberal penguin put it in this cartoon from 2002, “Um - here’s a scenario for you: what if the invasion of Iraq turns out to be a complete catastrophe - costing thousands of lives, setting off other wars in the region, and ultimately doing far more harm than good?” To which the two Republican clones start worrying if Saddam Hussein is training an army of giant mutant lizards who can shoot deadly laser beams out of their eyeballs.

As a country, we lost our minds and our souls on March 18th, 2003, the day that we invaded Iraq. Just about all of us were hornswoggled. You would expect neoconservatives, with their Neanderthal and schizophrenic vision of the world, to lose a sense of perspective. But Colin Powell? The same man who warned Bush that when it came to invading Iraq, if we broke it, we owned it? The same man who cautioned us never to go into a war without a sound exit strategy? I remember at the time debating his presentation to the U.N. Security Council with friends online. Most were wholly convinced. Fuzzy satellite shots of railroad cars and dubious intelligence reports from second hand sources were sufficient to them for us to start a war. Gosh, we knew where those WMDs were: smack dab in the middle of the Sunni Triangle. Rumsfeld knew it for a fact.

It was all so clear to me back then, but I was mostly alone among my peers. They treated me with either disdain or condescension. Bush and his fellow yahoos could try, but they could not yank my chain. Yet it was clear that as Bush was yanking most of our chains, his chain was also being yanked. The neoconservatives played our simpleton and puffed up fool of a president like the puppet that he is. In turn, it is tempting to think that Saddam was pulling the neoconservatives’ chains. However, I do not think that was the case. Saddam simply could not conceive of someone even more deeply paranoid than he was.

See, here is the thing. Why were the neoconservatives so convinced that Saddam was acquiring weapons of mass destruction? It is clear to me: because subconsciously they identified with Saddam. I know he would do it because I would do the same thing, was what was coming from their id. Something must have gone very wrong with them while growing up. Perhaps Dad had been too handy with the belt. Perhaps they had been picked on too much during recess at school. They were full of repressed anger and anxious for a suitable form of revenge. Unfortunately, those who hurt them had disappeared. So they found others on whom to turn the tables. They convinced themselves that they really were smarter and better than everyone else. Moreover, they would prove it by slowly, over many years, gaining power. They would suck up to simpletons like Bush and use them as their means to an end. For one-dimensional people like Bush had an uncanny ability to latch onto the millions of other simpletons out there. It required leveraging the same faith that these voters had in their religion into candidates who emulated their values, but who could be manipulated. Bush was a convenient toady, but there are still plenty of them around. Bill Frist is the next George W. Bush.

For all the neoconservatives’ protestations about wanting to spread freedom, their real aims were duplicitous. What they really wanted was to control us so they could remake us into a stronger sort of mongrel super-race of uber-Americans. While many of Bush’s supporters are creationists, the neoconservatives are pragmatic social evolutionists. Social Darwinism is their most basic core value: Americans must become meaner and nastier than every other country, because in their paranoid minds the world was an incredibly nasty place. Only by becoming as ruthless and single minded as the enemy could we triumph. To save our way of life, it must first be destroyed, then remade into a new, more militant and less tolerant image.

A trumped up war with Iraq gave them the means to their end. Their vision of America had us citizens goose-stepping to their beat. Just like Adolph Hitler, they cravenly hit us at our most vulnerable spots: fear, paranoia and rabid patriotism. Fear: if you vote for the Democrats then you are helping terrorists, because they secretly want the enemy to win. Moreover, we need color-coded alert levels so we are always aware of just how precarious our happy suburban lives are. Paranoia: be suspicious of everyone who does not act patriotic. Pass something called The Patriot Act, which makes everyone markedly less free. Patriotism: you are either for us or against us. They knew we would fall for it, because it worked wonders for the Nazis too. Human nature is constant and the masses are malleable with the right leverage. For Bush, the rule of law became inconvenient to a nation’s new challenges. Therefore, he invented the most dubious of rationales: a “unitary executive theory” that he interprets as no law can touch him if he does not want it to. He can do anything he wants as long as he thinks his actions protect the country from its enemies. Just to make sure it lasts for the foreseeable future, he made sure that fellow conservatives who subscribe to the unitary executive theory filled two Supreme Court vacancies.

Now finally, the country is sobering up. It would have been much better had the country been fully sober last November. Nevertheless, as I pointed out back then, karmic forces cannot be held in check forever. Bush’s poll numbers hover in the mid thirties and Congress’s numbers are even lower. Dick Cheney’s approval rating is 19%. Cheney was booed today throwing out the first pitch at the Washington Nationals’ season opener.

