Fristlosi!!!!

For all the late-night people:
What explains the failure of the mainstream media to cover the purge scandal for so long, and so many other scandals? Do you think somebody just set up newspaper editors to cheat on their wives, and threatened to tell if the editors wouldn’t play ball when they come back some day and ask for something?

It wouldn’t be that hard to do, when you think about it. People wouldn’t talk about it.

Wow. They won't filibuster this one?!

Swan on March 27, 2007 at 2:11 AM: Maybe, maybe not. As I and another commenter noted on thread below, every single thing the Bush DOJ does regarding every single voter fraud/supression case from now until forever will be challenged in court as being tainted by public evidence of partisan political pressure. There is already one challenge under way.

So, as we head for the 2008 election, get ready to breath deeply and smell the lingering ever-present taint. The DOJ scandal is going to get covered a lot, I think. Everyone will be sick to death of it, and everyone will know exactly who to blame.

...it's the public that's the real Decider. It's time Bush learned that.

Cheney refuses to admit/learn that. Until he does, a prospect I consider most unlikely, Bush won't.

Should make for, as the Chinese curse says, interesting times.

Hm...what makes me a bit nervous is that the usual suspects (OpinionJournal,NRO,Weekly Standard,Washington Times,Townhall etc.) all have been running furious articles on a daily basis that accuse Democrats of "undermining our troops". So, I think Pelosi and Reid should propose a tax increase on the wealthiest X per cent of Americans to pay for additional troops etc. in 2007-2008.
---
Bush and the GOP has already lost the war. I would really hate if the GOP still manages to win the peace by shifting blame to Democrats.

MARCU$

(c) a DLC inspired cop out

``It's time Bush learned that.''

You do this so often that it's gone from being annoying to just plain sweet. It is charming that your sense of innocence and your impeccable and earnest good will can be reborn so often.

Bush is incapable of learning anything. He has not once in any circumstance evinced the slightest degree of introspection or -- god forbid -- self-doubt that would lead to actual personal, intellectual growth. He clearly can't see that his actions have produced monstrously tragic results; he is surrounded by con men and women, ideological zealots, sycophants and enablers who assure him that his (and their own) wretched incompetence and corruption is ingenious, good for the people and the world, and morally upright.

He's a failed president on a scale we probably can't even grasp yet and he's a shallow, self-indulgent self-denying clod to boot. Short of impeachment, conviction and removal, he will never realize a thing.

But don't ever lose that capacity for hope and don't let Bush drive it out of you.

But don't ever lose that capacity for hope

I think that that is why Kevin likes /24/ so much -- no matter how bad things get, Jack Bauer knows that they will always get better.

Of course, Jack has already read the script....

Hmm. The 7th comment and already the thread has been hijacked to make points about the Justice Dept. scandal.

I'll stand with Dionne on this and throw in another reason: 2008. It's absolutely crucial that Dem. senate & congressional candidates have something to show voters. How pathetic would it be if they don't?

These resolutions are a good start. Now that legislators are on board, and notice that the sky didn't fall on them, they'll be ready to take on another, more firmly worded resolution in a few months, sometime this summer.

The important thing is to keep together the coalition between those with safe seats and those who worry a lot, especially the freshmen.

"finally forced to make public his commitment to staying in Iraq forever"

What an utterly, completely stupid statement.

Kevin, do you need a vaction, or a co-blogger or something?

These resolutions are a good start. Now that legislators are on board, and notice that the sky didn't fall on them, they'll be ready to take on another, more firmly worded resolution in a few months, sometime this summer.

I don't see anything good in the apparent fact that Dems must take baby steps towards withdrawal lest they faint from the vapors.

as the Chinese curse says, interesting times.

Actually, it turns out that Chinese curse is something of a myth. The real Chinese curse, it seems, is, "May your country be ruled by a fucking moron."

What I like about Kevin's comment is his straightforward statement that he isn't entirely sure about this question. My view is similar: I don't see how anybody could know for sure, And that leads to another point . . .

