Thursday, March 29, 2007

Bush surrenders on Fox

The decision by the Bush White House to retreat on the nomination of Republican donor Sam Fox, who gave $50,000 in 2004 to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, to be ambassador to Belgium may be, as the Washington Post said, a taste of revenge for Sen. John Kerry, whose image was tarnished by the slimy ads.

However, knowing the Bush administration, they may decide just to make a recess appointment to get around the Senate and get what they want as rules and laws are only viewed as inconveniences to this administration.

What too many people misunderstood about Bush is that he is not dumb, rather that he is incompetent, dishonest, and devious. As a result, attempts at making him look stupid didn't resonate with the people. What proved to be Bush's undoing was the eventual knowledge that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and that his administration was incompetent in its reaction to Hurricane Katrina.

The final straw may have been Stephen Colbert's speech at the 2006 White House Correspondence Association dinner where he showed the true emptiness of the Katrina Administration and conservatives.

Colbert's mock quote of "I believe in the government that governs best is the government that governs least and by these standards we have set up a fabulous government in Iraq" showed both the failure of the administration in Iraq and also the failure of the very nature of conservatism.

At the time the press did not care for Colbert stripping the varnish off of the Bush administration to show the ugliness underneath nor his uncovering of the lack of interest by the press of investigating the ugliness. As Colbert said "Over the last five years you people were so good -- over tax cuts, WMD intelligence, the effect of global warming. We Americans didn't want to know, and you had the courtesy not to try to find out."

Because the press wasn't interested in looking into the Swift Boat ads too deeply until they after they had done their damage, and there was a lack of investigation into the policies of what may be the worst president in American history, Bush was reelected.

In the process Bush goons slimed an American hero. How many people will know what Fox, a major contributor to the Swift Boat slime campaign, eventually admitted the truth of the matter.

Senator Kerry, I very much respect your dedicated service to this country. I know that you were not drafted -- you volunteered. You went to Vietnam. You were wounded. Highly decorated. Senator, you're a hero. And there isn’t anybody or anything that's going to take that away from you.

Unfortunately, for far too many people the Bush did take the hero part away from Kerry.

Thursday, March 22, 2007

Idiots, Hypocrites & Liars

Wednesday, March 21, was a bad day for conservatives and the Bush administration as news events showed the public that they are idiots, hypocrites and liars.

First, during Vice President Al Gore testimony in congress a number of Republicans attempted to criticize his testimony on the relationship between humans activities and global warming, yet despite efforts by Sen. James Inhofe (Okla.), even their GOP colleagues eventually said they had enough.

Dana Milbank of the Washington Post pointed out that Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.), implicitly rebuked his flat-Earth colleagues, saying: "It's possible to be a conservative without appearing to be an idiot."

Milbank said Gore's performance was "in many ways, a 21st-century version of the Scopes trial. Only this time, Gore, like William Jennings Bryan a failed Democratic presidential nominee, was playing Darrow, champion of scientific thought. Inhofe was playing the Bryan character, defending his beliefs against the encroachments of foes such as the National Academy of Sciences, the United Nations and the Oscar-hoisting former vice president.”

Then Post the reported that a day after Bush complained about Democrats engaging in a "partisan witch hunt," the leader of the Justice Department team that prosecuted a landmark lawsuit against tobacco companies said that Bush administration political appointees repeatedly ordered her to take steps that weakened the government's racketeering case.

Lastly, John Stewart on the Daily Show pointed out that former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, during his appearance on Tuesday's show, either didn't know what he was talking about or was lying when he claimed Stewart was wrong in saying President Lincoln brought in people of varying points of views to help with his administration. Bolton continually claimed Stewart was wrong on various items and on his Lincoln point said “you are historically wrong about Lincoln.”

Stewart, unlike too many in the media, checked out Bolton's claim and contacted Doris Kearns Goodwin, a Lincoln expert and author of “Team of Rivals,” who said Stewart "was historically right" and that Bolton was historically wrong.

But what Bolton was doing was nothing new for conservatives, lie and assume no one will follow up on the lie, or at least not until after an election. After all it worked so well in 2000, 2002, and 2004. And it's not like FOX "News" is going to report on conservatives being wrong.

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

How Dare You Question Me!!

In yet another episode of "Act Like An American, Not Like a Republican," or "Don't Treat Us Like We Treated You," George Bush reacted to the latest scandal in his administration by offering to make Karl Rove and other top aides available for private interviews with congressional investigators regarding the political sacking of U.S. Attorneys.

But as the Washington Post reported, "the White House, however, placed limits on the kinds of questions the aides would answer and said the interviews may not be conducted under oath or recorded on a transcript. The conditions enraged congressional Democrats, who vowed to go ahead with plans to issue subpoenas as early as today that would compel the aides to testify."

In an amazing display of hypocrisy, Bush criticizing Democrats, saying "it will be regrettable if they choose to head down the partisan road of issuing subpoenas and demanding show trials when I have agreed to make key White House officials and documents available."

Gee, doesn't that just describe the Republicans of the 1990s with their pointless, political, partisan investigations of the Clinton administration. Sure the difference is that the Clinton was investigate for getting rid of Travel Office personnel instead of the political sacking of U.S. attorneys; Clinton was investigated for perjury on a private matter, not lying about outing a CIA covert agent; and Clinton's avoidance of the Vietnam war was questioned heavily while Bush's avoidance was generally avoided.

Today, the Bush administration is hoping to continue this pattern by not allowing Democrats to investigate the administration the way Republicans did the Clinton Administration. After being in cahoots with those in the GOP spending years tearing down the White House, Bush and Dick Cheney believe now it is time to make the White House an imperial White House, just like during the Nixon administration.

