Raw Story posts this article: Neo-cons question Bush’s democratisation strategy . Well ok. Bush ain' t really one of them. The fiscal conservatives are saying the same thing. And even the libertarians among that crowd are disavowing their former action hero and their belief that Bush was one of them.
My advice? Get over it. To all of you. He's your's. You bought him, you nourished him and like the old fable goes - you knew he was a snake when you took him in.
Cheney is perhaps the biggest fool - could he be even stupider than the Stupidest Man On the Planet (tm) Doug Feith? The veep has a strong claim. He thought he could step into the office and direct his Bushiness into being the stellar Urinary Executive that Cheney dreamed of. Unfortunately he (Cheney) hitched his wagon to Bush - a proven failure.
Bush is after all a man who is nothing but the sum of his family's connections - the evolutionary dead-end that all dynasties throughout history have eventually spawned. Whether it be a cruel and megalomaniacal Nero or an idiot Bush eventually the DNA comes up DOA.
Cheney knew it but he thought he could control it. Maybe it was too many years successfully covering up the tracks of Halliburton's questionable business deals made the veep a little cocky. Once in the cocky-drome that is the Bush white house it is no wonder that Cheney maybe over-reached.
But anyway. To all you guys neo's, paleo, randian - conservative, like I said, you bought the Bush man, you own him. Just be thankful that we aren't enforcing the Pottery Barn policy on you. No need to offer - we will clean up after you.
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
neocons decide they got conned
Raw Story posts this article: Neo-cons question Bush’s democratisation strategy . Well ok. Bush ain' t really one of them. The fiscal conservatives are saying the same thing. And even the libertarian among that crowd are diasvowing their former belief that Bish was one of them.
My advice? Get over it. To all of you. He's your's. You bought him, you nourished him and like the old fable goes - you knew he was a snake when you took him in.
Cheney perhaps the biggest fool - could he be even stupider than the Stupidest Man On the Planed (tm) Doug Feith? The veep has a strong claim. He thought he could step into the office and direct his Bushiness into being the stellar Urinary Executive that Cheney dreamed of. Unfortunately he (Cheney) hitched his wagon to Bush - a proven failure. Bush is after all a man who is the nothing but the sum of his family's connections - the evolutionary dead-end that all dynasties throughout history have eventually spawned. Whether it be a cruel and megalomaniacal Nero or an idiot Bush eventually comes up DOA.
Cheney knew it but he thought he could control it. Maybe it was too many years a successfully covering up the tracks of Halliburton's questionable business deals made the veep a little cocky. Once in the cocky-drome that is the Bush white house it is no wonder that Cheney maybe over-reached.
But anyway. To all you guys neo's, paleo, randian - conservative, like I said, you bought the Bush man, you own him. Just be thankful that we aren't enforcing the Pottery Barn policy on you. No need to offer - we will clean up after you.
My advice? Get over it. To all of you. He's your's. You bought him, you nourished him and like the old fable goes - you knew he was a snake when you took him in.
Cheney perhaps the biggest fool - could he be even stupider than the Stupidest Man On the Planed (tm) Doug Feith? The veep has a strong claim. He thought he could step into the office and direct his Bushiness into being the stellar Urinary Executive that Cheney dreamed of. Unfortunately he (Cheney) hitched his wagon to Bush - a proven failure. Bush is after all a man who is the nothing but the sum of his family's connections - the evolutionary dead-end that all dynasties throughout history have eventually spawned. Whether it be a cruel and megalomaniacal Nero or an idiot Bush eventually comes up DOA.
Cheney knew it but he thought he could control it. Maybe it was too many years a successfully covering up the tracks of Halliburton's questionable business deals made the veep a little cocky. Once in the cocky-drome that is the Bush white house it is no wonder that Cheney maybe over-reached.
But anyway. To all you guys neo's, paleo, randian - conservative, like I said, you bought the Bush man, you own him. Just be thankful that we aren't enforcing the Pottery Barn policy on you. No need to offer - we will clean up after you.
Friday, May 26, 2006
Bush the contrite = or he plays one pn tv.