We will be reading a lot of op ed columns in which pundits tell us with great surety that it is meaningless, and that will be the clue that they are shills. It can't be meaningless, because it represents a full 180 on congressional policy towards the war. Whether it is the dramatic revolutionary act that brings the war to a close is another question entirely, but the likelihood that it isn't doesn't mean the act is trivial.

So thanks to Kevin for a breath of honesty -- some things aren't clear or predictable, no matter how hard the spin doctors may churn. Maybe it's just the best that antiwar Democrats could get given the makeup of the House. Some writers complain that they didn't do better, but that's democracy in the real world.

The major conclusion of the year 2007 is the rebuttal to the hard leftist whine that elections are meaningless. Having Henry Waxman as the chair of a House committee, with subpoena power, is a big change for the better. It may not be utopia or nirvana, but it is lots better than what we had before.

I thought Bush was already alone...

The Democrats won't press the issue - they wouldn't want to appear insufficiently patriotically correct (the other "PC") by not throwing money at the Pentagon. The gutless wonders. While they are at it, they should amend the Constitution to give the Executive branch sole war-making authority and remove the impeachment provision. Because if they don't use impeachment on a man who knowingly starts a war on false pretenses, impeachment should never, ever be used against a future president.

I don't know about you folks, but I'm voting Green in 2008, as every honest, self-respecting progressive should. The Democratic Party is dead.

The Senate Democrats should also do a slow crawl to finish their version of the House bill. The Senate bill will likely include some provisions which will necessitate a conference committee and reconciliation with the House. None of this will take extraordinary amounts of time, but it won't happen immediately either.

From a timing aspect, the Congress should plan on presenting Dubya with the bill on the morning of April 15th. If that's the date he needs, he gets it. He can decide to sign or not, to cut off funding for the troops he claims to love so much or not. After all, he's the Decider. Let's see how much pressure he can stand when the Pentagon is standing on top of him, telling him to sign anything that lands on his desk because they need the money.

If the Democrats really wanted to shaft the Decider, they should include a war tax to fund the effort too. That would be the patriotic thing to do. Then they could gussy up the legislation with one of those nifty names, like the Real War Funding Legislation and let Dubya come out against funding the troops then.

"This will be the best security for maintaining our liberties. A nation of well-informed men who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them cannot be enslaved. It is in the religion of ignorance that tyranny begins."
-- Benjamin Franklin, American Renaissance Man, Ladies' Man and Statesman (1706-1790)

With the advent of a Democratic-controlled Congress last January, the country has in all likelihood commenced one of those rare watershed periods in American political history in which the actual viability and relevance of the United States Constitution as a governing document will be put to an acid test.

"Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain -- and most fools do."
-- Benjamin Franklin, American Renaissance Man, Ladies' Man and Statesman (1706-1790)

Further, when given:

(1) THE SHEER MULTITUDE of burgeoning foreign and domestic policy crises occurring on President Bush's watch;

(2) THE CORROSIVE NATURE AND EFFECT of the various political and criminal scandals currently besieging and enveloping this president's administration -- or as I would prefer the more appropriate terminology, his "regime"; and

(3) THE ENORMOUS PERSONAL STAKES involved for the president, vice president and their fellow administration officials who've inexplicably chosen to set our nation on this most extraordinarily perilous course; now, therefore,

I'VE BECOME OF THE MINDSET that this impending and now-inevitable constitutional confrontation between the executive and legislative branches of government holds a very high potential to become really fuckin' ugly, really fuckin' fast!!!

"To find out a girl’s faults, praise her to her girl friends."
-- Benjamin Franklin, American Renaissance Man, Ladies' Man and Statesman (1706-1790)

I have long felt that George W. Bush is incurably delusional and recent events just reinforce this idea!

If Bush sacrifices more troops, the issue of cloning the dead is sure to come up, but not to clone more warriors, but warriors opposed to war. See

http://www.militarytimes.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1258&goto=newpost

I don't know about you folks, but I'm voting Green in 2008, as every honest, self-respecting progressive should. The Democratic Party is dead.

