Get busy.

President Obama: We Lost Touch with American People Last Year

The president said he made a mistake in assuming that if he focused on policy decisions, the American people would understand the reasoning behind them.

"That I do think is a mistake of mine," Obama said. "I think the assumption was if I just focus on policy, if I just focus on this provision or that law or if we're making a good rational decision here, then people will get it."

Instead, the president said the American people ended up with a "feeling of remoteness and detachment" from the policymakers in Washington who are making big decisions. [...]

No kidding. So, get busy and start paying attention to the people.

And, how about grabbing your own dang mop while you're at it?

The Massachusetts Lesson: Go Populist Now

The Obama White House needs to show, quickly and forcefully, with concrete, bold and visible action, that it stands with the working people of America. Here's a symbolic but smart start: jettison those on the White House economic team whose slow, timid response to the crisis of unemployment and to Wall Street's obscene excesses helped create the conditions for the Tea Party's inchoate right-wing populism.

Leadership on pro-democracy reforms are also desperately needed to end the corruption of our politics and to stanch the corporate money flooding and deforming of our democracy. Connect the dots for people: explain how needed reforms are gutted when both parties succumb to the pervasive corruption of our money politics. If the GOP's obstructionism has a silver lining, it is in exposing how an anti-democratic, super-majority filibuster has essentially made our system dysfunctional. There is fertile ground on which to rally people in a transpartisan political reform movement.

Massachusetts offers another lesson: Obama's decision to demobilize his base in 2009 in favor of an insider approach to governing was a big mistake. I'm not a political strategist, but I don't know how you win elections by failing to rouse people who've worked hardest at the grassroots to get you elected? It is time to re-mobilize the base.

And here's a no-brainer: Isn't it time to give up on that faith in genteel post-partisanship when the GOP knifes you at every turn? Nice isn't going create more jobs or get health care reform. [...]

Get tough, get bold, kiss "post-partisanship" goodbye and fight hard for jobs and a just economy of shared prosperity. And put yourself squarely back on the side of working people.

A View On Health Care

A great opinion, from a valued commenter and fellow blogger:

All the national polls and the People's House want a Medicare-type option for everyone. It's time for the Senate and our Majority Leader to represent the people instead of special business interests.

The Constitution begins "We the people of the United States" not We the Special Interests of the United States. The Senate is becoming the House of Lords that our Founder's rebelled against.

The Old Boys Club must not be allowed to ignore the people who gave them power with parliamentary tricks like filibusters and other delaying tactics. Bills are suppose to be passed on a simple majority with an up and down vote. The Senate was not given any special privileges in the Constitution.

If this stalling and obstruction continues, the people have a right, no a duty, to make the Senate as irrelevant as the British people made the House of Lords. A majority is 51...always has been and always will be. It's simple mathematics and common sense.

Enough with the diversions and stalling. The Senate is causing gridlock while this country is in dire straights. Either these old men need to start doing their job or they should be stripped of their power.

If they kill the health care reform bill, We the people of the United States have the option of convening a Constitutional Convention and that's exactly what we should do if this body continues to ignore the will of the people and their responsibility to solve problems when it is necessary...not when they or the special business interests decide they should be addressed.

It's time to pass a health care bill that gives our people affordable, available options including a Medicare one that our seniors now enjoy. It's not only what the majority of people want, it's necessary to save our economy and the "life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness" that this country fought for.

The Senators must give us ALL the health care options that the Senators now enjoy or they need to lose their power. Enough with the Country Club conservatives and their friends on our side of the aisle.

~SandyH

Autumn Of Discontent

Commentary: Republicans summon ugly old ghosts

Joseph L. Galloway, McClatchy Newspapers:

This is an autumn of great discontent as not just the United States, but the entire world trembles on the brink of an economic recession that may bring the kind of pain that's known only to the oldest among us.

