As we wind down toward the end of this, the most bizarre Congressional election in memory, the Democrats appear to be holding their breath in anticipation of victory, hoping against hope that no one realizes that the national media, their candidates, and even their opponents have failed to ask the one question that any political party on the cusp of power should be able to rattle off an answer to with ease:
Just what is it you stand for?
Fortunately, it has not been necessary for them to annunciate any grand ideas or overarching themes that would motivate their mass of voters to go to the polls on election day. This is because the Republicans have all but handed the keys to the Majority washrooms to the Democrats on a silver platter with nary a vote being cast. Spectacular arrogance, malfeasance, cowardice, and a slimy essence permeating the halls of Congress during the last few years have all but sealed the deal and, failing a not insignificant miracle, guaranteed a Democratic coup.
Having acknowledged that the Republicans certainly don’t deserve to win, this could be one election where all those dead people registered to vote by ACORN, the unions, and other Democratic party activist organizations may actually have as much idea of what the winning party stands for as anyone else – thus making their vote as intelligent and perspicacious as say, the mindless morons at the Democratic Underground or Daily Kos. Of course, dead people probably don’t smell very good which means they’d fit right in at gatherings of other Democratic party activists such as those at Moveon.Org meetings.
But promising America their supporters will bathe once and a while would at least be an idea that Democratic politicians could run on. The fact is that few Democrats in competitive races are bothering to annunciate any set of coherent principles save 1) George Bush sucks; and 2) They’re not Republicans.
Iraq? No plan to win or get out except “timetables” for troop withdrawals that don’t mean diddly because there are as many timetables floating around as there are Democratic candidates for President. The economy? (SHHHHHHHH…no go zone). Immigration? We are against calling it amnesty even if it really, truly is. Homeland security? We can do better even though we reserve the right to impeach the President of the United States for initiating surveillance programs that precious few of us have called on him to abandon.
Even believing in bad ideas is better than believing in nothing at all. But since the focus of this election is entirely on Republican shenanigans and stupidity, all the Dems have to do is tread water, smile for the cameras, and accept the glowing encomiums of a press that is beating the Tom-Toms (is it racist of me to include that descriptive?) for every Democrat within range. Gone are all the wild-eyed liberals. This is the party of “moderates” now. Not scary at all just a little eccentric about things like national security and enemy identification. Don’t worry about a thing we’re told. Elect a Democratic majority and all will be right as rain.
Given the way the polls have been trending the last week or so, it appears that most Republicans and many conservatives have “come home” just in time to make many races competitive while perhaps even tipping some Senate races into the red column which would allow the GOP to keep their majority in the Senate. And what Charles Franklin at Pollster.Com calls a built in “firewall” for the Republican House members against huge losses thanks to both 1990 and 2000 redistricting efforts by the GOP that managed to carve out dozens of safe seats, it seems likely that Democratic gains – while significant – could probably be erased in 2008 with a strong candidate at the top of the ticket and much better candidate recruitment.
And given the state of the world, including coming confrontations with the madmen in North Korea and Iran, the differences between the two parties on the overriding issue of national security will still be at the top of the voters’ agenda two years from now. Unless the Democrats can prove over the next two years that they take the security of the United States as seriously as they take investigating Republicans – including the President – the voters are more than likely to lose patience rather quickly and put back into power a party (hopefully chastened and back in touch with its conservative roots) that knows what side it wants to win in Iraq and who the enemy trying to kill us is.
1:11 pm
Same old story. Elect a Democrat, their brains fall out. Elect a Republican, their spine falls out.
One thing that has to be gotten through some Republican voter’s heads, though, is that an election is not a chance for you to “punish” politicians who annoy you. Not when the fate of the nation is at stake; not when the alternative is to hand the government over to people who will surely wreak unimaginable destruction with it. When your teenage son gets a traffic ticket, you don’t “punish him” by taking the keys away and handing them over to a spastic crack addict.
You want to teach the wobble-spined RINOs a lesson? Fine. Go find a better candidate, and get him elected. Otherwise, deal with what you’ve got.
2:01 pm
What’s the Republican plan to win Iraq and Afghanistan? Having fumbled and failed in North Korea, what’s the grand plan to get back on track there? Now that they’ve giving Iran 140,000 bargaining chips to play with, how do they plan to stop it from acquiring nuclear processing technology?
