I wish him the best. After all, he can't be that closed-minded.
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Erin O'Brien
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This from the All-Bets-Are-Off-Department: If the U.S. can elect a black man president, then Massachusetts can elect a Republican senator.
yea, but this is way back when...and you know how most people are when they're young: open-minded, liberal, free from the bullshit.
in any case, all this shite is the same...i'm sick of all these fuckos on both sides.
Sick x2 (S)wine.
Let the clusterfuck that healthcare "reform" became die. That is a story the conservatives won't report, that liberals crossed over out of spite. Otherwise its Gov. Jesse Ventura, Massachusetts style. Throw the bums out.
But mark my word, Brown will face primary opposition in 2 years from the teabaggers. He is clearly a RINO. Maybe Levi Johnson should run for Senate. He has the same qualifications.
RJ
Elephants and donkeys. It is one rotten lot, is it not? And the lobbyists control it all. Ugh.
Me's a liberal, you can have them damn Dems.
My guess is that at about 2200 last night, Obama and Joe Biden both collectively said "what the &$^# just happened in Massachusetts?" What's interesting to me was that a week ago, visiting MA was not on Obama's calendar. That he went up there to stump for Coakley tells me that he and many other Dems had a justifiable concern that they'd lose the supermajority in the senate. Subsequent events confirm that concern.
One other thing - if Pelosi and crew attempt to ram health care legislation through before Brown is seated, I predict it will look very, very bad for the Dems and they will lose a lot of seats come November.
Al
TRAG
What to watch in the coming days...
Tea Party Nat'l Convention in Nashville 2/4-2/6. The golden twats of conservatism, Palin and Bachman, will be pissed they've been displaced by studly Mr. Brown. Ample preening to ensue.
RJ
What's "monumental" about this MA result is the way in which a local Dem party machine managed to screw-the-pooch so badly in terms of tactics, voter-engagement and liaison, candidate choice and the innate arrogance and general attitude of "Hey, this is Teddy's state, all we have to do is turn up...".
And I know the Fox-fed Right will spend the next week trumpeting this "win" from every orifice, and no doubt that'll make them feel all warm and fuzzy, but it still won't detract from the fact that Brown's a caretaker Senator, in a borrowed seat, which he'll hand back at the next elections - regardless of how Faux News and their lackeys try to peddle the result as "a referendum on Obama".
Oh, and speaking as a non-American, the irony that your two political parties are represented by either an elephant or a donkey - neither beasts noted for their absence of obstinacy - hasn't escaped me.
Wait, is this a reality television show or politics, or what?
Can't tell Limbaugh from Pelosi from TMZ anymore.
Here's a very good piece from Salon's Glenn Greenwald - not afraid to tear down a few sacred cows whilst dealing killer blows to some well-worn prejudices on both sides:
It's the fault of the all-powerful Left
tritopr sez:
I loved the erm, "coverage" of the umbrage that is (was) Mr. Brown as relayed by Mr. Stewart the other night on his show.
Suffice to say, I'm not laughing now.
Here's a great quote from Bren's (CNL's) Salon/Greenwald link above:
All that said, and as horrible as the Democrats have been all year, the most amazing -- and depressing -- aspect of all of this is how Americans have so quickly forgotten how thoroughly the Republicans, during their eight-year reign, destroyed the country. Whatever the source of our national woes are, re-empowering that faction cannot possibly be the answer to anything.
I don’t agree that the Republicans "destroyed the country."
My hatred of the Bush administration was as full and blind as anyone’s. But I never considered that team evil (although Cheney was pushing the envelope), and I did not believe they were guided by anything less than an honest desire to do right for the country.
There was just this basic and heated disagreement over what was right for the country.
(Okay, I thought they were stupid people. So much for any nobility I may have possessed those eight years.)
The country may have been harmed, but it wasn’t destroyed.
True enough, Harry Finch, but I wonder how close we came to a total financial collapse after Lehman went down.
I read plenty of accountings, but who knows? It was all so politicized. It will be years and years before the we get the whole truth on the 2008 financial collapse.
Harry wrote: "The country may have been harmed, but it wasn’t destroyed."
With respect, try selling that to all those millions who had their homes repossessed (or foreclosed, as you call it) and lost their jobs to boot - and that's before we look at the knock-on effects of losing their healthcare benefits, which were tied into their now lost jobs...
And for what? So GW Gump could pay for his deluded foreign "crusades", resulting in a record deficit?
He and his Neo-Con cabal have rightly earnt their place on History's permanent shit-list, as the only people who might remember them fondly now are those on the US Right, who'd vote for a chimp in hot pants as long it wore a GOP rosette. But enough of Palin...
Be advised: this is what happens when you elect someone who's a functional illiterate and socially autistic to run your country!
Please do not make the same mistake again.
W was an affable dolt paying homage to his supporters.
Cheney is evil. Rumsfeld is evil. Ashcroft, others, evil.
RJ
Rove was always one of my favorites in the Bush cadre.
And who remembers that sweetheart George Tenet?