With days to go before Election Day, the nation watches as a presidential candidate and his political party unravel, frantically dragging every ugly ghost out of the closet in an attempt not only to fool everyone, but also to scare everyone.

. . . . .

They have presided for the last eight years over a stunning redistribution of wealth: They've turned Robin Hood upside down, taking from the poor and the middle class and giving to the very rich.

Yet they tar their opponent for daring to suggest that it's time to turn the tables and redirect some of that wealth to those who are jobless, homeless and hopeless, and to the millions of other hard-working Americans who are likely to join those growing ranks in the months and years to come.

They call him a socialist for embracing a principle that's rooted deeply in the teachings of the Christianity that they wear on their sleeves but cannot find room for in their hearts.

They promise to "correct the mistakes" of their own president, their own members of Congress, their own appointed overseers and regulators, if only we give them another chance.

They promise to punish the Wall Street tycoons and the big bankers who in their greed built this house of cards that's crashing down onto Main Street. Yes they will. Surely they will smite the robber barons who brushed a few crumbs from their groaning tables of riches into the laps of the very people who now vow to punish their benefactors of great wealth.

They say this even as the barons, fat with bonuses and commissions, pick over the carcass of a fallen economy, carving out another tasty morsel or two for themselves.

Is it any wonder that Sen. John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin and the Republican Party are sinking like the Titanic? Do they take us all for complete morons?

Granted, they may have reason to think that. After all, not only did we (with some help from the Supreme Court) elect George W. Bush our president, we also re-elected him to a second term. Fooled us twice, they think, so maybe the third time is charmed.

That, however, doesn't seem likely as a cold, hard winter looms this November. Not likely at all.

. . . . .

The financial collapse and the painful fallout that's stalking the nation won't be righted overnight, however. Putting Barack Obama in the White House and giving the Democrats a veto-proof majority in Congress won't mean that happy days are here again.

Hard work, sacrifice and suffering lie ahead. It could take a decade or more to repair all the damage that Bush, Dick Cheney and all their henchmen in prison, out of prison and on their way to prison have done to our economy, our military, our standing in the world, our Constitution and to civil discourse, common decency and competent governance.

In the meantime, we Americans would do well to try to remember all those things that our grandmothers told us about how to get by in hard times.

How to get by on a lot less.

How to grow a vegetable garden.

How to squeeze a nickel till the buffalo bellows.

How to appreciate the small joys of family and friends.

How to share what you have, no matter how little you have, with those who have nothing.

Someday we may be able to tell our grandchildren about the Election of '08 when we, the people, turned away from anger, hate and greed and once again embraced the better angels of our nature.

Did Anne Really Say That About Sarah?

Did Anne Kilkenny Really Say Those Things About Sarah Palin?

David Emery's Urban Legends Blog:

The viral email of the hour is a lengthy screed lambasting Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin's record as a small-town mayor and Governor of Alaska. It was signed by one Anne Kilkenny, who claims she is longtime resident of Wasilla, Alaska and was able to observe Sarah Palin's governing style firsthand.

Did she really write it? Yes, she did. Does she really live in Wasilla? Yes, she does. And, in case you hadn't already guessed, she's a Democrat.

Anne Kilkenny on Sarah Palin*:

*This page also has links for: Sources confirming Anne Kilkenny as the author; Sarah Palin's record, and Sarah Palin on the issues.

Over The Rainbow

Pull Up A Chair…

By egregious:

"Somewhere over the rainbow, skies are blue
And the dreams that you dare to dream, really do come true"

I love this photo with the combination of dark skies, calm lake, and stunningly bright rainbow -- a double rainbow for good luck.

It's tempting to get trapped in the dark and think it will be like this forever, whether politically or personally. To get beyond that it helps to reconnect with your dreams -- your childhood dreams, your young adult hopes, your current vision for the future.