I'm going to vote for the person who has the best chance of keeping the republicans far from the corridors of power, as every honest, self-respecting, intelligent patriotic American, progressive or not, should.

If that turns out to be Green, fine. If not, I'm not going to risk being part of what lets another George Bush get elected.

Number of Nader voters in Florida 2000: 90,000 +
Official margin of victory, Florida 2000: 537

Susan Collins won her first Senatorial election by only 5%. She won reelection by more than 15%, and consistently receives favorable ratings in the 60% range in Maine. Her most likely opponent in 2008, Representative Tom Allen, polls less well than Collins and is not very popular in eastern and northern Maine.

Collins may decide that she favors withdrawal. That's the course her mentor, former Republican Senator and former Clinton Secretary of Defense Bill Cohen would probably take, at this point. (Cohen criticized Bill Clinton for lacking a clear strategy for leaving Bosnia). But she won't switch her position because she's vulnerable in 2008.

Norm Coleman, who is vulnerable and seems to lack any firm political convictions, may switch his vote in order to help his reelection campaign; John Sununu, who is less vulnerable and has some convictions, may even switch his vote for that reason. But if Susan Collins (or Olympia Snowe) switches positions, it won't be because she's afraid of losing reelection.

What explains the failure of the mainstream media to cover the purge scandal for so long, and so many other scandals? Do you think somebody just set up newspaper editors to cheat on their wives, and threatened to tell if the editors wouldn’t play ball when they come back some day and ask for something?

Are you perhaps a little wet behind the ears? You seem to have no clue as to how the media functions in our society.

You could try reading a book. There are many good ones on the subject. James Fallows, 'Breaking the News' for example. If you're up for some exhaustive scholarship why don't you pick up a copy of Chomsky & Herman's 'Manufacturing Consent.' It may be a little bit extreme in its conclusions but the examination of the historical and factual record is extremely impressive.

I don't know if the legislation will have any practical effect, either, but I'm fascinated by the common cause made by the wingnut right and the progressive left in attacking it. Since when did logrolling ("bribery") and compromise ("selling out") become the 2 worst words in the American political lexicon?

MOLOCH IS ANGRY!!! MOLOCH WILL SMITE THE DEMOCRATS!!!!

MOLOCH DEMANDS SACRIFICE!! MORE DEAD ARE BETTER, AND IT IS BETTER IF THEY ARE YOUNG!!!!

MOLOCH DEMANDS HIS/HER SACRIFICE!!! HOW DARE THE DEMOCRATS STOP THE SLAUGHTER?!!??!???!

I don't know about you folks, but I'm voting Green in 2008, as every honest, self-respecting progressive should. The Democratic Party is dead.

yeah, me too

"....who is already seen as leaning toward the withdrawal plan." - Drum

I thought it was a farm subsidy bill.

Can you say VETO. And with all of the pork that's packed into that POS legislation, the public will applaud Bush for the veto.

Pelosi had to buy some votes with the pork which is disgraceful. Have the chutzpah to have the bill on the war and the war alone, and see what happens. Code Pink is waiting.

"The Democratic Party is dead." - some brain dead liberal

The maniacal lunacy of the far left will destroy the current Democratic Party before '08 even gets here. And do you honestly think people like the above poster will EVER vote for Hillary?

Not on her best day.

Whe you lay down with fleas.......

I will take b) a useless piece of symbolism.

Symbolism is all we ever get out of Democrats. War on poverty, war on drugs, war on AIDS, war on global warming.

Is this one more vote for passage or one more vote to override a veto?

Leaders are always alone. That is what makes them leaders.

And in a democracy, eventually, it's the public that's the real Decider.

This is where the 'One Man, With Jesus, IS A Majority" bumpersticker crowd comes in...

Well, since the thread has been hijacked...

>"...people like the above poster will EVER vote for Hillary?"