Wolcott says here (http://jameswolcott.com/archives/2006/05/tangled_up_in_b.php)
"My guess is that the administration believed it didn't need this or any other prop, that the Firm Fist of American Resolve would suffice, and that Dick Cheney still believes that might equals right and legal niceties are for sissy-men. Bush seems to have drifted away from Cheney's clenched certitudes...tapering off in his own aimless direction. For the good of the country, let's hope he doesn't become orphaned and imprisoned within his own presidency, giving us a replay of the embittered, Watergate-haunted Nixon at the end of his rope, when the drapes in the Oval Office began to resemble druid's robes and portraits on the walls became his only companions. We don't need to relive that horror movie again. Not with the glaciers melting, and other, bigger horror movies threatening to unfold."
Not so sure, I think I would rather Bush talking to the oil paint. I could definitely live with that. Better than having this fool in fool's clothing running around with actual power to do even more damage than he has done.
I would gladly pour W oneof Nixon's scotches if he wouldjust start talking to Truman's poertrait instead of hallucinating that he and Harry will come within orders of magnitude to each other in historical esteem.
"My guess is that the administration believed it didn't need this or any other prop, that the Firm Fist of American Resolve would suffice, and that Dick Cheney still believes that might equals right and legal niceties are for sissy-men. Bush seems to have drifted away from Cheney's clenched certitudes...tapering off in his own aimless direction. For the good of the country, let's hope he doesn't become orphaned and imprisoned within his own presidency, giving us a replay of the embittered, Watergate-haunted Nixon at the end of his rope, when the drapes in the Oval Office began to resemble druid's robes and portraits on the walls became his only companions. We don't need to relive that horror movie again. Not with the glaciers melting, and other, bigger horror movies threatening to unfold."
Not so sure, I think I would rather Bush talking to the oil paint. I could definitely live with that. Better than having this fool in fool's clothing running around with actual power to do even more damage than he has done.
I would gladly pour W oneof Nixon's scotches if he wouldjust start talking to Truman's poertrait instead of hallucinating that he and Harry will come within orders of magnitude to each other in historical esteem.
Gee George shows vulnerability
Big deal. I wish I could believe him when he says that he learned that he should talk "more sophisticated" and that caused a problem in some parts of the world.
Forgive me but this is a guy that has been in public life for what 20 years? He just learned the lesson that saying stupid shit isn't a good idea?
Please. His sincerity is as thin as the veneer of competence he has shown in his dogged pursuit of becoming the Worst President Ever.
I wish the man would just go away, His disability (I don't mean that in a bad way of course) with the English language that he so desires aliens that unlike his himship are uneducated at the best American schools to speak fluently has never been cute or machismo or endearing in its humitlity to me.
This man holds Yale and Harvard degrees for Christ's sakes. Didn't one of his Harvard MBA case studies teach him that "you shouldn't say stupid shit"?
No. All this is calculated BULLSHIT. That is a word that even simple George could understand.
He speaks it and he is it.
God I will be glad when this guy can go full time to build his LIE-brary.
Forgive me but this is a guy that has been in public life for what 20 years? He just learned the lesson that saying stupid shit isn't a good idea?
Please. His sincerity is as thin as the veneer of competence he has shown in his dogged pursuit of becoming the Worst President Ever.
I wish the man would just go away, His disability (I don't mean that in a bad way of course) with the English language that he so desires aliens that unlike his himship are uneducated at the best American schools to speak fluently has never been cute or machismo or endearing in its humitlity to me.
This man holds Yale and Harvard degrees for Christ's sakes. Didn't one of his Harvard MBA case studies teach him that "you shouldn't say stupid shit"?
No. All this is calculated BULLSHIT. That is a word that even simple George could understand.
He speaks it and he is it.
God I will be glad when this guy can go full time to build his LIE-brary.
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
The Great Debate
So I was reading this: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2005/04/11/LI2005041100879.html. Dan Fromkin notes that Bush welcomes a debate on pulling out. Dan says, :So how about it?"
In my mind it tickled a different how about it moment. Seeing that we are nominally - this administration notwithstanding - a triumvirate form of government, why is there not a group forum . I envision one where the executive , judiciarcy and the legislative branches are all represented by their titular heads and answer question in an open forum. Freeform/five days.