In reality though we still live in dangerous times. The biggest threat though is not from al Qaeda. For Osama bin Laden is the real puppet master. He was shrewd enough to realize exactly who our president was: one big dumb ass easily manipulated domino. His goal was not to convert America into devout Muslims, although that may be a long-range fantasy. No, his real goal is to convert the Islamic world into one conservative Islamic caliphate. To accomplish it, he needed a force bigger than he could muster. The United States military was the first domino, and he just needed the President of the United States to tip it. His goal could be done on the cheap. Just hijack a few planes using some misguided religious martyrs with box cutters. Have them fly a few airplanes into our most prominent buildings. Do it and we would respond more predictably than Pavlov’s dog. We have been masterfully played for the fool, but bin Laden was also fortunate to have his evil stars so perfectly aligned. Such a grandiose mistake like the one we made in Iraq was only possible with the neoconservatives in positions of power and a complete fool in the Oval Office.

Therefore, the dominoes fell one by one. Many gave the illusion of progress on the war on terror, while actually exacerbating it. It remains to be seen whether those Americans who still remember the blessings of freedom and liberty can stop this chain of dominoes before the world slowly devolves into an eternal set of religious mini-wars lasting generations.

However, forces are lining up to limit further damage. It is already beginning. To work, it simply must be manifested by a return to power by the Democrats in both houses of Congress this autumn. With a change in Congressional power, our new leaders will then have to summon the courage to impeach and convict Bush for his clearly illegal high crimes. It is unclear though that even if Bush is impeached and convicted, that he would actually vacate his office. It is also unclear whether the 2006 elections can be conducted fairly. There was enough voting fraud in 2000 and 2004 for even the mildly paranoid to be disturbed. Diebold controls many voting machines and they sure enough delivered Ohio for the Republicans as promised with a last minute Republican vote surge. Republicans also control most supervisor of election positions. I do not think they will go peacefully; having power is just so intoxicating.

The November elections may turn out to be a time to manifest real patriotism. It will require our supervisors of elections simply to do their duty and let the voting be free and fair. For our biggest enemy is no longer hiding in caves in northwestern Pakistan. He and his cronies occupy the White House and all positions of power in the government. They have shown an unwillingness to listen to reason and an affinity for using whatever means are necessary to affect their desired ends, legal or illegal. We will need every tool at our disposal.

Until now, losing an election was enough to remove someone from power. It may take massive demonstrations that will dwarf recent immigration protests to remove the neoconservatives. It may take massive civil protests with demonstrators lying down blocking access to public buildings, like during the Vietnam War. It may take ordinary citizens standing in front of tanks like in Tiananmen Square. Let us hope a sane head or two in the neoconservative power circle can persuade the rest that their time is over.

Let us also hope that Tom Tomorrow’s next book of cartoons comes from the United States of America that we grew up in, not the grotesque and sick parody that is currently foisted on us. We must stare down these paranoid schizophrenics and firmly show them the door. We may have to push them out. We may have to haul them out one by one and throw them onto the streets. However, they must go if we want to live in the United States of America again.

April 11th, 2006 at 09:25pm Posted by Mark | Politics 2006 | 2 comments

The Delusional 34%

How low can he go? A recent CBS News poll shows President Bush’s approval ratings have sunk to 34%. Some question the sampling method: were too many Democrats sampled, thus making it biased? As other polls results come in, we will soon know. However, after today’s news you have to wonder whether Bush will soon feel nostalgic about this week. Perhaps he will look back on the good old days when there were still 34% of Americans who approved of his job as president.

That Bush has 34% approval is largely due to his delusional Republican flock. However, even there, there are signs of weakness. 22% of Republicans disapprove of Bush, along with 86% of Democrats and 61% of independents. Now, with the clear video evidence that Bush was given explicit warnings about the magnitude of Hurricane Katrina before its landfall, and his subsequent proclamation four days later that no one could have predicted the magnitude of the storm, it is reasonable to ask: is this the final incident that will sink his ship of state?

What more evidence do Americans need that we have a disaster for a president? Bush has a reverse Midas touch: whatever he interferes with, he makes worse. If this were not enough, when he needs to become engaged, he cannot summon the energy. Iraq, Katrina, failing to capture bin Laden, the spiraling deficit, global warming, pissing off our allies, record gas prices, faith-based initiatives, No Child Left Behind - I could go on for pages on things he has bungled.