Jay, [real or otherwise] for once we agree.

I'm a progressive and Hillary would have to be running against a neofascist like Brownback. Rommney [etc] to get my vote. IMHO: Every ballot needs an additonal checkbox... 'None of the Above, Try Again'.

The american people better. On second thought, maybe they don't... ignorance, corruption and indifference provide their own rewards I guess.

The more I learn about history the more I realize Noam Chomsky is spot-on with his analysis... an unpleasant truth for most americans.

Posted by: Jay on March 27, 2007 at 9:26 AM:
Pelosi had to buy some votes with the pork which is disgraceful. Have the chutzpah to have the bill on the war and the war alone, and see what happens.

Yeah Nancy, show that same chutzpah that our fine repub leadership did for the past 6 yrs when all their bills were "clean" without pork or "traps".

"The more I learn about history the more I realize Noam Chomsky is spot-on with his analysis..." - buford

Oh please. Although a very bright man, Noam Chomsky is only a hero of the paranoid with his "wage slavery" and "illegitimate power" beliefs.

There are no perfect societies, but those who choose to denigrate the more noble societies because of perceived imperfections are the truly misguided ones.

Symbolism, yes, but not useless. It represents the first baby steps to actually standing up to W.

Everything is going to have *pork* attached. You do recall, don't you, that the 109th congress abdicated their responsibilities and failed to pass a budget for this year?

"Everything is going to have *pork* attached. You do recall, don't you, that the 109th congress abdicated their responsibilities and failed to pass a budget for this year?" - BGRS

Yes I do, and it's unacceptable. The Democrats however ran, and won, in part on fiscal responsibility, and their first effort out of the gate is laden with pork.

And then we hear..."everything is going to have pork...."

Have the war funding stand on its own merits and see how far you get.

Jay --- "Whe you lay down with fleas......." missing the 'w' is all right, but it is "...Lie down with fleas". We all wonder when the rabid cannot even do it in English.

BTW, how is it you are running down Pelosi? She is one of yours, an AIPAC/PNAC employee of a foreign country.

Of course you are right about H Clinton; she is unelectable, but then most Democrats know that already, so as ever you are either bullshitting or stating the obvious..

"Of course you are right about H Clinton; she is unelectable, but then most Democrats know that already, so as ever you are either bullshitting or stating the obvious.." - maunga

She will be your candidate though.....

Buford: "I'm a progressive and Hillary would have to be running against a neofascist like Brownback. Rommney [etc] to get my vote. IMHO: Every ballot needs an additonal checkbox... 'None of the Above, Try Again'. ... The more I learn about history the more I realize Noam Chomsky is spot-on with his analysis... an unpleasant truth for most americans."

Well, now, you just go right ahead, Buford, and dismiss in a huff Hillary Clinton and every other Democrat who somehow fails to rise above both Noam Chomsky's candidate bar of political acceptibility and your own lofty expectations.

Then, 20 years from now, as Florida Gov. George P. Bush announces his campaign to succeed his cousin, President Jenna Bush, in the White House, you can tell your 23 cats how you maintained your political purity in the face of the excessive compromise offered by the Democratic Party.

Actually, it is Lie down with dogs, you wake up with fleas.

"denigrate the more noble societies"

Put Brook's Brothers and wing tips on sleaze and you will still have sleaze Any "nobleness" has rotted away to the core.

Sleaze led by your Commander in Sleaze - At least he is competent in that.

The troubling thing to me about the Democrat timetables is that they seem to aim at complete withdrawal, even from the secure and very useful bases we have established. As I have pointed out repeatedly here, Iraq is almost dead center of the Middle East geographically and therefore convenient to any other hot spot that may flare up.

Presumably, the Democrats will eventually find some "real" outbreak of terrorism they will be willing to fight for at least a few minutes, in which case these bases will save a lot of American lives. More than that, the Democrat plan is starting to reek of yet another abandonment of the Kurds to the un-tender mercies of their fierce neighbors.