It can be framed as a bi-cameral Q&A with house and senate asking questions. Or better a citizen panel drawn by lot. The thing could go on for 5 days an aspect of governance a day for a week. A different group impanelled each fday - even a different topic.
Why not? How better to get real national debate than from comment from every salient (and for once informed) aspect of governance - from making the law to enforcing it to deciding its adherence to constitutional principal.
How much closer can one get to real democracy than that?
Instead what we have are 3 branches of government that are playing party games in the press and never forced to take a stand by The "We the People" in all of this except at election time . They are never forced on their own terms to defend their own peculiar constitutional prerogative on a national public stage. Would it not be worth even a shut down of the normal "business" of governance to attend such a panel?
Just thinking.
In my mind it tickled a different how about it moment. Seeing that we are nominally - this administration notwithstanding - a triumvirate form of government, why is there not a group forum . I envision one where the executive , judiciarcy and the legislative branches are all represented by their titular heads and answer question in an open forum. Freeform/five days.
It can be framed as a bi-cameral Q&A with house and senate asking questions. Or better a citizen panel drawn by lot. The thing could go on for 5 days an aspect of governance a day for a week. A different group impanelled each fday - even a different topic.
Why not? How better to get real national debate than from comment from every salient (and for once informed) aspect of governance - from making the law to enforcing it to deciding its adherence to constitutional principal.
How much closer can one get to real democracy than that?
Instead what we have are 3 branches of government that are playing party games in the press and never forced to take a stand by The "We the People" in all of this except at election time . They are never forced on their own terms to defend their own peculiar constitutional prerogative on a national public stage. Would it not be worth even a shut down of the normal "business" of governance to attend such a panel?
Just thinking.
Friday, May 19, 2006
Phony John McCain
The senator - one day to be failed presidential candidate - gets his first soljah moment when confronted by students at the New School commencement.
His respone: "When I was a young man, I was quite infatuated with self-expression, and rightly so because, if memory conveniently serves, I was so much more eloquent, well-informed and wiser than anyone else I knew," McCain said.
Well there you go. John the phony maverick McCain. Gawblesshim and his condescion. It wasn't in evidence when he was at LibertyVille I mean university, sucking up to the christofascist wing of his party.
So the NYT will give him a lede about the the raucous greeting he got in front of them liberal kids and he will burnish his right wing cred., Beautiful.
Bush is taking the country into a controlled descent into terrain and phony john still plays the game like the craft is trim.
Better be checking that chute johnny.
His respone: "When I was a young man, I was quite infatuated with self-expression, and rightly so because, if memory conveniently serves, I was so much more eloquent, well-informed and wiser than anyone else I knew," McCain said.
Well there you go. John the phony maverick McCain. Gawblesshim and his condescion. It wasn't in evidence when he was at LibertyVille I mean university, sucking up to the christofascist wing of his party.
So the NYT will give him a lede about the the raucous greeting he got in front of them liberal kids and he will burnish his right wing cred., Beautiful.
Bush is taking the country into a controlled descent into terrain and phony john still plays the game like the craft is trim.
Better be checking that chute johnny.
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
giving due where it is due.
You have to give the Bush Administration points for racing from concept to implementation in record time. I mean it was what 90 days after the 9/11 attacks that we had the Patriot Act. And now 5 years later we find that the government is using "oversight-free' National Security Letters to spy on journalists who I guess, despite all available evidence, are considered enemies of the Bush crew.
I mean just think. The RICO act that other disaster of Congressional deliberation was around for many years - I'm too lazy to look it up but it's gotta be more than 5 - before some bright light had the idea to use it against the anti-choice protesters. There were probably other expansions of the the act's provisions (I seem to recall F. Lee Bailey being at least threatened with impounding his helicopter under RICO provisions but I like I said I'm lazy and I may be hallucinating. But you get my point).
Bush who cannot do anything useful has moved with astonishing speed to tatter the fabric that holds this nation together.
THe worst part for me is that it isn't really for ideaological reasons. I mean I really believe he doesn't want to be dictator for life. What he is is lazy (yes like me but I'm not president) and even more than me a world class short cut artist. He has of course had great opportunity to hone his craft(iness).
