The Democrats in Congressional leadership are idiots.
Today, Bully Boy gave his radio address and they're probably still scrambling to figure out what's what.
The New York Times offers Steven Lee Myers and David M. Herszenhorn's "In Surprise Step, Bush Vows Veto of Military Bill" on the front page:
For months, President Bush harangued Democrats in Congress for not moving quickly enough to support the troops and for bogging down military bills with unrelated issues.
And then Friday, with no warning, a vacationing Bush announced he will veto a sweeping military policy bill because of an obscure provision that could expose Iraq's new government to billions of dollars in legal claims dating to Saddam Hussein's rule.
The decision left the Bush administration scrambling to promise that it will work quickly with Congress to restore dozens of new military and veterans programs once Congress returns to work in January.
Those included an added pay raise for service members, which would have taken effect Tuesday, and improvements in veterans' health benefits, which few elected officials on either side want to be seen as opposing.
Bush's veto surprised and infuriated Democratic lawmakers and even some Republicans, who complained that the White House failed to raise its concerns earlier. And it gave Democrats a chance to wield Bush's [. . .] oratory against him, which they did with relish.
Reading on you will find John Kerry has decided to 'frame' (hasn't that ridiculous hula-hoop left the stage yet) by turning his own words against Bully Boy. It scores no points. No support for Bully Boy is peeled away by Kerry repeating that howler that was a public relations nightmare when he uttered it. It's the equivalent of a drunk pointing out that another drunk got pulled over. No one says, "First drunk, you go!" They think, "Eh, drunks."
In terms of Republicans, Kerry's repeating the I-was-for-the-war-before-I-was-against-it (or whatever that nonsense was) only reminds them of the Republican attacks. They don't then turn it against their Bully Boy. They have a cheap laugh at Kerry all over again and think, "What a loser. Remember when he said that? Moron."
No points are scored.
The Democrats caved, crawled and gave Bully Boy everything he wanted on the war and more. They refused to stand up for the people. They proved how craven and disgusting they could be.
Now they're shocked that Bully Boy's planning to veto.
They're shocked because they are idiots.
Throughout the nightmare that has been Bully Boy's occupation of the Oval Office, Dems have thought they could outflank him from the right. It's only destroyed the country and it's never worked to their own political benefit. See Kerry's 2004 campaign or the huge losses in 2002. Only ending the war on Iraq -- a phony claim -- got them back into power in the 2006 elections. That wasn't running to Bully Boy's right. That was providing a clear difference between Democrats and Republicans. (The fact that they didn't live up to the promise explains the disapproval numbers in polling today.)
Having campaigned on "We'll stand up," they then went back to the gamebook of Yawn Emanuel and all the other losers. Instead of grasping that offering the appearence of a true difference between the two parties spoke to the public, they started running to the right again because there's an election in 2008!
There's always another election.
They gave Bully Boy everything he wanted and more thinking that would bullet-proof them and carry them into control of the White House and greater majorities in each house of Congress: "They won't be able to criticize us now!"
Of course they would. Republicans always make better Republicans than Democrats posing (although, granted, some don't have to pose).
So you're Bully Boy and you've destroyed the country, are tanking in the polls and don't want to be your father. What do you do?
Find another way to paint the Dems as obstructionists. It's not a surprise. It's happened repeatedly throughout his occupation.
Today, he gave his radio address and lied through his teeth as usual. No surprise. And Dems caught off guard are just plain stupid.
The economy is tanking -- Christmas sales were awful and it went to the economic concerns (and lack of a real rise in wages). Who will the GOP pin that off on? The Democrats of course.
So the trick is to tell the citizens that it's Democrats' fault. So he lies:
I know that even in this growing economy some of you have real concerns. Some of you worry about your ability to afford health care coverage for your families. Some of you are concerned about meeting your monthly mortgage payments. Some of you worry about the impact of rising energy costs on fueling your cars and heating your homes.
You expect your elected leaders in Washington to address these pressures on our economy and give you more options to help you deal with them. And I have put forth several proposals to do so.
In the last month, Congress has responded to some of my initiatives. They passed a good energy bill, they passed a temporary patch to protect middle-class families from the burden of the Alternative Minimum Tax, and they passed a law that will help protect families from higher taxes when their lenders reduce their mortgage debt.
But this is only a start. Congress needs to do more to decrease America's dependence on oil. Congress needs to pass legislation that will help make health care coverage more affordable for small businesses and workers who buy their own policies. And Congress needs to act quickly on the rest of my proposals to help families struggling with rising mortgage payments keep their homes.
Most of all, we need to set a good example in Washington by being careful with your money. I'm disappointed that leaders in Congress sent me a massive spending bill that includes about 9,800 earmarks. Earmarks are special-interest items that are slipped into big spending bills like this one -- often at the last hour, without discussion or debate.
The economy is awful. But the lie he's transmitting is that it's good but Dems have stood in the way. They are your scapegoat, they are the reason you had a suck-ass Christmas. They are the reason you are concerned about cost of living, etc.