I agree with you Harry Finch. Wholeheartedly. Bush wasn't Hitler, and neither is Obama.
What I find amazing is how many people refuse to identify with Dems or Reps (I used to be a Rep in the way-back machine, but have been Indy for a while and happily voted for O)...which leaves all of us essentially without representation, leaving a huge hole for the lobbyists to step into and vote with their dollars.
The American people really need to quit polarizing and finger pointing (Bleeding heart Liberal! Heartless Conservative! Bring out the Hitler pictures!) and find something, anything to come together behind so our votes mean something again, and we can move out of the La Brea Tar Pit that is our political system right now.
LOVE the moniker "Faux News".
Erin... you attract some spirited conversations ..!
Well, bust ma' family values!
If he ever became President, would he have Ray Stevens perform, like Obama had Aretha?
"Here he comes, look at that, look at that...
There he goes, look at that, look at that..."
Julie, you are spot on. I wasn't kidding when I titled and penned this short post. The vitriol has got to stop.
And no, Bush was not Hitler, but Cheney and that Halliburton mess was nothing short of public war profiteering.
I'd also say that if the government was looking for ways to generate revenue, they could really consider a "Luscious Hunk Senators" calendar, like those Brit ladies did for their club.
Not one to be nominating, but perhaps some other readers want to nominate which 12 they'd consider "of interest"?
(Erin - hope this helps steer the conversation from the vitrol. Just trying to help!)
Applying inaccurate descriptions and attributing sinister motives may be satisfying, but none of that gets us closer to identifying what was truly wrong with the Bush years and the damage they caused.
On the other hand, we shouldn't allow our humanizing of political adversaries to excuse inexcusable behavior. Cheney may have honestly believed that war profiteering in Iraq was good for America. That doesn't make it okay.
This brings me to these questions: when the preemptive strike doctrine was born, were there dissenting voices in Bush's Oval office? Were they credible and how were they dealt with?
Sure I want to believe Powell was the voice of reason, but who knows? Maybe everyone was lauding the emperor's new clothes.
But then we step outside the venerable presidential circle and we have Valerie Plame. I am completely with you when it comes to sympathy for the devil, but I can't defend that argument when we get to the Valerie Plame square.
I had a bit of my own driveling (is that spelt right??) about some this a month ago (http://warren-simon.blogspot.com/2009/12/perception-is-reality.html). I am a thorough Bush/Cheney hater, but I am NOT a Democrat. I am very "middle of the road" as they say. A fiscal Republican and a social Democrat. Basically, leave me AND my money alone.
And, by the way, you gusy all have some really cool blogging names. I need to do something with my own ...
I am also an Obama liker. However I am still waiting for things other than fiscal stimulus and health care to be taken care of on Crapitol Hill.
I wouldn't call it sympathy for the devil because I don't think they're devils. Devils didn't out Plame. That was a desperate (and very criminal) act of political self-preservation. A very human and wrong thing to do.
If we assign all the good and bad in the world to angels and demons, then we're probably doomed to continuing a human history of very few good moments and very many bad. If Bush and company were monsters, then we are all monsters and no one is ever truly responsible for their actions and nothing will ever move us to the better world that everyone wants.
Absolutes.
Speaking as a non-American (an outside observer looking in, if you will), and one who makes a point of reading a lot of the wider US MSM and blogging content, one thing you do notice about it is the constant (by rote?) lapse into the use of extreme, stark and antithetical terms like "good", "evil" and "Hitler", where certainly none of these descriptions is either appropriate or, in fact, anywhere close to being accurate - they're merely emotive (again, by rote?).
By way of illustration, here is just one example of some of the best [unintentional] comedy you're likely to see in your lifetime:
The DC Tea Party - and how H.L. Mencken observed Democracy
Enjoy.
Hear, hear! I'm with Bren on this one.
If you decide to watch, be sure to watch the entirety.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JU4LpLijDyk&feature=related
Sympathy for the devil was just a term, perhaps a poorly chosen one. I don't have to use words like good, evil, angels, devils, light, or dark. I don't even have to use the words right or wrong.
How about I use Geneva Convention? We have some rule books laying around here, you know.
There are plenty of people who think Bush & Co. broke the rules in the worst way, but he was never held accountable to that.
So now a young man is looking at photos from Abu Graib and hearing stories about a place called Guantanamo Bay. He's looking at rubble that was once called a town, but went the way of "collateral damage." He's looking at blood stains and getting angrier and angrier and wanting nothing more than to fly a plane into a building in one of our shining cities on a hill.
That's the only way he can get back at us.
So what do we do? We hunt him down and kill him (Sovereign Nations? to hell with Sovereign Nations.) and a thousand more blooms of hate sprout from his grave.
So methinks some name calling and judgments were in order for Bush, particularly ones issued by a court of law.
Erin,
I think you know I'm no fan of Bush - but the way you counter his waywardness and crass stupidity is to destroy his doctrines and principles, and reduce his legacy to the rubble it deserves. It's pointless simply calling him names.