Other than that observation, we neo-cons have very little to be upset about. An August 2008 date would be better than March, because this enemy is resourceful and does find a way to change tactics as they need to. Still, democratic (little d) Iraq already looks to be stable enough to stand on its own. If all our forces left tomorrow there would be a very bloody few months while the elected government puts down the insurgency for keeps by forgetting all of the American-imposed Western rules of counter-insurgency, but I no longer fear that Sunni supremacy in partnership with al Qaeda would seize total power and rule from Baghdad.

That isn't going to happen. The only wild card in the region now is Iran and Ahmadinejad's very real apocalyptic sense of destiny.

I also have an Inshallah sense of destiny. Bush is as he is because God made him that way in anticipation of finally scourging a long-running form of evil from Iraq. American leftists need to read Tolstoy's WAR AND PEACE again to have the "great man" theory of history debunked. There are no great men who make good or bad choices that impose on everyone else. Everybody acts according to their destiny. It was the destiny of 100,000 French soldiers to get a mass urge to march on Moscow. Napoleon was only incidental to a historical imperative that God, for unknowable reasons, had ultimately unleashed at the fated moment.

That's the only explanation necessary for Iraq as well. God was tired of Saddam, his evil sons, and the Baath Party in general. God raised the coalition, perhaps particularly the Tony Blair part of it. Hard to explain Tony, otherwise.

Ronald Reagan liked to confidently say, in any adversity, that "God has a plan."

I'm sure God does. Perhaps a plan for Iran, and soon. . .

"...denigrate the more noble societies..."

Sorry, the US as a particularly 'noble society' is self-delusion. Actually a rather bad joke when viewed in the light of rational analysis.

Last major nation to outlaw slavery. 30% of the population [Bush Base] still celebrates the ideals of the confederacy.
KluKluxKlan as a major poiitical force through the 1940's.
12 million dead native americans can't be all wrong can they?
Mexican wars... taking of land at gunpoint.
Taking of the Hawaiian islands at gunpoint.
Spanish-American war, land taken at gunpoint.
Half million dead Filipinos in post Spanish War colonialism.
Multiple central/south american invasions on behalf of the United Fruit Company & Bankers.
Couple million dead Vietnamese in a last ditch effort to defend colonialism and the Catholic Church.
Millions of dead in Laos and Cambodia.
Supported South Africa and Israel in maintenance of of colonial/aparthied regimes.
Supported Contra terrorists and Cuban expat terrorists while decrying violent attacks not suiting US Govt purposes.
Support 'democracy' unless the vote goes against US government interests... in that case they work to overthrow the elected governments and install dictatorships. (Iran, Iraq)
Half million dead Iraqis over nonexistant WMD's and oil interests.
Government officially supports political murder and torture as policy.
President declares power to inflict inprisonment or death on whomever he wants.
Builds secret prisons and torture chambers worldwide.

Ranked #1 threat to world peace by the majority of the people in the world.

Yeah, noble people.

maunga: "Of course you are right about H Clinton; she is unelectable, but then most Democrats know that already ..."

Well, then, your thoughtful analysis certainly explains her current double-digit lead in most reliable surveys and opinion polls. I seem to recall that in 1991 her husband Bill was likewise "unelectable" ...

Note to all Democrats belonging to the Ivory Snow Caucus: It's hard to keep your political ideals clean and pure, when your opinions appear to be pulled out of your own ass.

Thank you, thank you, the best of brightest of voters in the 33rd District.

Mikey, more and more Metformin.

Drum:

And in a democracy, eventually, it's the public that's the real Decider. It's time Bush learned that.

See... %$#^& &*#$ !@#! see...
See *$&^#%@(* see ##@$ and if you don't like it see... Go #&$* yourself!

Hey, thirdPaul, I may have to give the voters another stab at it in 2008. The 33rd has been a safe district for Democrats for many years, but I think a backlash is over-due on many local political issues. Democrats turned out big in 2006 because they were so unhappy that we are gradually winning the Iraq conflict, but by next year Iraq victory will be a done deal, leaving them in a malaise.