The way I see it, the US needs more troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. It also needs to reverse the retreat to megabases in both of them – otherwise their presence is pointless. And it needs to enter in a binding treaty with the Iraqi government that fixes the American military presence in Iraq at 200,000 or more for a long period of time, say at least 5 years, but preferably 10. This is the only way to allay the suspicion that Bush or his successor will turn tail.
Of course this means that the military needs to be expanded, either by some sort of draft, or by drastically increasing the pay or benefits of soldiers. It would be nice, for instance, if they didn’t need to rely food stamps to feed their families, or charity.
Obviously Republicans wouldn’t do any of this, or they would have done so already. They seem to be happy to keep training Iraqis to get better at killing each other and us. They’re happy to keep the army fighting with deteriorating equipment, in an increasingly dangerous situation, even though it is clearly straining under the effort. They simply lack the political strength to push through the decisions that could lead to victory. That’s why they have no credibility on national security.
4:05 pm
If Democrats had made a serious attempt to convince us that they were the ones who would “push through the decisions that could lead to victory” in Iraq and Afghanistan, and set NoKo all atremble, they would have had majority status today, and we’d be electing even more of them this year.
You can’t blame us for suspecting they might mean all that Bush-the-real-terrorist talk.
5:23 pm
Excellent work, Rick. What’s even more startling (at least to me) is the co-mingling of messages between the “progressives” and the enemy: Bush lied, people died. War for Oil. Killing terrorists creates more terrorists.
And these have become mainstream talking points for the Dems. I’d like to say it’s a low down, dirty shame, but it’s buried too deep even to call it that.
1:02 am
enunciate
4:18 am
Terrorists and the ‘Left-Plan’
In the face of war, the tides may turn and then quickly turn again; but the real, “no plan”, plan…is the notion that Infidels might quell the advancing jihad by remedial negotiating… with terror groups. Rick Moran posts:
10:53 am
The worst negative campaign commercial yet
It’s really getting sleazy out there. I turned on the TV last night to watch a little football and had to suffer through another series of negative campaign ads. One stuck out as the most negative ad I’ve seen yet…
12:48 pm
Citing the need for resources to combat the upcoming season of Nativity scenes and religious Santas across the nation …
the American Civil Liberties Union on Friday dropped a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the USA Patriot Act.
You know what means .. it is all out war on nativity scenes from coast to coast.
5:04 pm
Over the weekend I happened upon Usama’s Been Forgotten’s cell phone number so I gave him a call to shoot the breeze. He shares Bush’s optimism and is tickled pink about the prospects of Republicans retaining both the House and the Senate in this up coming election. Although he is aware of the various plans put forth by the Democrats even if Rick and the media isn’t, the fact that the probable victorious Bush party has a dumb unified “Group Think†plan gives him great comfort. From his point of view our Prez is the gift that keeps on giving. In his words “the business of killing infidels has never been betterâ€. He asked me if Bush could send more troops to Iraq so that “Al Qeada can more easily kill Americans thereâ€, so that he doesn’t have to “bear the expense of having to come all the way to the USA againâ€, and kill us here. For an evil misguided lunatic you would have to admit that he is very practical in his thinking, in a maniacal kind of way. The flip flopping news coming out of Washington has concerned him of late. Gone is stay the course. Gone is not setting deadlines. Gone is “When America says we’ll do something,” as the president once declared, “we are going to do it—and finish the job”. He is now saying that he will leave the open ended Iraqi problem for others to hopefully finish. The Evil One is in complete agreement with George on this one and the “Mission Accomplished†sign has been moth balled. The Supreme Terrorist told me that Bush said “The American people did not place us in office to pass on problems to future generations and future Presidents…â€. I had to stop Usama to remind him that this was specifically in reference to the Social Security issue to which he replied “anything that makes America weaker makes me happy, Allah willingâ€. The phone conversation ended with me saying, “hello, hello… can you hear me now?â€
So as the Right continues to seek out answers from the “mindless morons at the Democratic Underground†and their leaders, Bush and Usama’s Been Forgotten agree on more than the idea that Iraq is the Central front on the fight against terrorism. One thing is for certain. The Republican’s plan for Iraq is a real stinker that should have been buried before they got married to it. Invading Iraq was a bad idea that Bush never should have believed in. This was one time where believing in nothing (no WMDs) would have resulted in saving about one hundred thousand lives, four hundred billion US dollars and the respect of America. As a matter of fact that is not entirely true for Bush has said that even knowing what he knows now he would have still gone into Iraq (actually it is true and I think Bush is just lying again. No one is that stupid). The one thing that you don’t have to worry about is Democrats making the situation worse. Bush’s plan to go into Iraq already did that. When he un-diplomatically stuck his chest out and labeled Iran and North Korea part of the “axis if evil†his ineptness was complete. The world became a more dangerous place to live by his making that blunder.