What's the problem with the economy? The ear marks! The Dems are wasting money! Now $15 billion a month is being spent on Iraq and Afghanistan and that's the waste. But the White House has played the Dems like the saps they are.
Congress didn't even send legislation with their toothless, non-binding squeak for withdrawal.
They've done nothing.
They could refuse to fund the illegal war but they're too cowardly (and too many are vested in the theft of Iraqi oil).
So if they do nothing in Janurary other than make ridiculous statements (see John Kerry's statements right now), it sends a message.
The message is: Bully Boy's whipped them into control and that's why we need a Republican president because he won't be pushed around by Congress.
He's put out the lies that (a) the economy's just chugging along but (b) Democrats and their "earmarks" ("special interests" will most likely become the phrase of choice as it's repeated throughout the year) are just wasting money and that's why the average citizen is feeling the pinch.
The average person is going to look at the already meek Congress and see Bully Boy 'whipping them into shape.' And, outside of Queen for a Day contests, meekness doesn't get you votes.
If they had stood up, if they had fought, people might wonder who is the better fighter? Then the Dems could make the argument that they were the better fighters and they would fight for you in Washington.
But Dems refuse to fight. They rush to give the White House everything it wants.
They're laughable SCHIPS battle did not send the message that "America, we need to all pull together." They lost on SCHIPS (and rarely mention it now, but no one's supposed to notice because the Yawns just knew it would be a winning strategy). But they lost before Bully Boy stood up to them (twice). They lost when they tried to push the burden of caring for the needy only off on some. Instead of saying, "The children are the future of this country and we all need to pull together and sacrifice," they said what? "We can fund SCHIPS and do so without it hurting most of you because we're targeting one group." (Smokers.)
The hypocrisy in funding public health off the backs of a group that is seen as non-healthy and a plan that requires that they 'payers' remain seen as non-healthy was never a winning strategy. It was the sort of 'bean counting,' easy road traveling the Dems have become so good at. The kind that further splits the people into peoples and not citizens pulling together for the common good.
They've done the easy thing on Iraq too. Make a lot of statements about being opposed to it. Tell a lot of lies about how they can't end it. Those are lies -- Congress can filibuster, leadership can bury a bill so that it never gets a vote, they can twist arms in their own party so that even the Blue Dogs have to go along. But as Bully Boy attempts to portray them as the cause of the economic frustration people around the country feel, the Democratic leadership has also sent out a message to the people: Even when you give us control of both houses of Congress, we can't do anything.
Again, the weak only win in Queen for a Day contests and that fifties program has been off the airwaves for years.
Two messages are being sent and the first one is the one the Democrats put out there, the second one is the one the GOP is now picking up and amplifying.
"Framing" is crap and it always was but the politically naive hop onto a hula hoop every other decade. Within five years, only the wanna-pass-for-wonks are still repeating the jargon because everyone realizes it was a failure. (The big hula hoop for the 90s was 're-inventing government.')
You can pretty up catch phrases all you want but the reality is larger messages are sent, narratives, and they have greater cachet in our culture than slogans.
The Dems spent 2007 telling the American people, "We want the illegal war ended but our hands are tied." A message of weakness. Nancy Pelosi (and others) have reinforced that weakness.
Now Bully Boy, as the 2008 race really is about to begin, grabs that message in the minds of many Americans (because Dems put it there) and 'wallops' them.
"We're strong, they are weak."
It's not new. (The GOP hasn't had a new idea since the 1920s.) And it's not surprising. It's only surprising that Democrats in Congress would spend all year laying the groundwork for the probably successful campaign the GOP will use against them.
They could get tough. That won't come from hiding behind the military. That won't come from fawning over whomever delivers Petraeus' next report. They can make 2008 about getting tough. That would mean putting things back "on the table." That would mean calling out the illegal war with more than votes.
As it is they're doing the Tom Daschle dance and that didn't win them any prizes before.
They need Americans to want to vote for them. For that to happen, the Democrats are going to have to stand up against the illegal war. They'll always be outflanked when they run to the right. They'll always come up short when they try to outdue on that.
These are not 'revelations.' These are lessons that supposedly the Democratic Party learned post-2004. But look at 2006 and all the candidates -- Yawn's sure things -- who went down in flames. The ones they hid behind such as veterans who weren't against the illegal war.
What a bunch of losers. All their lives.
If Congress isn't going to stand up to Bully Boy in 2008 on the illegal war, they might as well give up on the White House (or pray John Edwards gets the nomination since he's the furthest from Congress of any of the 'front runners' and the most critical of them). In 2007, they did so much damage that they're practically giving the White House to the GOP and that stems from their repeated message to the American people all year of "We are weak. We can't do anything. We'd like to do something. But we can't."