Besides that, I suspect another pretty normal winter for North America is going to leave all the folks who are shrieking about a 20-foot sea rise by 2050 look like the ones who really need psych meds.

Hey, thirdPaul, I may have to give the voters another stab at it in 2008. The 33rd has been a safe district for Democrats for many years, but I think a backlash is over-due on many local political issues. Democrats turned out big in 2006 because they were so unhappy that we are gradually winning the Iraq conflict, but by next year Iraq victory will be a done deal, leaving them in a malaise.

Besides that, I suspect another pretty normal winter for North America is going to leave all the folks who are shrieking about a 20-foot sea rise by 2050 look like the ones who really need psych meds.

And to top all that, the firing of John McKay may actually mean we can have a close election again in King County without the Democrats feeling like they can get away with the most blatant cheating. Already a Democrat cheat group called ACORN was unmasked for mass voter registration fraud in 2006. A better driver's license won't stop all non-citizens from voting, but it might "intimidate" some of them, as well it should!

Yes I do, and it's unacceptable. The Democrats however ran, and won, in part on fiscal responsibility, and their first effort out of the gate is laden with pork.

Please name the $ amounts and items that you deem to be pork and let's see exactly how patriotic you are... if you include the additional appropriations (as "pork") for military and veterans' health care, the war in Afghanistan, aviation, border and port security, Gulf Coast assistance and levee repairs, agricultural assistance, and wildfire fighting.

WaPo wrote that "Republicans spotlight less politically popular items, such as $25 million to bail out spinach farmers hurt by E. coli and $74 million for peanut storage."

Boo fucking hoo.

Then do us the courtesy of naming the $ amounts and items of the "pork" that the Repub Congress passed prior to 2007 and let's compare.

Now run along, you have some homework to do.

Buh-bye.

With apologies to all for going completely off thread, but:

Condolences to Tony Snow - While I have disagreed with him for years, may he prevail in this new and/or ongoing fight against such an insidious disease.

I'd second that, 3rd Paul. The diagnosis doesn't sound good. Hope he pulls through and the chemo works.

The Bush Administration: A belly full of lies.

The silliest Republican talking point is to deride the call for withdrawal and 'micromanaging.' It's Maxomanaging big time. Micromanaging is sending more troops when the generals haven't asked or sending too few to prevent chaos and looting in the initial stages in defiance of the Powell Doctrine.
It's good to see Bush getting his snout dipped into the mess he created

Can you say VETO… Jay at 9:26 AM

….That is what makes them leaders. Orwell at 9:36 AM

…denigrate the more noble societies because of perceived imperfections… Jay at 10:01 AM

So, Donald From Hawaii, how is your harangue that a vote for the Green Pary is a guarantee of victory for the Republicans any different than Cheney's innuendo that a vote for Kerry guarantees another terrorist attack?

It isn't.

It's the same brain dead appeal to fear. If Gore hadn't been so incompetent campaigning the votes for Nader won't be an issue.

Hell, if he hadn't lost his own fucking state then he would have would have won regardless of Florida.

So don't come here whining about mean old Ralph.

Like Mr. Drum, I too am a bit confused by legislative manuevering. But somewhere this AM I read the Republican Senators are going to allow this bill to pass so that W. Bush will be forced to veto it if he wants to keep his Iraq commitment open ended. This will be a clear signal to the electorate, who have become ardently anti-war despite all of the war mongering of the MSM, that W. Bush and his Republican Party have no intention of respecting their desire to end the occupation. The only thing to worry about is W. Bush ordering an attack on Iran, which I think becomes more likely as the end of his term nears and the failure of his war policies becomes painfully apparent.

Hell, if he hadn't lost his own fucking state then he would have would have won regardless of Florida.

Translation: if Al Gore had been a better campaigner, then I could have had my meaningless self-indulgent protest vote without having to face any of the unpleasant consequences of the last six years.