I mean here he is the Paris Hilton of the clique of political robber barons: the Bushes, the Kennedy's, the Gores, and whoever else. He got to the "best educaiton" meaning attending best-connected schools even managing to get a graduate degree a Harvard MBA no less - forever devaluing the worth of that particular bit of sheepskin. Good thing Harvard has a few billion in the bank, it will take a generation for them to regain their street cred.
Anyway like I said, he's Paris Hilton - getting laid and doing whatever else high livers do to their livers. Then because breeding shows he buys his way into office. And so finally here is my point. All he sees himself doing is fucking with people. Tossing his weight around just because he can.
He doesn't give a royal shit that the damage he has done and is doing to this nation will be precedent for the next megalomaniac. (Yes I believe W is a megalomaniac but of so little ambition that he is not dynasty material.)
So when the next power pusher decides that there are enemies of the state (as arbitrarily defined as W defines them) the next step up is already half-laid. So we get from enactment to abuse of the Patriot Act in near internet time.
Say what you want about W and what his disaster of a presidency has done already to this republic but he managed to get the tools for its final destruction in fine order in near record time.
I mean just think. The RICO act that other disaster of Congressional deliberation was around for many years - I'm too lazy to look it up but it's gotta be more than 5 - before some bright light had the idea to use it against the anti-choice protesters. There were probably other expansions of the the act's provisions (I seem to recall F. Lee Bailey being at least threatened with impounding his helicopter under RICO provisions but I like I said I'm lazy and I may be hallucinating. But you get my point).
Bush who cannot do anything useful has moved with astonishing speed to tatter the fabric that holds this nation together.
THe worst part for me is that it isn't really for ideaological reasons. I mean I really believe he doesn't want to be dictator for life. What he is is lazy (yes like me but I'm not president) and even more than me a world class short cut artist. He has of course had great opportunity to hone his craft(iness).
I mean here he is the Paris Hilton of the clique of political robber barons: the Bushes, the Kennedy's, the Gores, and whoever else. He got to the "best educaiton" meaning attending best-connected schools even managing to get a graduate degree a Harvard MBA no less - forever devaluing the worth of that particular bit of sheepskin. Good thing Harvard has a few billion in the bank, it will take a generation for them to regain their street cred.
Anyway like I said, he's Paris Hilton - getting laid and doing whatever else high livers do to their livers. Then because breeding shows he buys his way into office. And so finally here is my point. All he sees himself doing is fucking with people. Tossing his weight around just because he can.
He doesn't give a royal shit that the damage he has done and is doing to this nation will be precedent for the next megalomaniac. (Yes I believe W is a megalomaniac but of so little ambition that he is not dynasty material.)
So when the next power pusher decides that there are enemies of the state (as arbitrarily defined as W defines them) the next step up is already half-laid. So we get from enactment to abuse of the Patriot Act in near internet time.
Say what you want about W and what his disaster of a presidency has done already to this republic but he managed to get the tools for its final destruction in fine order in near record time.
Monday, May 15, 2006
fragile democracy
It is quite amazing to think how fragile democracy is. To think in 5 years what the Bush junta (can it be called anything else at this point?) has done to this nation is breathtaking. The revelations of spying on journalists is nothing short of a Nixon-on-steroids moment and still our Republican led Congress does what they do best - nothing. Actually more specifically they try to change the subject to immigration - a sure winner no doubt in their desperate attempt to keep their phoney-baloney jobs come November.
But still when the leader of your party is in fact stealing the show out from under you and you are the only one with a serious chance at bringing him to heel and you don't - what are you? We now know they are incompetent. We now know they are even more corrupt than we could imagine. We know that they are blinded by ideology. Now we know that they must also be cowards. Either that or they are SO blind that they will let George Bush to continue pissing on the Constitution and the American People he so often claims to be protecting.
That is beyond pathetic. That is despicable. It is immoral in our democracy. It is criminal.
