Two Weeks Out
by navyswan
Bush, press conference, 8 Nov 2006:
“And hopefully out of this concept of folks sitting around a table sharing ways forward, that we will come up with a commonality; that we are able to then say to the American people, we’ve helped solve this problem.â€
Reid, D-NV, 10 Nov 2006
“The only way to move forward is with bipartisanship and openness, and to get some results.”
Bush:
“I am going to work with people of both parties.”
Well isn’t that special? How did that all work out for you, Democrats?
Bush is trying to push Bolton through the senate before the new session starts in January, even though Bolton was unable to actually clear this same Republican-led senate mere months ago. Looks like he won’t pass again, so that may leave the president with no other option but to give him another recess appt., because you KNOW he won’t get through in a Democratic-led senate.
Cheney still plans on making another war. According to Seymour Hersh, he said this at a meeting a month before the election: “[V]ictory [by the Democrats in the Nov 7 elections] would not stop the administration from pursuing a military option with Iran†and Hersh adds that ‘Cheney said the White House would circumvent any legislative restrictions “and thus stop Congress from getting in its way,”’ He said this even without any Democrats talking about such a step. That’s a great example of preemptive politicking by the VP. He must be making this claim because he got bad intel on the democrats’ plans to introduce such legislation. “We’ve got to strike before they use their Weapons of Mass Check-and-Balance.â€
Bush is re-nominating a whole slew of federal judges that, again, couldn’t pass the same Republican-led senate already. No word yet on whether or not a pending loss of control of the senate will actually make the existing senate Republicans LESS scrupulous when selecting federal judges.
And lastly, we come to find out Bush lied again. Yeah, I know, no big surprise there. But it is generally thought that lying wasn’t politically helpful to him in this case, which makes it confusing as to why he would go to the trouble of lying and then telling us about it, other than because he is a pathological liar and a megalomaniac. Observe:
1. Rumsfeld is staying till the end of my term. / I’m the decider
2. I’m firing Rumsfeld now that the elections are over.
3. I knew we were probably going to fire Rumsfeld months ago.
4. I didn’t tell you that I was firing Rumsfeld before the election because I didn’t want to politicize the war in Iraq. (See any previous speech about Iraq for direct evidence of the extreme silly-ness of that sentiment at this point.)
So to recap, he’s not firing Rummy ever, then he fired Rummy, then he said he didn’t want to tell us the truth for non-political reasons that are actually political reasons. Right. Way to go, sir.
Point: As Rummy’s replacement, Bush has nominated an old spook who’s been in the CIA about as long as his father. He claims to understand that the ‘Murican people are frustrated with the war in Iraq, and wants to seek a fresh perspective. He claims to understand that we “thumped†the Republicans at the polls because we desire a change, to be implemented by the Democrats, preferably using their set of ideas and their framework of decision-making. So, his response is to make every effort to push his new Defense Secretary nominee through the Senate while it is still under Republican control. You know, to avoid any of those uncomfortable questions about Iran-Contra and how in-fucking-sensitive it is to put a man in charge of “fixing†Iraq who was, for all accounts, somewhat complicit in a program to sell weapons under the table to Iran, Iraq’s mortal enemy, while the two countries were at war, and while we were explicitly supporting Iraq’s chemical-weapon-slinging dictator in that war. (Republicans were for Saddam before they were against him.) Sure, Mr. President, that sounds like the perfect guy to head up any plan to fix Iraq. (Note to politicians: You could do worse than Rumsfeld. At least by this point, we knew what we were getting with that guy.)
I’m sure you could find countless additional examples of Republicans claiming to relish the opportunity to employ bipartisanship in the coming years, while engaging in the subtlest form of double speak or out-and-out lies and continuing to push an even more radical agenda than ever before. (i.e. Gonzalez claiming that passing warrantless wiretapping legislation is necessary to preserve Constitutional freedoms, etc.) But it comes down to this: the Republicans have no desire to engage the Democrats on any serious level for more than a few weeks of the new year. Some of them have intellectually checked out already. Their media giants have been disparaging the Democratic party as traitors for years now. That kind of rhetoric burns into the national psyche, and won’t go away just because of one pesky election. It creates situations where a caller to Boortz’s excuse for a radio show says, “Come on, Blue Dog Democrats. Prove to us that you’re not liberals. Work with the Republicans and pass some real Conservative economic packages.†Look here jacko, if your Republican demi-gods couldn’t get the shit passed when they were in power, don’t count on us to do your dirty work for you.
Anyway, what I foresee is this: the Republicans are setting us up for a fall before power even changes hands. I’ll echo the Young Turks on this point. Bipartisan has become a code word for Republican ideas. Bipartisanship has come to mean our way or the highway. If the Republicans posit some crazy legislation or nominee and the Democrats exercise their constitutional authority to provide a check on the government’s excesses, they are obstructionist. But if the Republican speaker of the house refuses to let legislation enforcing US labor laws in a US territory even come out of committee to be scheduled for debate, much less a vote, that isn’t even noticed. But in a sense of bipartisanship, the Democrats are supposed to give up their right to filibuster a nominee, or else. Bull shit.
As soon as the Democrats are successful in blocking some republican nomination or legislation, like Bolton to the UN or warrantless wiretapping of American citizens, everyone in Washington and on your TV will cry foul. “Look,†they will say, “Look at the Democrats who aren’t playing fair. They are using their majority of votes to prevent us from continuing to pass whatever crazy legislation we want. How dare they?!? They aren’t being bipartisan. Mama!! I want my binky.†And then, somehow, the Democrats will come out as the bad guys for using their majority in both houses to control the terms of the debate in a way that makes just a little bit of sense.
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe they won’t cry about bipartisanship and make lies about democrats who had the gall to stand up for the principles that got them elected. But as far as I can see, the Democrats would pretty much have to roll over from day one to avoid it, and then what’s the point, really?
“Unless something comes up untoward at the hearings, which I don’t expect, he [Gates] should be confirmed,” said Sen. Harry Reid
Oh, shit.