Imagine for a second that you hired a contractor (who goes by the name of George W. Bush) to remodel your home and he totally botched the job. You are now being told by people like Rick that the guy (Bush) at the controls of the wrecking ball should have his own incompetent crew gas up the crane as they finish remodeling what’s left of your home. They have already busted the budget, destroyed the wrong bedroom and set fires at various locations on your property. Your future is in your hands. Remember that they have been wrong about everything. What are you going to do when the crew that finished a beautiful remodel next door (just before you started your project) is telling you that they can do better.
The Republicans have done what the Soviets couldn’t, put us in jeopardy. If you like the number that they did on America then once again listen to the Right-Wing talk radio nut case jocks, show up in hordes and vote more Republicans in so that these incompetent boobs can finish America off.
Banned but not out.
5:17 pm
Read the “Larry in Los Angeles” (there’s a surprise!) carefully.
Not the glaring irony: he wrote a ridiculously verbose post full of froth and fire, hinted strongly that Rick was wrong to suggest Democrats have no plan and stand for nothing …
... and then good ‘ol Larry proved Rick entirely right, by somehow forgetting to lay out the specifics of all those Democrat plans.
Too funny.
If you think Rick is wrong … read what Larry wrote. What Larry says – and doesn’t say – makes the case even stronger than Rick did.
I love irony.
10:25 pm
Great post at Logic Times:
“Giddy liberals have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.”
http://www.logictimes.com/giddy.htm
6:29 am
Whats really scarey is that are alot of larry’s in los angeles out there, dems with no plans, just hate for Bush and no care at all about the dangers facing this nation. They are all for giving the terrorists full rights in U.S. courts and sitting down and talking with our enemies around a campfire singing … well, you know the song. Thats the scarey part for me … they just don’t seem to get it. All they seem to care about is abortion rights, gay rights, redistribution of wealth and bigger government … to heck with immagration issues and keeping us safe.
If we lose I can only hope that after two years of investigations and trying to impeach Bush we arent’t attacked again and maybe, if God willing, the people will come back out into the sunshine and vote the way rational people usually vote.
I look for this week to be so full of media hype for the dems that I’ll need a shovel to dig my way outta the crap I hear but I will go to the polls and vote for my party Tuesday week and PRAY FOR THE BEST.
10:41 am
To: Professor Blather
Sorry professor but I am not going to fall for that blather. If you want to read the various independent plans of the Dems then you’ll have find their web sites just as you had enough brains to find this one. I do have a request. Since Republicans only have one plan this should not take up much space. Other than us praying that things go right and our staying in Iraq until the Iraqis run out of IEDs. Please tell me the simple minded in sync boot stepping Conservative’s plan to fix Iraq and/or save our young soldiers from dying for the careless and feeble-minded ideas of the old fogies in Washington. And don’t give me any bull about them being volunteers because that does not make it OK for King Bush to toss nineteen year olds into the meat grinder on a whim.
Why do you idiots worship talk radio jocks? Other than their helping the Right win elections with their propagandic lies they always get everything wrong. And why do you believe that your “group think†(totalitarianism) is superior to the free thought /true debate crowd? Look at where it got us in Iraq.
Professor! You love irony? That explains your love of Republicans and Bush. What a bunch of budget busting free borders big government fascist lying hypocrites. You know, for some reason as I read your blog I took you for a “happy face†kind of guy.