My brother sent me an email when this latest poll came out. He asked the question: how could the 34% of Americans still be so stupid? It is a good question. Has the rest of the country been living in a cave the last five years? Are the 34% Evangelical Christians hoping that Bush will trigger Armageddon so they can be saved? Have Republicans become so stuck in their opinions that they have simply lost any shred of objectivity? In view of his colossal mistakes, how could anyone support him unless they were delusional or had a frontal lobotomy?

Yet there are still plenty of them out them. Heck, I see them on my block, still sporting their Bush/Cheney stickers on their SUV bumpers. I cannot fathom why they did not surreptitiously peel them off. Do they want to be like Captain Edward J. Smith and go down with the Titanic? Do they want to be derided, laughed at or even worse pitied by their neighbors? Maybe their support is just another faith-based initiative. Click your heels three times Dorothy and you will end up in Kansas. Maybe they forgot that Dorothy just got a bad knock on the head.

Bush may not be the worst president of all time, but he is coming very close. As bad as the Iraq debacle is, he has not yet hit President Buchanan’s peculiar milestone. Buchanan largely stood aside and allowed our Civil War to start. Nevertheless, hold on. Bush has three years left in his term. Give him time. Who knows what it will be. Perhaps it will be another oil shock. Perhaps a thermonuclear bomb will slip through one of our ports (where only 5% of cargo are inspected) and destroy a major city. I am praying though that the gods have decided we have suffered enough. Seeing how the good people of Iraq are suffering for our foolishness though, I am not too hopeful.

After the 2004 election, I wrote that Bush’s chickens would come home to roost. Like the Iraq de facto civil war now underway, those chickens were not at all hard to spot even then. Check off the Iraq debacle. Energy prices up. Check. Deficit keeps going up. Check. International lenders getting wary of lending us money. Check. Health care costs dramatically outpacing inflation. Check. Net loss of earning power. Check. Bin Laden still at large four and a half years after 9/11. Check. If this were a chess match Bush would be down to a king and a couple pawns. We had wrapped up World War II within four and a half years of Pearl Harbor. Yet here is our foolish president in Afghanistan saying today that bin Laden “will be brought to justice”. It is unlikely to happen on your watch, fool.

As the polls clearly show, Americans are fed up with Bush and even more fed up with Congress (28% approval). Since Republicans have a lock on all three branches of government, I believe that voters will take out their wrath on them during elections this autumn. If you asked me six months ago, I would have said that Democrats had a 50% chance of retaking the House and forget about retaking the Senate. I now think the odds for retaking the house are at least 75%, and there is a 50/50 chance in the Senate. As I pointed out in this blog entry, in the elections after Watergate, Democrats increased their majority in the House by 47 seats and 4 seats in the Senate. Americans now disapprove of our Republican congress to a higher degree than they disapproved of the Democratic congress before the 1994 “Gingrich Revolution”. In 1994, Republicans picked up 55 seats in the House. Democrats need just six seats to take control of the House. With so many retirements and the current mood in the country, barring some massive election fraud, I think it is a slam-dunk. Unfortunately, I do not put massive election fraud past the current crew. They have demonstrated repeatedly they do not care about the law.

If Democrats win, is impeachment out of the question? I certainly hope not, although the idea of Cheney having his hand on the nuclear trigger is even less appealing that having Bush’s finger on it. However, perhaps they will go down in flames together. With Democrats in charge, it would not be difficult in the least to find charges that amount to probable cause for high crimes and misdemeanors. Bush’s egregious violation of the FISA statutes is the simplest and fastest way to throw the bum out. However taking us into war in Iraq based on scattershot and faulty evidence is even more egregious. Convicting him in the Senate would be tougher, but perhaps even Republicans would be glad to cut their losses. Most do not see it yet, but Bush is an albatross around their necks. Whoever replaced him and Cheney, even if it were a Democratic Speaker of the House, would be better for their party then allowing the current set of fools to stay in office.

If because of this latest revelation Bush’s poll numbers do not drop into the 20s, then perhaps Republicanism just needs to be banned. Apparently, it is more addictive than crack, and wholly messes up the heads of otherwise reasonable people. Fortunately, a few conservatives like William F. Buckley have finally seen the light. They will not be mistaken for a fool any longer. They are wisely jumping into the lifeboats while there is still room.

March 1st, 2006 at 09:08pm Posted by Mark | Politics 2006 | one comment