Interesting how the Bush administration is starting to look more and more like the Nixon administration.

Thursday, March 15, 2007

The Right Comparison

One of the things missing from the recent discussions regarding the scandal around the Bush Administration and "Purgegate" is an accurate comparison to what took place during the Clinton Administration.

Conservatives try to compare the Bush Administration's purge of eight US Attorneys, who apparently weren't investigating Democrats quickly enough and also weren't spending enough time looking at question claims of voter fraud, to the Clinton administration letting all of the US attorneys go at the beginning of his term.

After 12 straight years of Republican rule and 20 out of 24 years, it isn't hard to imagine the need for purging. After only six years the Washington Post reported that the Bush administration felt the need to dump up to 20% of his own Attorneys and only keep prosecutors who were "loyal Bushies."

The conservative mantra is that the attorney's, and others, serve at the pleasure of the President so what's the big deal with getting rid of people? The big deal is that when the Clinton Administration tried to get rid of travel office staff the press and conservatives jacked the controversy up so much that a special prosecutor was eventually appointed to investigate "Travelgate."

Think about that - conservatives and the press demanded a special investigator to look into a Democratic President getting rid of travel office staff over questions of how the office was run, yet many have no problems if a Republican president gets rid of US attorneys for political purposes.

The key for conservatives has been to confuse issues just enough so someone who only hears a little bit will accept the GOP talking point (Libby found Not Guilty - Fox) no matter how little it has to do with reality.

The question now is, have the sound bites moved beyond the twisting point and is the public finally starting to truly understand how bad the Bush administration is?

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Top General Condemns Cheney's Family Values

Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, apparently doesn't think much of the family values of Vice President Dick Cheney, the man who helped push the U.S. into a war that has cost thousands of American lives and wounded tens of thousands of American troops.

On Monday, Gen. Pace, likened homosexual acts to adultery and said the military should not condone it by allowing gays to serve openly in the armed forces. On Tuesday Pace backtracked and said he should not have voiced his personal view that homosexuality.

"I should have focused more on my support of the policy and less on my personal moral views," Pace said in an article on the Washington Post. And how do those those moral views compare to those supported by our leaders?

Let's see, in 2004 Lynee Cheney criticized Sen. John Kerry for saying “We’re all God’s children, and I think if you were to talk to Dick Cheney’s daughter, who is a lesbian, she would tell you that she’s being who she was. She’s being who she was born as. I think if you talk to anybody, it’s not a choice.”

If the Cheney's were upset at Kerry for saying that one can only imagine the Cheney's outrage for having the head of the Joint Chief of Staff call the lifestyle of their daughter's (and a number of troops) immoral and compared gays to an adulterer.

Oh sure, Gen. Pace didn't specifically mention the Cheney's daughter but if conservatives can claim that a joke by Sen. Kerry about George Bush was "actually" about the troops then shouldn't Gen. Pace's criticism of gays can be viewed as an attack on Cheney's daughter?

So I'm sure that the Cheney's, and all those conservatives who criticized Kerry, will be out shortly to criticize Pace... Right, I won't hold my breath waiting for that to happen.

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Running Scared

The reaction by conservatives to the conviction of Vice President Dick Cheney's top aide put on display why the Republican Party is better known as the Grand Old Party of Hypocrisy.

After spending a decade going after President Bill Clinton in attempt to remove from him from office, conservatives are crying that it wasn't criminality, but a political squabble that resulted in a conviction for Scooter Libby.

In reality, as Dan Froomkin of the Washington Post.com pointed out "with former vice presidential chief of staff Scooter Libby's conviction on charges of perjury and obstruction yesterday, the stench of corruption has taken formal residence at the White House."

What is really amazing in analyzing the conservative complaints is that when one compares the actions of the Bush and Clinton administrations, one is left wondering what the fuss was all about regarding the Clinton's investigations.

Then the question of firings involved management of the White House Travel Office, not federal prosecutors for political purposes; perjury investigations regarded whether the President told the truth regarding a personal lawsuit, not the reason for going to war and outing a CIA undercover official; actions of the Clinton special prosecutor led people to compare him to Inspector Javert of Les Miserables for overreaching investigations as opposed to a nonpartisan prosecutor who went going back to his day job with his reputation intact; and finally the Clinton investigations left the President with sky high approval ratings while the Libby trial has contributed to Bush being near all time lows.

(President Clinton's highest-ever job-approval numbers in Gallup Organization polling for CNN and USA Today came in a survey taken on Dec. 19-20, 1998, the weekend that the House approved articles of impeachment against the President. By comparison, new Zogby Poll released before the Libby verdict found Bush back at a dismal 30 percent approval, within reach of Richard Nixon's ratings at their nadir.)

All of this has left Bush appearing irrelevant. Other than hard core conservatives who would follow Bush anywhere, it's hard to imagine much of the rest of the country being willing to go off that cliff, which also explains why conservatives are so unhappy.

With a presidential election 20 months away, Republicans know that while they weren't able to turn the people against Clinton, they were able to convince about 48% of Americans to vote for George Bush. Many times 48% would be a losing amount (just ask John Kerry) but in 2000 Ralph Nader sucked away three percent, leaving Al Gore with a tiny popular vote victory. Unfortunately just enough votes weren't counted in Florida allowing Bush to claim victory.

So if false scandals slightly hurt the party run by a popular president, what will real scandals do to a party run by a unpopular president? Will all the close states turn blue?