Which will happen first: Bush groupies growing brains or Nader groupies growing up? It's a close call.

Yeah, noble people.
Posted by: Buford

Left out: Ruthlessly sought to exterminate indigenous peoples - any that survived contact with our germs got the guns and steel. A 300 year 'Indian War'. Turned said 'accomplishment' into mass entertainment and exported 'cowboys and indians' to the world.

Bill Moyers writes: "The scale of the disorder in our national priorities right now is truly staggering; it approaches moral anarchy. "

I do have to say that Henry Reid attaching a bill about billboards to this was over the top.
Because nothing says 'America' like giant bill boards.

There's a great special feature at the BBC online regarding the abolition of the slave trade - at least the part based in England itself. Including this:

'One of the most prosperous sugar plantations on the fertile island of Barbados was the seaside Codrington estate. In a good year in the mid-18th century, its profits could be more than £2,000 - equal to well over £200,000 today. A headcount in 1781 showed Codrington's slave quarters holding 276 men, women and children. In every possible way it was a typical British West Indian slave plantation - 12-hour days in the cane fields, harsh whippings for disobedient slaves, branding of slaves with a hot iron. The only unusual thing about Codrington was its owner. For well over a hundred years, until the end of British slavery in the 1830s, Codrington was the property of the Church of England. This shows how profoundly normal slavery was considered throughout British society.'- BBC

Symbolism. Read my post at Blue Girl Red State's team blog, Proctoring Congress.

Martin Luther King : "They must see Americans as strange liberators. . . . For nine years following 1945 we denied the people of Vietnam the right of independence. For nine years we vigorously supported the French in their abortive effort to recolonize Vietnam. . . . The only change came from America as we increased our troop commitments in support of governments which were singularly corrupt, inept and without popular support. All the while the people read our leaflets and received regular promises of peace and democracy -- and land reform. Now they languish under our bombs and consider us -- not their fellow Vietnamese -- the real enemy. . . . What do they think as we test our latest weapons on them, just as the Germans tested out new medicine and new tortures in the concentration camps of Europe? Where are the roots of the independent Vietnam we claim to be building?"

Now substitute Iraq for Vietnam.

Symbolism. Read my post at Blue Girl Red State's team blog, Proctoring Congress.
Posted by: SocraticGadfly

'Tissue Paper' about covers it...and the really cheap store brand at that.

apollo 13: Then do us the courtesy of naming the $ amounts and items of the "pork" that the Repub Congress passed prior to 2007 and let's compare.

good point....and that's when they were passing bills...

of course...the last congress NEVER did get around to passing...

A BUDGET...

lazy...incompetent....or both?

"Only one Republican vote needs to switch. And when that happens, George Bush really will be alone . . . "

Alone he may be, but until January 20, 2009, he'll be all alone in the Oval Office. Which means the shithead doesn't have to learn anything he doesn't want to -- which covers just about the sum total of human knowledge.

And there's not a damned thing the "real deciders" can do about it. They placed their bet when they pulled the lever in 2004, and it's their tough luck it came up triple lemons.

Only one Republican vote needs to switch. And when that happens, George Bush really will be alone

Curious use of the word "alone", in this case equivalent to "having the backing of almost all the Republican Party".

And in a democracy, eventually, it's the public that's the real Decider.

GWB has said things like that on numerous occasions. He has, in foreign nations, talked about the limitations on his power caused by the fact that he is a lame duck and the Congress has a majority of the opposite party.

Mark Paul: These resolutions are a good start. Now that legislators are on board, and notice that the sky didn't fall on them, they'll be ready to take on another, more firmly worded resolution in a few months, sometime this summer.

I agree.

My biggest worry is that they will pass up the opportunity to pass a resolution prohibiting offensive action against Iran. Look at all the activity in the Persian Gulf! And they are talking about how many troops have to come home from Iraq (not all!) before the 2008 election.

