As General Patreaus and Ambassador Crocker droned on about progress Iraq and the same old tired rhetoric about why we need to “stay the course” and “support the troops,” and “stabilize security”, and a dozen other sound bite friendly slogans designed to keep us lulled into the idea this is all normal and acceptable I had to roll my eyes. But no one is buying it this time. Even the very agencies responsible for collecting and compiling intelligence for the White House are taking on the habit of leaking their reports before the Bush bunch have a chance to rewrite it. And the reports we’ve been getting from them sure as hell don’t jive with what this president is trying to sell us. I think the contradiction of trying to keep us afraid of al Qaeda while convincing us he is winning against them has combined on George W. shredding any measure of credibility that may have been left. And now we’ve seen our first official report concerning the surge and except for a shuffling of the hot spots, nothing has changed except more Americans and innocent Iraqi’s are dead. But the American people made up their minds about this war a long time ago. And that was that it was a mistake to go into Iraq and it’s a mistake to stay.
In November of 2006 the American people spoke and spoke loudly. The message Democrats sent congress was “stop the madness of Bush’s Iraq policy and bring our troops home.” And now after a couple of wimpy attempts they’ve given up. Apparently satisfied to just wait Bush out in the hopes that the next president will fix the mess.
First the Pelosi / Reid lead congress sent a war funding bill to the president with a deadline for pulling out the troops, knowing full well he was going to veto the thing. A waste of time I believe. And many said “simply don’t pass anymore funding for the war.” The Republicans immediately chimed in with “it amounts to NOT supporting the troops,” and “failing to pass funding will endanger the troops. See how un-American that will make you look. You could very well be risking the loss of your office.” And I’ll be damned if Pelosi and Reid and a lot of other Democrats like Clinton bought it.... again. I couldn’t believe my eyes. These people have wimped out again. And stopping the flow of money isn’t the only option they have. They could vote to rescind authorization for the war. They could impeach Bush and Cheney for what even Republican Senator Gordon H. Smith (OR) called “criminal” behavior in their execution of the war. And that begs the question of why the voices in congress calling for impeachment were silenced? Was it because Pelosi and Reid feared such a move would be seen as retribution for the impeachment against Bill Clinton? I think it’s a possibility, why else would they squash the call for it so completely and quickly.
No, I’m afraid the only conclusion this correspondent can come to is that Pelosi and Reid, along with some of the other older Democratic members of the US House and Senate are 
obviously more concerned with playing it safe in an attempt at keeping their jobs than the lives that are being sacrificed in Iraq. My God, have these people no honor? It is my opinion that if these members of congress who openly oppose the war in Iraq and are NOT willing to put their phony bologna political jobs on the line to stop the blood letting, then they don’t deserve the privilege of holding those offices. Therefore, in light of Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Harry Reid’s complete and total failure to carry out the will of the people in regards to the Iraq war, I am calling on them to resign their offices and apologize to the American people and the troops for their failure.
In reality, since I’m quite sure Pelosi and Reid will not read this article, I’m calling on my fellow Democrats and Iraq war opponents to challenge and defeat Pelosi, Reid and any other Democratic members of the House and Senate who are not fighting to stop this war with every effort available to them personally, in the Democratic legislative primaries. We already sent the Republicans a message and they didn’t listen. Now it’s time to send them all a message. The people of this country do not agree with this imperialistic approach to foreign policy or that military action should be used unless it is the absolute last option.
***********************
Devin Barber, Politics Correspondent
Devin’s column, “Left Of The Right” published twice weekly or more to Gather Essentials: Politics is a Blue Collar Democrats take on current political news.
Devin was raised by proud Roosevelt Democrats. Being the son of parents counted among the throng of Americans displaced by the Great Depression has given Devin a deep rooted passion for causes dealing with the poor and the working class.
You can find all of Devin’s columns at http://gather.com/leftoftheright
You can keep up with Devin’s postings and his Gather activity by joining his Gather network. Just click here: http://kiwina58.gather.com and then select the orange “Connect” button on the left-hand side of the page.