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
Note: I am not endorsing John Edwards. I am not endorsing anyone. Some might say, "Mike Gravel!" Let's all wake up to reality. Gravel is a decent candidate if this were the seventies or eighties. It's not. He has a strong message but he's unable to communicate it because (a) lack of funds and (b) lack of awareness. On the latter, his campaign has a website and it has been among the sorriest of websites. When you're shut out of debates, when you're cancelling appearences, you need a strong website, updated repeatedly throughout the day (it's not even updated weekly) to get your message out. Gravel's campaign is hopelessly behind the times. What he stands for is strong but no one's hearing it. That's not just because he's been shut out, it is also because his campaign seems to think they are running a race from another decade. Bill Richardson is not a member of Congress currently. However, he has not called out Congress. Edwards has. The statements above "The e-mail address for this . . ." note the climate Congress has created. If they are unable to change that in 2008, Edwards is their loudest critic and he benefits the most. Bambi can't argue, "I'm against them too!" Unless he's trying to argue, "That's why I skipped all those votes!" If the Congress does not start exhibiting strength and sending a message to the people, they're begging for defeat and, the only hope they'd have there is a candidate who was not seen as part of the weakness problem. By repeatedly criticizing Congress, Edwards has drawn a line between them and himself. Things could change (I hope they will) and Congress could actually stand up. I'm not endorsing Edwards, I'm merely pointing out the obvious as it stands now. In terms of Gravel, we'll note him if he's got anything on Iraq but the reality is he's killed his own campaign. Gravel could have been Ron Paul if his campaign knew how to use the internet. Instead, they appear befuddled by it. That's not, "Drop out of the race, Mike!" He needs to run for as long as he feels like running. He may run as a third party candidate. If he does, hopefully someone in the campaign will work the internet because Gravel's beliefs are not out of step with most people, they just haven't heard them. (More people know him through the SNL skit where he's plotting to kidnap Hillary than know anything he stands for.) I'm tired of all the whining from the non-media designated 'front runners' because it's just whining. The only one that's had a rise in interest has been Bill Richardson and that's because his staff is using the web. (And the campaign's also stopped shy-ing away from noting the Latino factor.) When people start dropping out of the race, some may have legitimate gripes but many of them better look at their dumb ass websites that people would visit regularly and see the same stuff on the front page week after week. I'm not campaigning. If I didn't have something new up daily, I'd hear about it in non-stop e-mails. The reality is people visit a site and they see something new that interests them and think, "I'll go back again." If they do and they see nothing new up week after week, they stop visiting. There are millions and billions of places to visit online and no one's looking for repeats. So, for instance, Chris Dodd, why should anyone visit your website? Your website is a campaign and many candidates seem to think, "There's this thing called the web and we'll post something up there and leave it up there and everyone will love it." No, everyone will get tired of it and wonder how someone supposedly running a daily campaign to become president has so little to say. In one of the rare compliments to Obama's campaign in 2007, his website is updated. A friend with the campaign is always on me to visit it. (And I do visit it. I'm not impressed with the candidate but the website is running a real campaign.) (The other compliment Obama got here in 2007 was for standing up to John Howard.) The media made Obama, Hillary and John front runners. That's true and it's not fair to the other candidates that they've been left out. But reality also includes that a campaign controls their own website. Other than Bill Richardson's campaign, none of the non-front runners have known how to run it. Barack, Hillary, John and Bill have been running real campaigns online. Others haven't. Dennis Kucinch's videos of the week has alienated hard of hearing and deaf voters in this community who were behind him. They now follow other campaigns because they can read things at those websites. Kucinich took himself out of the running with a portion of disabled voters by running a crappy website. That's reality. That the media would create fronr runners was not a surprise or a new development. That so many not included to the party would whine so often about that but fail to use their own power (their websites) goes to the reality that they share the blame. If there are any surprises in Iowa or New Hampshire that benefit non-front runners, their campaigns better get off their lazy, inept asses and start posting new content at their websites repeatedly throughout the day. And campaign 'bloggers' at campaign websites are not meandering threads of "I like ___" followed by "me too." Campaign blogs need a blogger posting, putting out the points of the day. But go to some websites and find the blogger. You can't. You can find a bulletin board. If you can't afford a campaign blogger, everyone had enough support that they could have reached out to someone on their bulletin board that impressed them and said, "Would you donate your time to be the campaign's blogger?" If you can't run a website correctly, how is anyone supposed to believe you can run the country? Repeating, I am not endorsing Edwards, I'm not endorsing anyone in the presidential race and have no idea how I will vote. If Cindy Sheehan weren't running, I might skip the primaries. (She's running for Congress from the eighth district in California.) Cindy Sheehan's the only one I've endorsed and outside of someone declaring a Congressional run from IVAW, Tina Richards declaring or someone else who has put it on the line to end the illegal war -- there are many Gold Star Families and Military Families Speak Out members that I would endorse, I do not plan to endorse anyone else.
iraq
steven lee myers
david m. herzenhorn
the new york times