Senate vote preserves the withdrawal deadline
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Defying a veto threat, the Democratic-controlled Senate narrowly signaled support Tuesday for the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq by next March.
Republican attempts to scuttle the non-binding timeline failed on a vote of 50-48, largely along party lines.
The roll call marked the Senate's most forceful challenge to date of the administration's handling of a war that has claimed the lives of more than 3,200 U.S. troops.
Three months after Democrats took power in Congress, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said the moment was at hand to "send a message to President Bush that the time has come to find a new way forward in this intractable war."
But Republicans -- and Sen. Joseph Lieberman, an independent Democrat -- argued otherwise.

Bob Gelfand: The major conclusion of the year 2007 is the rebuttal to the hard leftist whine that elections are meaningless. Having Henry Waxman as the chair of a House committee, with subpoena power, is a big change for the better. It may not be utopia or nirvana, but it is lots better than what we had before.

I think that by the end of 2007 we'll see a lot of small changes: the pork will be slightly more Democratic than Republican, for example, and the Democrats will still be quarreling among themselves how many American soldiers ought to remain in Iraq after the withdrawal; subsidies for agricultural produce will be slightly higher, especially for biofuels, and there will be more restrictions on coal-fired power plants.

Only with a sustained effort through the summer of 2008 will they even be able to show that they made a difference. I am not saying it won't be an improvement, I expect on the whole slight improvement. It's more or less the way the federal government works, and their majority in Congress is very slim.

Yeah, Smith and Hagel joined the Dems on that vote.

I hope Lieberman finally wakes up now and caucuses with the GOP!

Buford: Sorry, the US as a particularly 'noble society' is self-delusion. Actually a rather bad joke when viewed in the light of rational analysis.

The claim is not that the U.S. is "particularly" noble. Rather, the claim is that Chomsky et al support other nations that are even less noble than the U.S. Chomsky, for example, was loathe to accept the brutatlity of the Khmer Rouge, first denying that anything bad was happening, then claiming that it was exaggerated, then claiming that it wasn't even caused by Khmer Rouge, but by the bombing of the "so-called" Communists in the first place.

Hey, you find a more noble society, go live in it. If the civilian casualty rate keeps dropping in Iraq, that could be the place. You don't really need electricity 24 hours a day to be civilizaed.

I read The New York Times every day (even sold a column to them once, which ran Nov.1, 1989) but haven't found a peep on the 15 Brits whom the Iranians scooped up. Perhaps the great Gray Lady is trying to figure out how to spin an anti-Bush angle into this.

Dr. Morpheus,

This one's a freebie. Why don't you tell us how liberals voting for Nader in '00 was different from opponents of terrorism voting for Kerry in '04. C'mon, I'm confident that you can do it... and if you can't, that speaks poorly of your intellectual ability, your honesty, or both.

As for Gore's "incompetence" being the main problem, why don't you go back and see how much Gore trailed two months before the election, one month before the election, two weeks before the election, five days before the election, and two days before the election. Keeping in mind that Gore won the popular vote, tell me how all of that squares with your claim that his campaign was incompetent. For bonus points, check how many pundits chastised Gore for "wasting resources" campaigning in Florida...

Or, stick with your bizarro world version of events. It's easier to blame George W. Bush's victory on mistakes Al Gore never actually made, than to blame it on tens of thousands of people who chose not to vote for Gore.

So, Donald From Hawaii, how is your harangue that a vote for the Green Pary is a guarantee of victory for the Republicans any different than Cheney's innuendo that a vote for Kerry guarantees another terrorist attack?
[snip]
If Gore hadn't been so incompetent campaigning the votes for Nader won't be an issue.

Posted by: Dr. Morpheus on March 27, 2007 at 11:53 AM |

Leaders are always alone. That is what makes them leaders.

Your reasoning is faulty. Being all alone does not make one a leader, having followers makes you a leader. Being all alone and thinking you are a leader makes you delusional. By your standard there are many leaders in small rooms that lock from the outside.