To: Drewsmom
I know that Republicans through their advantage of the media has successfully lied and labeled those who dislike Bush’s policies and incompetence as haters so I will repeat myself. I don’t hate Bush. I don’t hate idiots. I just don’t want them running (ruining) my country. I am not the equivalent of the Right Wing Clinton haters who had pure loathing for Bill because he WON two elections. I hate ineptitude and unfortunately there are not enough people like me otherwise Bush would not be President. I base my vote on what is good for America, not some political party. It was Bush who didn’t get it. Bush protected us by ignoring Clarke, Tenet, Clinton, Hart, the Chatter and the PDB. He did nothing before 911 and that’s the only thing that propagandic ABC movie got right. He is doing noting to protect our borders even as reports of terrorist coming over trickle in. He attacked the wrong country! This is why talk radio tried to get everyone to love Bush with that propaganda campaign (Bush has character) early in his Administration. It apparently worked on you. When you love your leaders they can get away with murder. Where have you been the past twenty years? Look at the facts
1. Over six thousand Americans dead on Bush’s watch due to negligence and incompetence vs. roughly 120 deaths when Clinton was President.
2. Roughly 1,450 points added to the Dow vs. 7,000 for Clinton (over 5,000 in 6 years). The Dow more than tripled under Bubba- a feat that bested Reagan’s record.
3. Under Bush 3.7 million jobs so far vs. 15 million in 6 years for Clinton (over 20 million total), besting Reagan.
4. Poverty has increased every year of the Bush Administration except for one. Reagan had a similar start. Clinton’s record was the reverse.
5. Murders and gun deaths decreased nearly every year under Clinton and almost the reverse has happened for Bush.
6. GM and Ford were profitable under Clinton and are near entering bankruptcy for Bush and Reagan.
7. Roughly 14 million illegal aliens under Bush vs. roughly 1.5 for Clinton and over three million for Reagan.
8. Wages stagnated under Bush vs. wage growth under Clinton.
9. North Korea is in business making Nukes under Bush and Clinton stopped him for eight years (after N.K. had nearly completed a bomb during the eighties).
10. Since the sixties there has been a redistribution of wealth that Republicans have championed. Our companies and workers saw their compensation stagnate and fal while CEOs saw theirs jump ten fold. The worse everyone else does the better they do and their take home pay was compounded because their taxes on the money that they made (sic) was cut by two thirds. These are the people Republicans protect. I could go on but why? You guys love Bush because he is a Republican President and that’s it.
To all Conservatives
You Right-Wingers are pathetic. Bill Clinton made running this country look so easy you guys thought you could do it too. So when you gained control of congress you investigated Clinton to the nth degree and all you came up with is a stain on a dress relative to a personal failure. You impeached him anyway even as the terrorist was attacking America. You blew the terror threat off as nothing. You had no insight. Then you stole an election and started feeding America your brand of Republican curd. Now you are afraid that the Dems if they win will act as you did. Evil always believes that their enemy is worse than they are. I can’t possibly feel your pain.
Gaze at our once proud Nation. Countries around the World disrespect us because of Bush. He has left a stain on America. I have seen this sort of thing all my life. The thieves do not take care of the things that they steal. Look at you and your party now. A bunch of corrupt pedophilia money grubbing incompetent power hungry bumbling lying midgets that knows how to make two things happen, screw-ups and election victories. Look at what you’ve done to our country. Every past great nation fell because of their own unique cancer. For America it looks like ours will be Malignant Conservatism. With talk radio, the media and money on your side you might just be able to continue the pathetic record of George W. Bush. When you go to vote for your party please pray that they luck up and turn things around. Question. If you had known that Bush would fail so miserably would you have still voted the way you did? Now that I have enlightened you will you still?
Banned but not out.
11:10 pm
Just like the comment to a representative of then North Vietnam that the United State had won every battle in that war, the fact that the Democrats have no alternative policy for Iraq is true but irrelevant. Pres. Bush embarked on a policy which has cost thousands of lives, tens of thousands of injuries, hundreds of billions of dollars of borrowed money, for reasons which have been shown to be inaccurate.
No wonder voters have lost confidence.