To be at a point of transition, when one set of dreams has come to fruition, but the next set are waiting for the muse, is a special challenge. I think a lot of us are experiencing this disequilibrium politically if not personally. Our ideas about the way things are supposed to be have been shaken. Developing new ideas, new dreams, takes time and creative thought and way more patience that I can find sometimes.

Photo by Nicholas_T at Minsi Lake, Northampton County PA

Zeitgeist From July 18

AlterNet's Weekly Zeitgeist:

Phony Drilling, Afghan Escalation, Never-Ending Financial Crisis and Much More

From Bush's oil hoax to the New Yorker's sorry attempt at satire, our Zeitgeist list tracks the progressive issues of the week.

This week's Zeitgeist rundown shows new issues have busted through to the consciousness of progressives, including the escalating war in Afghanistan (and with it the serious complexities of Pakistan), the rescinded presidential moratorium on offshore oil drilling, which critics say is all for show, and the huge brouhaha provoked by the New Yorker magazine's extremely provocative cover of Michelle and Barack Obama.

Still, the AlterNet Zeitgeist has some unfinished business, including the residue of anger about the newly passed FISA law, the constant reminder that Iraq is still all about the oil, and the ongoing debate about the future of feminism.

1. Phony drilling: once again the oilman in the White House is doing Big Oil's bidding

   ~ Faiz Shakir

2. Afghan War escalates: more American solders killed there than in Iraq

   ~ Tom Hayden

3. Our seemingly never-ending financial crisis

   ~ Paul Krugman

4. Provocative New Yorker cover jolts nation into heated debate

   ~ Don Hazen

5. Nuclear power is an illusion as a solution to the climate change crisis

   ~ Linda Gunter

6. Feminism's generational debate, provoked by the Hillary Clinton candidacy, is still going strong

   ~ Heidi Schnakenberg

7. In Iraq it is still about the oil

   ~ Noam Chomsky

8. Feds launch their annual reefer madness campaign

   ~ Sign On San Diego and Jim Hightower

9. Progressives licking their wounds over painful FISA defeat

   ~ Chris Hedges

10. Progressive audience keeping satirical flick "War, Inc." alive despite blackout

    ~ Joshua Holland

Our National Disaster

OUR TRUE NATIONAL DISASTER / GEORGE W BUSH

George W Bush is completely unaware that he is both laughed at by world leaders and scorned by 75% of the planet. Masquerading as a world leader ~ he has become America's true national disaster and it may take years to undo the careless damage and permanent grief he has wrought: Allen L Roland

Our National disaster, President George W. Bush, encourages all World leaders by assuring them they are not the biggest idiot on the Planet.

Pass This One Around!

Kudos to the author.

And a tip o' the hat to KA {{Cate}}, for recommending this.

The Right to Remain Silent

By Saje Williams:

When your President declares war on a oil-rich nation that poses no threat to the United States, you have the Right to Remain Silent. If you choose to give up that right, you will be harassed, insulted, threatened, and otherwise treated as if you are no longer an American.

When you watch America's name being dragged through the mud by power hungry fools in incidents of torture and kidnapping--you have the Right to Remain Silent.

When you hear your President comment that he thinks the Constitution is just a "damned piece of paper," you have the Right to Remain Silent.

When you learn that the plans for war were already on the table before 9/11, you have the Right to Remain Silent.

When a CIA operative has her cover blown because her husband is considered an enemy of the administration, you have the Right to Remain Silent.

When that same Administration, and its corrupt partners in Congress pass laws that strip away the safety nets for vulnerable American citizens, you have the Right to Remain Silent.

When a powerful hurricane levels a great American City and you watch people suffering on television for days, while aid is turned away by the authorities, you have the Right to Remain Silent.

While this administration continues to subsidize the oil companies during times of RECORD profits, you have the Right to Remain Silent.

When viciously obnoxious pundits are welcomed onto American news programs and treated as if they're decent, hard-working folks, you have the Right to Remain Silent.

While thousands of our soldiers are sent to a dry and dusty land to kill or be killed, you have the Right to Remain Silent.