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Comments: 182
The mainly Democratic folks elected in 2006 were Moderates, or even slightly Conservative Democrats. The older Democrats you mentioned are the true Liberals, elected when the Clintons ran the White House. Since you're so Liberal, why would you call for the mainly Liberal leadership to step down? Don't you realize that this would only mean more Conservatives in Congress?
You Liberals really have your work cut out for you : you like Liberal Democrats, but those are the guys not doing a damn thing. If you get rid of them, you make Congress even more Conservative..............but if you keep the Libs around, they'll just continue to be weak, like they always have been. Not a good situation for you guys.
I've always considered myself a Democrat, but I cringe at being tarred with the same brush as these mega-wimps. They let the Republicans call the tune, and then apologize when it's the GOPs who make misstep after misstep.
Once, just once, I'd like to see some Demo-wimp toe the line and calmly tell the Reps to bring it on! After all, you can always win a battle of wits with the unarmed.
The "Party Line", as you put it, is simply anything that attempts to make the Bush administration look badly...........real or perceived. Mainly just perceived, though, since the extreme Left Wing comes up with something as insane as the recent MoveOn.org ad against Gen. Petraeus. Truly shameful.
Don't think you're the first to call me a spy.
I'm a Conservative first, and a Democrat next. I joined when the party when it was great to be a Conservative in the party. Like Reagan famously said "I didn't abandon the Democratic party, the Democratic party abandoned me". Truer words were never spoken.
Now we have the Left running things and it seems we have no direction. Go figure....lol.
Many of us Conservative Democrats feel that way today.
I could say that Bush is stupid.
Does that help in your argument?
When our troops are redeployed over and over again and again, is that good or on the tenth redeployment are our troops just plain weary. There is a small military in this country of ours and redeploying them over and over again and again isn't a good idea.
Personally, I would not be happy living in a fascist state. The "bullies" seem to think that America would be better off if it were so. I do fear that America is heading in that direction. Some day I figure, if we manage to weather this storm, many in the Republican party will look back at these times and tell themselves with regret, "how could I have been so blind."
Bret W,
Then do what I did. I abandon the dumbocratic party. In NC, if your an Independent, you can vote in either primary. So I look at the "best" candidate, regardless of what party. Right now, I'm looking at two different candidates, one from each party. Unless an Independent comes along, the prospects are grim.
That's what Reagan did.........and said. Its how many of us in the Democratic party feel. However, I'm in pretty deep with the Illinois Democratic party. And although I see how passionate they are, they're misguided............and I'm working with them to right that. However, if you're the only finance guy amongst a pack of Women's Studies professors, you can only push things so far until they start to itch....lol.
I'll tell you this much - working from the inside works better than total abandonment, even if it is frustrating listening to Karl Marx quotes all the time.
Remember how the Republicans preached a balanced budget and condemned the Democrats spending back in 1980? Then Reagan and his followers got control and set new records for deficit spending. It isn't the party, it isn't the character of the office holders, it's the system.
Our money was invented / developed thousands of years ago. It can't do the job we need to have done in today's world. To fix things we have to first fix the money.
My suggested fix is detailed in "Invisible Hand", a science fiction novel freely available at
http://www.unc.edu/~mason/hand.html
The solution is neither left nor right wing. It is a fundamental change in the nature of our money. You will find nothing like it anywhere on the internet.
There are a lot of former Republicans and Democrats who can say that. The problem is that the extremes that are in the minority have had too much influence in both parties.
In regards to Pelosi and Reid, Harry Reid didn't impress me when he first ran for the Senate and he still doesn't, but that is besides the point. Part of the problem is that unlike Republican leaders in Congress neither of them can treat Democrats who do not tow the line the way Republicans treated members of their party that did not follow their lead. As Democrats we both know how we and other Democrats would react to such strong arm tactics. Today's Republicans may look upon it as a weakness, but as a former Republican who can say, "I didn't leave the Republican Party, it left me." I think it is one of our party's strengths.