But it does point up my thesis: democracy is fragile. One can argue with certainty that this is a perfect storm where the lockstep Republican party is taken in by a megalomaniac and his willing executioners who will glady run roughshod over them - when their turn comes. It is a perfect storm but throughout history we have seen it all before. How it usually ends is in the total dissolution of the republic in fact though the trappings stay aorund for a while. We have seen it from Rome to Paris to Berlin to Moscow.
How will this perfect storm end now? We have an abject press that even in its willingly suppliant state is still having the boot of state security applied to its throat. Congress - notably Frist Hastert Roberts and the late unlamented Delay who have turned the Congress in similar fashion into a "People's Chamber of Deputies" - are simply being ignored by a president who has chosen to ignore over 700 laws and has apparently been making up a bunch more on the fly.
Saddam weeded out the chaff from his people's chamber by denouncing them in a famous speech and having those he denounced walked out from the hall and into oblivion by his goons. How will George do it do you suppose?
Maybe the burgeoning corruption scandals that are overtaking the House in particular is really his clever way of appying the screws to the Congress whogave him everything he wanted. It would be surgically clean no? That would require a mind that certainly the boy king doesn't have and a finesse the even the overrated Karlness himself could only dream of.
No the corruption is certainly theirs and the DOJ is legitimately catching up with them. So maybe their is hope. The junta doesn't have the stuff to actually stand up for their own. So the scandals will gnaw away at the Republican hegemony and as the targets cut their deals the foundation will collapse.
And if that happens, maybe just maybe, like when Nixon tried the creeping coup gambit those that stood up for the Constitution fortified by some serious courage coming from the career folks in the DOJ found enough strength to cause Nixon to hit a wall of resistance. It is that wall that gives fragile democracy whatever resilience it has. But it takes instutions and most importantly the courage and conviction of those that take that this nation and its Constitution seriously - who believe that it is worth fighting for even when the enemies of state are the ones who hold the levers of power.
But still when the leader of your party is in fact stealing the show out from under you and you are the only one with a serious chance at bringing him to heel and you don't - what are you? We now know they are incompetent. We now know they are even more corrupt than we could imagine. We know that they are blinded by ideology. Now we know that they must also be cowards. Either that or they are SO blind that they will let George Bush to continue pissing on the Constitution and the American People he so often claims to be protecting.
That is beyond pathetic. That is despicable. It is immoral in our democracy. It is criminal.
But it does point up my thesis: democracy is fragile. One can argue with certainty that this is a perfect storm where the lockstep Republican party is taken in by a megalomaniac and his willing executioners who will glady run roughshod over them - when their turn comes. It is a perfect storm but throughout history we have seen it all before. How it usually ends is in the total dissolution of the republic in fact though the trappings stay aorund for a while. We have seen it from Rome to Paris to Berlin to Moscow.
How will this perfect storm end now? We have an abject press that even in its willingly suppliant state is still having the boot of state security applied to its throat. Congress - notably Frist Hastert Roberts and the late unlamented Delay who have turned the Congress in similar fashion into a "People's Chamber of Deputies" - are simply being ignored by a president who has chosen to ignore over 700 laws and has apparently been making up a bunch more on the fly.
Saddam weeded out the chaff from his people's chamber by denouncing them in a famous speech and having those he denounced walked out from the hall and into oblivion by his goons. How will George do it do you suppose?
Maybe the burgeoning corruption scandals that are overtaking the House in particular is really his clever way of appying the screws to the Congress whogave him everything he wanted. It would be surgically clean no? That would require a mind that certainly the boy king doesn't have and a finesse the even the overrated Karlness himself could only dream of.
No the corruption is certainly theirs and the DOJ is legitimately catching up with them. So maybe their is hope. The junta doesn't have the stuff to actually stand up for their own. So the scandals will gnaw away at the Republican hegemony and as the targets cut their deals the foundation will collapse.
And if that happens, maybe just maybe, like when Nixon tried the creeping coup gambit those that stood up for the Constitution fortified by some serious courage coming from the career folks in the DOJ found enough strength to cause Nixon to hit a wall of resistance. It is that wall that gives fragile democracy whatever resilience it has. But it takes instutions and most importantly the courage and conviction of those that take that this nation and its Constitution seriously - who believe that it is worth fighting for even when the enemies of state are the ones who hold the levers of power.
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