What’s the best thing about the election last night? Getting to hear all the sanctimonious pundits and bloggers from the Bush side of the aisle whine………..
Because like their idol from Texas, they are more comfortable categorizing everything into short ideological sound bites that are all black or all white; cleverly ignoring the details- especially when it comes to the Bush adminstration’s economic policy, foreign policy, or resourcing of the military. There the boy from Crawford and his pals are experts at saying one thing and doing another.
And now finally at long last, they may be have to faced with the reality that the American people may have finally seen through it. And they are tired of hearing it-especially when it comes the little fracas over in Iraq. 60+ percent of Americans agree with me-they are tired of seeing American names appear bordered in black on their TV screens , for a band of people who have not proven themselves worthy of the investment.
Instead the White House (and others) will portray it as the fault of the voter. “Surely you must see by giving the Democrats power in the legistlature, that you letting forth the forces of doom and liberalism”. They want you to believe that America will be like this Doonesbury cartoon that appeared in 1984 (which I cannot seem to find in a visual format right now):
“Morning in Mondale’s America—Mom, I can’t find my marijuana! Five bucks for a carton of milk! Honey- I’m off for my abortion!”
I think you get the drift. I always thought it was a pretty funny parody of Reagan’s “Morning in America” commercials. And to read some bloggers and pundits is that is the world America is going to descend into.
Here is the problem with that line of thinking. It ignores the new realities and facts.
Lets look at them shall we?
First, Americans are not as blind as some would have you think. They have Nancy Pelosi and others sized up. However they also realize that slowly, but surely, a new breed of Democrat is being born. One that is helping the party to free itself from the chains of the two “F’s”-fags and feminism. The problem was they had sent signal after signal that they were tired of hearing “Stay the course.” And “Full Steam Ahead on Iraq”-as well as “I love Rumsfeld!”
So they had to yield the only baseball bat they had. At least I had to.
Second, despite what the Democrats are saying, they are not going to be able to effect radical changes in the national agenda. Now if they do increase the minimum wage, help the middle class who have been ignored by Bush’s tax cuts, and do something about health care access and cost-well that would be something.
However that ignores a couple of things. One, George Bush is still president. And now he will be able to veto at will, because it will be their bills, not his, that he will have on his desk. I predict that after 6 years of no veto-even when it was needed-you will see the veto pen run out of ink.
Which points out reality number 2, which as pointed out to Phibian Even if the Dems win the remaining two Senate seats-which is not guaranteed-any margin of control in the Senate is razor thin and all it takes is one homosexual affair, bribery scandal, or puppy molestation to change the math. Speaking of molesting puppies, since Lieberman won, he can finally come out of the closet as a Republican-you can bet the Rove phones are busy trying to convince him to do just that.
With Leiberman firmly in the President’s back pocket, its the same as having a majority on issues that count-like the war in Iraq.
Bush gets to direct foreign policy and has control over the military. The Congress may yell and hopefully hold him better to account, but in the end Bush will still call the shots which means that 2 years from now there will still be 144,000 US hostages in Iraq. The Congress people know they cannot cut off funding for the troops-this is not 1975. The American public won’t stand for it at all. They want their troops well paid, protected, and most important of all, home. However if the polls proved anything, we as a nation are confused about how to do that.
Now, if Bush were smart he would sacrifice Rumsfeld- but that assumes he’s smart.
Now if the Democrats were smart, which a lot of them are not, they have to read between the lines carefully and not assume this gives Hillary a red carpet to the White House. This is about that “new breed ” I talked about earlier. If they don’t pick up on that-well have fun shivering in the audience at the inauguration in 2009.
In the meantime- real problems will fester in between: Iran, KJI, that “real” threat from China-both military and economic-just to name a few.
And finally, you can all say a prayer for the poor guy who becomes Joe Sestak’s lead staffer. He’ll be working for a known psycopath. (Ask anyone of the poor bastards who had to work for him in the Navy!)
Still, for me its a good day. Its nice here where I am, the beer is cold, and George Bush just got told no.