The days of the political bosses that dictate to the rest of their party has past for the Democrats and there is evidence that it is waning among Republicans. They may not rest in peace, but if the majority of us who are in the middle make our voices heard we have a chance of once more returning our political process to one in which compromise is not a dirty word. I am not sure how you feel about that but I look forward to such a day.
For the first time in my life I see the real threat as being getting anyone near the Republican Party to have any power in DC after 2008. There's obviously an *old boy's network* deep within the Republican party somewhere and some multinationals and it needs to be cut out.
Pelosi and Reid have certainly made a mockery of their campaign promises. I hope articles such as this one poke them a lot more than whatever has been poking them in their new offices on Capitol Hill.
You don't know much about liberals, do you?
Everyone,
This article is excellent. Pelosi and Reid have let us all down. The mission should be to withdraw our troops and rebuild Iraq as was the stated intention of this lying president of ours. In the end, only the strong members of Congress will survive this because most people are fed up with this war in Iraq. Most people want to see some progress at getting Osama apprehended and dealt with accordingly.
The White House, in its parliamentary-sort of Republican Party directorship , until this recent wave of *liberal* anti-Bush Republicans, has been acting a lot, Carol, but unfortunately they've been dancing to rather notorious fiddler.
Do you honestly think radical Islam would accept any sort of treaty and then actually live by it?
Radical Islam is mad at the USA and the Western world. Radical Islam does not allow a court or banking system thus to allow radical Islamic countries to partcipate in the world ecomony. So they are mad at us because of the current economic situation they are in?
If we pull out, they win. We have rewarded bad behavior.
Enjoy , your good times are about to end , unless your idiot in chief starts WW 3 .
I do agree that The P & R show is wimpy .
There are so many other Dems with spines that could do better .
Democrats, moderates, Independents, Republicans, conservatives, etc. all have within their ranks people who look at what Mr. Bush has said/done and admit it is wrong. There is only a teensy and shrinking contingency out there (though a very vocal one) who still believe he is without fault, flaw, or error. For those I offer a fine cloth and a small bottle of windex to polish their plate glass belly buttons. How else would one explain their inability to find any fault with such a flawed and evil man?
Just a comment about blaming Bush for 911. Going down the trail of that mode of thinking ... where does it lead ... or how does it lead to something the country can agree on, and do something about. Blaming Bush, the CIA, the "Illuminati" or whatever leads to just paranoid schizoid breakup of the country as we all go insane from having no common reality.
None of these brilliant independent thinkers seems to ever even consider the idea that there are countries out there that we are strategically dependent on for oil, that are totalitarian and beginning to coalesce into a conglomerated threat complete with a rabid inferiority complex and imperialistic notions of taking over the world.
At the very least we will soon have to stand up to at least one of these countries, and the ideal thing would be to ruin all of their ability to threaten us, and the rest of the world too. There is not point in allowing radical Islam to congeal into more of a threat and brainwash more minds than it already has.
What you see as the wimp factor is the uncertainty to give into the fringe Democrats who think they know something about international politics or world history.
> There are so many other Dems with spines that could do better.
I agree, like Joe Biden, the first Democrat or Republicans to come out with a detailed sensible plan to stabilize Iraq ... which is what we need, not a complete retreat from standing up to radical Islam and a repudiation of our attempt to reshape the Middle East.
In hindsight many military strategists say that if we have followed the General's plans and invaded with more men and followed some of the plans that Rumsfeld tossed out before even thinking, we would have a stable Iraq now. If the Democrats were smart enough to make this argument Bush should resign, and Rumself should have fallen on his sword in disgrace. Instead since all we hear from the Democrats are raucous shouts of rage when not a one of them has to fight this war - who are the real wimps?
Find tnagible ground to stand on if you want to debate rather than completely unrelated insutory remarks. You are a clown Bruce, this pronbaby is not the right sight for you to contribute to. I'm going back to work after eating my afternoon snack, if you have another foolish remark, I will look forward to it. Otherwise, keep your mindless rhetorc to yourself and enjoy the disentegation of morals and valueswhich your pl Pelosi not only promotes but lives by.