As a conservative I believe that a restoration of checks and balances is vital, and if it has to be the Democrats, so be it. After all, Congress can’t pass any legislation over the President’s veto, and why should conservatives think it so important that legislation be passed for the benefit of having more laws. So why should conservatives, as opposed to Republicans, be so concerned?
11:03 am
To: Ian McPhail
When you say “the Democrats†have no plan as in a single unified proposal then you are correct. Talk radio, the main stream “liberal media†and virtually all of the Right Wing Blogs have lied by continuing to imply that Democrats have offered no alternatives to Bush’s many failures. As it relates to Iraq many Dem plans include vigorously getting the rest of the world involved with a strong emphasis on Middle Eastern countries coming into play. Of course this would mean relinquishing some authority over procedures and Iraqi assets. To a Right Wing domination freak this is almost like someone trying to remove half of their reproductive gene producing machinery. You are right about it being irrelevant. This Iraqi mess, our media and all of our government are 100% Republican managed. Any plan (good or bad) that the Democrats come up with is nothing but fluff for they have no power. Unfortunate for America this is exactly the way Republicans want it. They have all of the power (even as things spiral out of control) and that’s all that matters to them. It’s all about the power. The vast majority of Republicans are first and foremost, Republicans. They only vote Republican. Thinking is removed from the process.
Banned but not out.
4:22 pm
Formalua For Republican Victory This Fall.
Win the war.
Don’t whine. Do it. Bush has been given everything in manpower, money, resources that he has been asked for. Blaming the media, This war has lasted longer than WW 2 and unlike Pearl Harbor we started things as an undisputed superpower with a balanced budget and global sympathy.
Revisionist Republicans gloss over there was very wide support on the left for invading Afganistan except for the tiny faction of pacifists. We entered Afghanistan with international support and have France, Germany and Canada sending troops. Instead of finishing the war in Afghanistan Bush went on to Iraq claiming WMD and comparing Sadam to Hitler when Mussolini would be a better example (evil but incompedent). Benito was a military genius compared to Sadam since he was at least able to sucessfully invade Albania and Ethiopia while Sadam has never sucessfully attacked anyone. Le’ts review despite warnings from General Eric Shinseki, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, we occupied Iraq with insufficient troops.
Bush might argue that he only does what his generals ask but where were the additional troops Shinseki asked for (around 200,000 troops as I recall a total we have never reached and this was stated before the insurrection gathered steam) Does anyone believe American military officers stated to the Whitehouse please don’t let us shoot looters, let people ransack hospitals, power plants that is a really good good security environment?
Bush has created and there is no easy answer and there may be no answer very paltible. If the Democrats have been called cut and run, the Republican (Bush wing) idea is to have American troops running laps in a mine field. We have trained 350,000 Iraqi military and police yet the security situation is worse and if you look at some of the pics of the dead you will see plastic hand cuffs, the hallmark of security forces. What military function do American forces perform except to prop up an inefficient, corrupt regime till Bush can leave office. I am a Democrat but I did take Bush at his word when we invaded Iraq. I felt no president would lie when American lives were at stake and many Democrats in the congress supported this war despite reservations. Whether by accident or design, Bush & Co. bungled the intelligence and still claims this was the right thing to do regardless of the facts. I could accept a mistake being made and having to recover, but Bush never admits a mistake. Bush’s war plan was to attack the one country in the Axis of Evil, (Iraq, Iran and North Korea) that had no functioning nuclear plan though if sanctions had been allowed to lapse Saddam would doubtless try to rebuild his nuclear program but it would take years to bring it back to previous levels let alone move forward. Meanwhile Iran is moving forward on it’s nuclear plans and North Korea has succeeded largely untouched. Bush has made Iran far stronger by destroying their regional adversay Saddam and leaving their fellow Shiites in control of most if not all Iraq converting an enemy state into at least a buffer or eventual ally.
Democrats don’t have all the answers though they have proposed INCREASING the army by 40,000 and doubling special forces. The Republicans best future lies past George Bush, not in being a pale echo of the Democrats or having the Democrats as a demonized straw man. Republicans future lies as a conservative party that doesn’t forget moderates and independents. Reflexive protection of the President doesn’t do any good. Republicans are going to have to make up their minds if they want a true national security partner or to use the war on terror to demonize their politicals rivals.