Day: March 14, 2006

Bush Apparently Unaware He Ran For Office, Not Sure of City Where He Lives

Trish

Somebody hand this brain trust a mirror: I couldn’t believe my ears when Bush said this in his “Things are great in Iraq” speech yesterday.

And my decisions on troop levels will be made based upon the conditions on the ground, and the recommendations of our military commanders — not artificial timetables set by politicians here in Washington, D.C.

Hello? Anybody home? Will someone please tell our president that he holds the highest — let me just pause for emphasis here — elected office in the land, which he “won” by running against other people who ran, and these people who run for offices in our country are referred to as “politicians.”

Also, not to put too fine a point on it, but the White House is located right where all those politicians are, in Washington, D.C. That means Bush, who lives in the White House (for now), is in Washington, D.C.

Let’s review: the decisions on troop levels in Iraq will be made a politician in Washington, D.C.

Jeez.

Buzzflash: Are We Re-Living the McCarthy Era?

Jon Ponder

This email message from Buzzflash is about as cogent a summation of our era as I’ve seen lately:

Is this what the Joe McCarthy period was like? A time when a congenital and chronic liar held the nation at his mercy until the United States Army and Edward R. Murrow exposed him? Only now we have a happy-go-lucky version of McCarthy in the White House.

But Bush is exposed day after day, and he keeps on popping back up with that “Pet Goat” grin, a one-man Hurricane Katrina, leaving disarray and destruction in his wake.

It seems that even the old cliched joke about the powerful politician who would only be brought down if he was found in bed with a live boy or a dead woman wouldn’t even apply to Bush.

The American people, according to the polls, have caught on to him, but the press keeps treating him as a credible president. It’s like having a court of public relations professionals, under retainer, report the news.

Hmmm…that may be exactly what’s going on.

You have a President who should be shunned, and the lone Senator, Russ Feingold, who tries to censure Bush is shunned instead.

The people who had the courage to create this great country are spinning in their graves at the craven capitulation of most of our elected officials.

We deserve better than a morally corrupted, cowardly rubber stamp Congress.

When Abortions Become Illegal, Who Should Be Punished?

Jon Ponder

Now that abortions have been outlawed in South Dakota and with red states including Mississippi contemplating a similar move — and President Bush is just one justice short of packing the Supreme Court with anti-Roe votes — the debate about abortion must change to a serious discussion of what penalties the victorious anti-choicers want to enact against women and doctors — and maybe even the men who helped create the pregnancies — who break the law by seeking to terminate pregnancies.

10,000 Monkeys and a Camera has put together an overview of various views on the criminal sanctions, and who should suffer them, in the coming new era when state governments take control over women’s reproductive rights:

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The ‘I’ Word

Jon Ponder

When Karl Rove and others in the GOP politbureau survey the grim landscape of their current prospects, they must see very few opportunities to turn their fortunes around:

If the Republicans can impeach a president because of a sex lie, there is no doubt President Bush deserves to be impeached on several counts.
  • A miraculous reversal of fortunes in the war of Iraq
  • A devastating new terror attack in the United States
  • A solid, indisputable reason to invade Iran
  • Democratic over-reaching on impeaching President Bush

If the Republicans can impeach a president because of a sex lie, there is no doubt President Bush deserves to be impeached on several counts, including gross negligence and incompetence in Iraq and during the Katrina aftermath, and illegally spying on Americans.

But you can be sure that up in the aerie reaches of Karl Rove’s rarified perspective, the Republicans are betting that if Democrats make impeaching the president a campaign issue this year, it will create a rally for Mr. Bush at his base that could staunch the bleeding in the polls.

I have my doubts that the Republicans and independents who have been re-thinking their support of President Bush lately will rally back to him under any circumstances short of a direct attack on the United States.

What would tip the balance toward impeachment is incontrovertible evidence, preferably on video, that Mr. Bush lied about something — anything. Until then, he will be able to slither out of any noose his enemies lay down, just as he always has.

Still, talk of impeachment has been seeping into the traditional media of late. Here is William Goodman, co-author of “Articles of Impeachment Against George W. Bush” discussing a recent debate on MSNBC led by Republican talk show host Joe Scarborough:

[…]

GOP Senators Talked Tough about Bush’s Illegal Domestic Spying But Then Expanded Program

Jon Ponder

A new pattern is emerging — Republicans talk about reform but then do nothing:

Like the cavalry rushing to the aid of the wrong troops, four Republican senators who had earlier declared battle against the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping have now proposed to give the surveillance program five years of near-bulletproof protection.

The new measure by Mike DeWine of Ohio, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Olympia Snowe of Maine would significantly expand the administration’s power to intercept U.S. citizens’ international phone calls and e-mails without obtaining a warrant — even when they have not been implicated in any crime. It also would let the surveillance continue with much less oversight than Congress demanded in previous laws.

The four had voiced alarm about the program after it became public in December. Hagel and Snowe even threatened to vote with Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee to launch a full investigation into what the National Security Agency has been doing. On Tuesday, however, Hagel and Snowe voted with their fellow Republicans to reject an investigation. Instead, in a deal with the White House, the committee created a seven-member terrorism surveillance subcommittee to receive regular briefings about domestic spying.

After the closed-door meeting, Republicans outlined a bill ostensibly to limit such surveillance and make it more accountable to lawmakers. But its provisions suggest that they are less concerned about the administration violating Americans’ legal rights than about Congress being kept out of the loop.