Patrick ... appparently you cannot count either, 5 counting this one.
I wish I knew nothing about Liberals.
Unfortunately, I was raised in a house full of them, then moved to Seattle where they completely infest the system there. Eventually, I moved to Chicago where they protest just a block away from my work. In addition, I'm involved with the Illinois Democratic party - which is a soap opera.
We're a party of overly emotional and not so well-funded folks, that got soft sciences degrees so they could help the underprivileged. Nothing wrong with that, if you have thick skin.............however, most in our party think that a fantasy/utopia is actually achievable. Those are the folks I have to deal with, daily.........
Lowering expectations is hard work....lol.
The truth is that to gain control of the Senate by one vote, we had to run what I call Democrats in name only. No doubt they are of the ilk of the Blue Dog Democrats, a group of 47 moderate and conservative Democratic Party members of the House of Representatives. At least if you read the vote roll call reports, as I do you see that if you take the number of Democrats who voted with the administration and Republican supporters, and add it to the other side, the Democrats in charge and the Republicans who have jumped ship, the offending and offensive votes would have turned the other way. No further Patriot Act type offenses against the rights of citizens, no powers of the purse strings given directly to the Attorney General and Homeland Security Czar. No funding for the war, imagine that.
But in this frightening world of Republicans who don't notice what the administration is doing to the Constitution, it's easy to see why political leaders are running people who stand for every side and therefore stand for nothing. In the 2008 election, I will vote again for "anyone but a Republican" just as I did in the Congressional Election. And then I will growl and spit because these "conservatives" actually meant they are Republican sympathizers.
Perhaps this country really does want "just someone who will keep me safe, even if I have to give up a few little freedoms."
Because I have hope for sanity, I still send my money to Dennis Kucinich and will continue to do so until he's finally elected. If the "liberal press" would just report his successes with real people and his extensive diplomatic skills and his strength of character to tell the truth, popular or not, he'd be elected. Polls show him with suprising strength despite the silence of the MSM.
Don't get me wrong. I'm purely progressive, not an old style Democrat at all. But in this infernal outmoded two party system, Democrats are all we've got.
I'd vote in a moment to divide the Electoral College votes based on a percentage of popular votes for each candidate. However, California will not be tricked into being the only state to divide its votes and give the election to the Republicans. Since they could not gerrymander our counties, they will now try for our Electoral votes, and they will lose again.
We need new parties to have a voice: Green, peace, and yes, socialist because we need to return to compromise and coalition politics. Down with winner takes all. Down with run-away capitalism. Down with pre-emptive strike policies. Down with fear and war. Down with downgrading the middle class. Down with defunding infrastructure, education, and social programs. Down with paying the rich to be rich.
America is a Center to Center/Right country, and it has been since Reagan. The Blue Dog Democrats are the latest version of that shift back to the Center and away from the extreme Left.
The Left's days are numbered, but they don't see it. That's the funny part.
I think you just saw (in the midterm 2006 elections) the absolute extent of Left Wing power in this country. It's doubtful you'll see the Left gain any more seats in either House, from now on. Their power will erode, slowly. They've peaked, and now they face a horrible decline into obscurity. Once the troops start coming home, that will be the end.
The truly Far Right has never really been that powerful...........or that visible. Maybe back when Reagan was President, but not so much any more.
You and the most ignorant of the right wing want to make this all about
war, when in fact there are a lot of left leaning people, like myself, who
are appropriately supportive of standing up to terrorists and rogue
nations. The left agenda is a social agenda, not so much an international
agenda. And until the US wakes up and starts realizing that we are
selling our long term leadership in almost everything so that some few
people who think they know it all can enjoy stangulating control of the
country the country will not prosper and will continue to want to solve
all problems with force and restrictions on freedom.
