GOP Breaks Down, Admits Bush is Bad

One of the criticisms of the Democratic Party is that they offer nothing but attacks on Bush. At least that's the script that the media is pushing.

The problem lately it that it's not just Democrats who are criticizing Bush. Just look what a Conservative Republican candidate for the Senate told Dana Milbank of The Washington Post.

On the Iraq war: "It didn't work. . . . We didn't prepare for the peace." On the response to Hurricane Katrina: "A monumental failure of government."

At first the candidate didn't want to be identified, but since Milbank's article mentioned that Senate Leader Bill Frist walked by during the luncheon with reporters, it was inevitable his identity would be unveiled.

The candidate was Lt. Gov. Michael Steele of Maryland, fighting an uphill battle to win an open Senate seat in Maryland. Because of that some wondered if the comments weren't intentional, to give him some credibility with Democratic voters in Maryland, who outnumber Republicans.

Whether or not there was a political calculation to the comments, one should look at what Steele said and consider that perhaps EVERYTHING the Democrats have been saying for the past six years has been correct. Bush is a disconnected, uncaring and incompetent President. It just took Hurricane Katrina for people to open their eyes, according to Steele.

"In 2001, we were attacked and the president is on the ground, on a mound with his arm around the fireman, symbol of America," he said, between bites of hanger steak and risotto. "In Katrina, the president is at 30,000 feet in an airplane looking down at people dying, living on a bridge. And that disconnect, I think, sums up, for me at least, the frustration that Americans feel."

But for anyone following the news, none of this should come as a surprise. As Rolling Stone reported, a panel of historians voted Bush the worst American president. So now that pretty much everyone now admits Bush is a failure, can we stop with the "all Democrats do is attack Bush."

Paying Back Lieberman

Perhaps former President Bill Clinton could have repaid Sen. Joe Lieberman for his 1998 Monica Lewinsky speech by making a similar speech on Monday condemning Lieberman for his support of George Bush. It's hard to tell which was more disgusting, Clinton's relationship with Lewinsky or Lieberman with Bush.

There are some that say Lieberman's speech helped Clinton and the Democrats for providing the outrage many Americans were feeling toward the president, thereby ending the desire for retribution except among the most extreme Americans. It was no surprise that most Americans supported Clinton and that his approval ratings were double of that of Bush.

Most Americans were smart enough to figure out there is large difference about lying or misleading the public about a personal failure in one's personal life than lying or misleading the public about sending Americans to die in a foreign country.

Too many in the media are painting Lieberman's trouble solely to his vote regarding Iraq. Today Lieberman says he is in the fight of his political life. It's too bad he didn't think that the 2000 Presidential election was the fight of his political life.

Instead in the debates with Cheney he was unwilling to challenge dishonest statements like that in his road to riches that "the government had nothing to do with it," Cheney said -- a remark that overlooked that his firm had received more than $2 billion in federal contracts for support of American troops on peacekeeping missions."

Cheney and many on the right were disdainful of Lieberman in 2000 but today it's interesting that those on the right now support Lieberman. Funny these were the same people who were calling him Loserman in 2000.

They Just Don't Get It

Stung by criticism from bloggers and others over a lack of will to truly examine the rise of the right wing media and how the MSM has cowed itself over the years, Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz has looked down from his ivory story and attempted to determine what is going on in the streets.

After a quick looksey, Kurtz pronouncesd in a column in the Post that the Left's complaint is Why aren't you on our side? and the Right's complaint is Why can't we get an even break? What a joke. One only has to look at the favorite news organizations of the Right (FOX News) and Left (NPR). Which offers complete and balanced coverage (NPR) and which plays on one side (FOX - Republicans)?

Actually the Right wants it both ways - they want the media to be on their side (FOX News) and if not they complain that they don't get a break. What a crock!

Once and for all, this is the way it is - conservatives expect news coverage to be slated in favor of conservatives (i.e. Fox News) and get mad when it isn't. Liberals expect complete coverage (NPR) and get upset when it isn't.

But in the mind of pundits like Kurtz, asking tough questions of Republicans is akin to taking the Democrat's side, a point he made when Arianna Huffington complained that Tim Russert of Meet the Press gave GOP Ken Mehlman the traditional "E-Z Pass.

For years the Left has been pushing the media to just to do their job, not be a one-sided propaganda machine such as the Right has established with FOX News or the Wall Street Journal editorial page (which even the paper's news staff thinks it off the wall. - "They're wrong all the time. They lack credibility," said one Journal reporter)

For example, remember when the White House press corps woke up one morning earlier this year and decided it was okay to ask tough questions. Jon Stewart on The Daily Show joked that "We've secretly replaced the white house press Corps with actual reporters!"

However the Right has been pushing the media to cover the news from a right-wing perspective (attack Clinton, give Bush the benefit of the doubt) and it worked. Even the Post once upon a time admitted that in a column by John Harris.

Yet when liberals read stories like Harris's and get upset, the Kurtz's of the world call them "angry." One could live with the angry tag if the media would then apply the term "crazy" to the Ann Coulter's of the world, but too many in the MSM just laugh off comments by Coulter and Limbaugh.

In the end it's election year so the MSM wants to seem "balanced," or balanced in the eyes of Fox News so don't expect much to change.

Big Bang Goes Boom

The Bush administration's idea that the way to get peace ran through Iraq was what Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne Jr. called "the Big Bang" theory.

"Installing a democratic government in Iraq would force a new dawn. Newly empowered Muslim democrats would reform their societies, negotiate peace with Israel and get on with the business of building prosperous, middle-class societies," Dionne wrote of the Bush administration's plans.

So how's that working out? Un huh, just great. Well I'm sure the Republicans will want to review this during the upcoming election. Right. Or as Dionne describes the GOP's plan, For the next 3 1/2 months, they want the choice before the voters to be binary: staying the course and being "tough," or breaking with President Bush's policy and being "soft."

Must be nice to be able to demand that people not examine your competence in order to determine your fitness. Kinda like CEOs. You get paid a lot no matter how bad you are. Well Bush is called the CEO president.