It's no accident that the rest of the world so longed for Obama, when only the US Right were frightened of him - as he was everything Bush was not: urbane, lucid, not driven by petty revenge and a Fox News Borg mentality.
The problem in the US is one of education: where people don't see wateboarding as the torture method it is, and instead choose to call it "enhanced interrogation techniques"; or where they argue that there is nothing wrong with keeping inmates in Gitmo for years on end without charge or trial (but whilst still torturing them), when it brakes every due process law, every tenet of the Geneva Conventions and goes against every protection of the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights - AND where these same people argue that these protections "only apply to US citizens", when they can't point to where that stipulation is made (because it's not made, anywhere, in either document).
So when you want get mad at these knuckle-draggers, remember to attack their doctrines and creeds, cite the lies behind their misunderstandings, their misdirections, their deflections and their dissembling - as at least that way some good might come of the process, and not just mere name-calling.
And speaking of addressing ignorance, is it any wonder that those who see nothing wrong with Gitmo, its policies and practices, are given succour when your media so blithely ignores what's going on the world?
This, from today's Slate:
Why aren't we talking about the new accusations of murder at Gitmo?
Erin - I tried to help you out.
I got your joke!
Bren, maybe my last comment wasn't clear. I think Bush & Co. should be held accountable. I think there should be investigations and prosecutions, with formal accusations and judgments issued by a court of law.
"one thing you do notice about it is the constant (by rote?) lapse into the use of extreme, stark and antithetical terms like "good", "evil" and "Hitler", where certainly none of these descriptions is either appropriate or, in fact, anywhere close to being accurate - they're merely emotive (again, by rote?)." CNL
What adjective would apply here Lint?
"The Guantánamo “Suicides”: A Camp Delta sergeant blows the whistle
By Scott Horton"
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2010/01/hbc-90006368
RJ
Hi Erin,
Agree with your sentiments completely - he and key members of his cabal should all be up before the wigs and facing a raft of charges.
Alas, you may remember that one of his last acts as chimp-in-chief was to introduce a whole slew of rushed legislation designed to make he and his team immune from prosecution for acts committed whilst in office.
Anyone who's not so completely debilitated by being partisan would recommend that he face charges. But like the sneak-thief he is, he's skipped bail and it's unlikely that he'll face charges.
RJ wrote: "What adjective would apply here Lint?"
Hey RJ,
Sorry I missed this earlier, and for the delay in answering.
Just so we're on the same page: do you mean which adjectives would apply to Bush/Cheney, or the Slate article I posted?
If the former: intellectually bankrupt, dishonest, inept in matters fiduciary, warmongering, unChristian, desirous of placing personal profit and gain (Blackwater/Xe, Halliburton) before country, petty minded, reckless in endangering the lives of US service personnel, unprincipled, deceitful, uncaring in how the US is perceived aboard - including amongst her allies -, functionally illiterate, socially autistic, the list could go on an on.
If you refer to the article: lucid and enquiring and needful of specific answers.
That answer your question? If not, please just shout.
Cheers,
Bren.
Petty minded, reckless, unprincipled and deceitful pretty much sum it up. But don't those equal evil?
And in re: The Harpers article I posted. If Hortons claims are true Eric Holder and Barack Obama need a turn in front of the wigs as well. (Do you know the stage play of Oliver .."A Beak, whats a beak? A beak's a magistrate, where have you been all your life?" Artful Dodger)
Thanks for the response.
RJ
RJ wrote: "Petty minded, reckless, unprincipled and deceitful pretty much sum it up. But don't those equal evil?"
Not really: you can be petty mind (effectively immature and underdeveloped) without being "evil" - ditto the others in the list.
Why Bush/Cheney qualify for a season in hell in that their efforts were deliberate and orchestrated to deceive; and showed a flagrant disregard for pretty much everyone else; including the good people of America.
And ultimately, they made a virtue of selfishness and crass stupidity (almost making them acceptable - at least in the US), which, as for any world leader, does not reflect well on the people who voted for him/them, as it indicates that you couldn't care less about your neighbours and allies.
As you sow, so shall you reap...
RJ wrote: "And in re: The Harpers article I posted. If Horton's claims are true Eric Holder and Barack Obama need a turn in front of the wigs as well. (Do you know the stage play of Oliver .."A Beak, what's a beak? A beak's a magistrate, where have you been all your life?" Artful Dodger)"
Just dawned on me, RJ, I was going to use 'beak', as it's a common enough term of over here in the UK, but thought it might be a tad too colloquial for an international forum like this. :-)
Cheers,
Bren.
Thanks to the Bush Supreme Court appointees, corporations are about to take over the government. They can now dump all the money they want into the political process. I think people are not seeing the real danger this is. Over 100 years of laws now gone!
Pssst, Nate. Corporations already own the government. Now they can continue what they've always done without fear of consequences.
RJ
Nate - RJ is correct. All the Supreme Court has done is finally establish as law what has been truth for several thousand years. Money is Power.
I don't like it any more than you, but perhaps the silver lining is that now the BS is over.
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