Things are pretty negative today. That's because one party had all of the power for a short time in history. The pendulum is swinging back right now, however. There should always be a little tension between the White House and Congress. When they were both Republican, the White House had too much power. This was deadly for the health of our republic. Things are changing and for the better as far as I'm concerned.
So...instead of doing their job in support of the military campaign (the reality is it takes both efforts to be successful) they sit on their hands waiting for next November and hoping for the worst.
So let me get this straight...............the Democratic party is hoping and wishing for defeat? Is that the only way the country will see that their 'non-plans' sound good?
Bret W.,
I didn't say I abandon the democratic party, I just became Independent, so if there is a better candidate on the other side, I can do my part to help them. But I still vote pretty much dem. And I have voted for republicans too. Not ALL republicans are bad BTW. Just Most of them.
A responsible Congress would be trying to effect a political solution while the Army supports the efforts by keeping the environment safe, instead they let the Military try to do their political job while they criticize the effort and demand they give up.
To be sure, they haven't had the strength to override a veto, which has hobbled them some, but they could have been much more aggressive with the funding bill and with a move toward impeachment. As a result of their weakness, there will likely be another thousand or so unnecessary deaths among our troops in Iraq, before this administration is mercifully put out to pasture....
It's too bad, for example that they allowed from day one, the moronic assumption to remain unchallenged that to stay the course was to support the troops. This was a major PR issue that should have been destroyed by an effective campaign broadcasting something like: "Support the troops, bring them home."
But it didn't happen because these Dems are wimps. If their strategy is just to let the Repubs twist in the wind and hang on the Iraq issue in the next election, as you suggested, then shame on them for undertaking a policy which costs so many lives....I'm disgusted with both parties...
"If the Liberals and Congress WORKED on a political solution, and where successful in DOING THE JOB WE ELECTED THEM TO DO, they fear it may be seen as a Bush victory."
Exactly, its all about power. They want to be re-elected and win the White House but they can't do that if Bush's Iraq strategy ends up working. So what do they do? They condemn the military, call Patreaus a liar and a puppet (when in reality they are the puppets for organizations like Moveon.org), and continue to try to paint Bush as a neocon, even if it hurts the country. And people wonder why independent thinkers question the Democrat's loyalties....
I blame Bush for escalating the threat we face and for squandering resources on a war that didn't have to be. I blame him for opening up a training camp for insurgents and terrorists and providing them with a shooting gallery of American soldiers on which to practice. I blame him for having a delusional expectation as to what would happen in Iraq and for stubbornly digging in his heels and not changing course when his delusions proved to be wrong. This is an error that continues to this day and which will be repeated in an hour or so when he gives this next speech.
You cannot separate Bush from the war in Iraq. He picked it, he ran it into the ground, and he's responsible for every single American and Iraqi life lost there and for the mess that things are currently in.
You and I agree on one thing. We need a real plan to stabilize Iraq. Unfortunately many have been proposed since just after the invasion and Mr. Bush has rejected every single one of them out of hand. It's not that he wasn't presented with viable alternatives, it's that he refused to consider them because they were at odds with his delusions. Read Fiasco, or Imperial Life in the Emerald City to get a better understanding of how bad it was over there.
David: I agree with you that the current Democratic leadership are a huge disappointment. Don't be fooled by thinking that they have to override a veto. They don't. They can defund the war at any time by refusing to allow the funding bill to come to a vote. It's a procedural thing the Republicans have used for years.
I agree that the main reason the Democrats don't stand up is that they want the White House more than they want the war to end or to save American lives over there. In that they are no different from Republicans. Both would sell their souls to remain in power, and screw the voters and the people. If you have any doubt, look at the current Transportation funding bill in which they lard it up with pork at the expense of more human lives when another bridge collapses so they can build a garden or a bike path instead. Don't even get me started on this whole pork business. Makes me want to spit.
I agree with you on this much - the leadership of the Democratic party roots for our defeat in Iraq. And you're right, if things went well in Iraq, they'd have no platform and no bullhorn.
However, there are still a lot of us Conservative Democrats who don't go along with the Lefties' sick plan. We watch and listen..........then we do the opposite of the leadership.
> Bruce: I've never heard anyone say Bush was responsible for 9/11.
Really? There are plent of 911 Truth/Conspiracy people who do. Read some of Denny B.'s Bu$h crime family posts or Clark Kent's rants, they are they, I'm surprised you missed them.
But that is a minor point really, as I was trying to show the spectrum of what people think and why that spectrum makes the Democrats less effective.
I disagree with your extremely negative interpretation of Iraq, though not by much either. You think we should not have gone there I gather. I believed that until the cost was already sunk. In other words now that we are there we get more effectiveness out of staying there and moving forward than we would if we left ... just to compare it with a full pullout, though that supposes that we are going to do something about Iran and Pakistan, and that presupposes that we are going to be there a long long time.
> This was a major PR issue that should have been
> destroyed by an effective campaign broadcasting
> something like: "Support the troops, bring them home."
We have to be fair to the Democrats, the Republicans
marginalized them, they could not get credit for helping,
and they did not get any credit for trying to wind it down
either.
So a campaign like you refer to I think could have not gotten
much traction, and it would have branded all Democrats as
anti-war ... and if things turned around - the end.
The Dems are doing what they can do, they just cannot do
much. That said the problem is what the Republicans did.
This was typical of George Bush's management style as a CEO,
ineffective and trusting of the wrong people ... a good reason
why we should not vote for President based on someone we
think is a good guy to have a beer with.
What I'm talking about is the gutting of the heart and soul of community after community. All the wives, children, mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers. The cousins, aunts and uncles, even the first grade teacher who upon hearing the news feels a piece of their world die. Not enough is done in this world to keep wars from starting. As far as I'm concerned, the idea that here in the 21st century we are still dealing with the crime of war is a sad indictment on the human race.
Once it began I felt we must do it right. But we didn't. I know a lot of people who still believe that if we stay long enough (and no one seems to know how long that is) that we can achieve whatever goal it was supposed to be. I don't think (gut again) we can. I believe that when we leave, that within a relatively short time span (relative to the history of that country) that it will return to or even become worse than it was.
I was very happy with the elections last year. If for no other reason I saw how checks and balance were tossed aside by the fact that that legislative branch was basically giving a free pass to the executive branch, over and over. I have been disappointed by the lack of progress since then. The White House seems to have some group amnesia. But not enough to commute a sentence to someone found guilty by the system. To add insult to injury W. said that if anyone in the administration had leaked the CIA agents identity they would be fired. I think that is what he said. Then they accept ONE person's resignation, and commute his sentence.
I also believe that the administration and congress also believe that no matter when we leave Iraq it will fall apart. I think none of them want that on their shift. Much easier to let someone else inherit the mess and then they will point the finger at the new Administration. Shame on all of them for worrying more about their not being blamed for failure than lives, humanity and economics. Although I am not sure economics isn't tied into it also. The last numbers I saw showed over 167,000 troops. This doesn't include all the American civilians who are part of all this. When we are not at war the troops and others will be brought home. Some will be allowed to stay but many will probably be told they don't have the budget to keep the military at the current size. And this doesn't even take into account those civilians who will come home and not be able to find work anywhere near the pay rate they were making. Also, defense contracts get cut and so those companies have to let people go. Unemployment will sky rocket. Even the civilians who come back and can find or keep some sort of work will not be able to make the same as over there. I can't help but believe that this is also a factory no one wants to have fingers pointed at them for the rise in unemployment and drop in incomes. That is so shameful.
Which leads me to one last thing. A couple of years ago we were watching a report where someone said something to the effect of 'if we pull out know then the fallen soldiers will have died in vain.' My husband's comment, and I respect him as a man, an intelligent man, a veteran, and a scholar of history including military history "The only way they die in vain is if we fail to learn from their death." If we continue to allow this to go on and more and more of our men and women are injured/killed, knowing that the reasons given were false, have we learned anything from their deaths?
P.S. before anyone cares to label me.........I have voted in every election I was eligible to since turning 18 and I have never yet voted a straight ticket. I know most of my views side with one party, but it is the candidate I vote for not the party. Although I know over the last several years I have questioned that tactic as I was so appalled by the current administration.
I don't have a problem with pulling out in a New York minute. Why continue pouring all our valuable resources into death and wanton destruction? However, the only recoiling I now feel is how do we fix what we broke in Iraq? What of the tens of millions of displaced people in Iraq? Many of these young are now easily being recruited into that very small percentage of the fighting in Iraq which is actually outside formulated terrorism. Most of those shooting at US troops in Iraq likely feel they are protecting their homes and have an age-old cultural argument among some neighbors, which Bush's war tactics only are inflaming. Oddly, my suggestion would be to ask Iran and Syria for actual help in all this, even if this royally displeases Israel. We very much support Israel, but we sure don't have to think of Israel as some government over our own. Sometimes, we have to step back and admit we made a big mistake and ask those around us more familiar with the issues around the mistake to help us.
We are not going to gain respect for this whatever we do, aside from winning in my opinion. If we retreat, it will surely embolden the terrorists, after all they have beat the USSR and in their eyes caused its collapse. They beat Israel in Lebanon they way they see it as well, and they have beat the US.
Believing that at this point they will be happy is to overlook a lot of history that goes the other way.
I think we are edging toward war with Iraq, and what I think it will look like is a pounding of their military defenses at first, waiting for them to take a swipe at us back. We will make Iran a pressure cooker until they either attack us at which point we will feel free to do anything we want, ie. likely pound more infrastructure and make the people's lives miserable in order to let them realize what they government has brought on them. We will keep this up if necessary for 10-15 years like Iraq until the target is softened up enough so that we do not have to waste men's lives to go in and fix things the way we want.
At first I thought you were talking about the republibots, then I saw the success into failure comment. This statement is true, if you switch those two words,"failure into success" and attribute it to the republibots. That's what their good at, spiiiiiiiin. They can convince "some People" that black is white, but 71 % of Americans disagree with that idiot. Right Rich and Issac.
"I think we are edging toward war with Iraq, " I'm confused, I thought we were already at war "with" Iraq.
"We will make Iran a pressure cooker until they either attack us at which point we will feel free to do anything we want, ie. likely pound more infrastructure and make the people's lives miserable in order to let them realize what they government has brought on them. "
Yeah, that's the way to teach those terrible "innocent" men, women, and children, to elect their own government. Why not just "nuke" them, that will really teach them not to do that again.
"and fix things the way we want."
So, are we taking over the world now. Tell me what countries are after Iran, Syria, Pakistan, Sudan, Canada, Mexico, America. Wait, Bu$h has already attacked America. What an arrogant statement. The way "we" want. What if the rest of the world fixes America the way "they" want.
The sky is blue here on earth, what color is it on Republicania?
Randall: You have nothing to worry about. The Democratic Socialist party isn't even fielding a candidate this election, so they cannot win. They'd have to have someone in the race and qualify for the ballots in all 50 states in order to run. No time left for that, I don't think.
Denny: It is not enough just to elect a government. The government has to be willing and able to actually do something or at least try. The Iraqi government thus far is only capable of making stupid promises they don't keep and taking long vacations. Sounds sort of like another government I can think of. The Iraqi government needs to step up to its responsibilities and make the decisions necessary to bring stability and end the sectarian fighting.
I will say one thing though: it will be interesting to see if the electorate agree whether Pelosi is worthy of her Speaker seat or not in '08. After all, it's the
"WE THE PEOPLE"
mandate -- the true bosses of this Great Country
(whether they realize it or not) -- that will determine who continues to speak for them, and who does not.
and there ain't (that's right "ain't) a thang (yep, "thang) that no amount of money, power, big business, corporations, lying, stealing, killing, or anything else can do about
THAT
when the BIG BOSSES
go out to the polling places
and tell it like it is
with their votes.
:=)