When you finally begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel, having elected a majority of allegedly like-minded citizens to Congress to fight against the abuses of this administration only to find that they don't have the spine to pull it off, you have the Right to Remain Silent.

When you realize that the Iraqi people are NOT, in fact, better off than they were under a brutal dictator, you have the Right to Remain Silent.

When you discover that there's no easy way out of the war and our troops will continue to die while Iraq staggers its way through a horrific civil war, you have the Right to Remain Silent.

When you find that this administration, after nearly breaking our military with its incompetence and corruption, is trying to come up with a way to go to war with even MORE Middle Eastern countries, despite the fact that it hasn't managed even the ghost of a victory in either front it's currently fighting, you have the Right to Remain Silent.

While a sizeable portion of the population of your fellow Americans think you should be killed or thrown in prison for daring to have a different opinion about the way all this is going, and an unfavorable view of THEIR chosen leader, you have the Right to Remain Silent.

While this administration is busy carving a canyon of debt for you and your children to carry forward into perpetuity, you have the Right to Remain Silent.

While this government's economic policies are driving more and more people into poverty and a lifetime of debt, you have the Right to Remain Silent.

If you choose not to exercise this right, rest assured, the Corporate Media will exercise it for you.

* * * * * * * * * *

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

Weekly Zeitgeist

AlterNet's Weekly Zeitgeist List -- The 10 Hottest Issues of the Day

July 8, 2008:

1. Is Obama shifting rightward? What should supporters do?

   ~Arianna Huffington

2. Is the economy in free fall?

   ~Dean Baker

3. Gas prices through the roof; SUV and truck sales headed to the basement.

   ~Michael T. Klare

4. The Iraq war has always been about oil.

   ~Bill Moyers and Michael Winship

5. Obama's shifting position on FISA

   ~Glenn Greenwald; Bob Ostertag

6. Will Bush bomb Iran?

   ~Jim Lobe; Amy Goodman

7. The debate over intergenerational feminism following Hillary's loss.

   ~Courtney Martin

8. Campaign for universal health insurance.

   ~Roger Hickey

9. California Supreme Court recognizes gay couples' right to say "I do."

   ~Gilbert Herdt and Robert Kertzner

10. A Supreme Court on the Brink.

    ~NY Times Editorial

And one for the road:

Professor Ticketed for "No to Empire" Bumper Sticker

The police state in the mirror is closer than it appears:


Professor Robert Ovetz was driving through San Francisco on the morning of June 30 when he saw the lights of a police car behind him.

Ovetz pulled over.

"When the officer came up to my window, he asked the typical police requests: registration, drivers’ license, insurance card," says Ovetz. "I asked him why he was pulling me over. And he said because of the bumper sticker on my back window."

That sticker says, "No to Empire," in large bold letters, and on the bottom in very small letters, "www.thenation.com," Ovetz notes. It’s a bumper sticker from The Nation magazine.

Ovetz’s first reaction was to laugh, he says.

Then he recalls the following conversation:

"How could it be illegal for me to have a bumper sticker on my back windshield?"

"It’s obscuring your view."

"You’re just trampling on my free speech rights."

"No sir, I’m just doing my job."

At that point, the officer went back to his squad car for a few minutes.

When he returned, he gave Ovetz a ticket.

That ticket cited part of the vehicle code that prohibits driving a car if the "driver’s clear vision" is "obstructed by snow or ice" on the car windows.

"I’ve never seen snow in June in San Francisco," says Ovetz’s attorney, Ross Dreyer. [snip]

[Ed: You can buy your very own "No To Empire" bumper sticker (pictured above) at the Nation Store.]

The Girl With The Beautiful Swing

For the sake of the girl with the beautiful swing

For 10-year-olds everywhere -- Little Leaguers or not -- I hope we get a better president than the incompetent we've wasted eight years of our national life on.

By Garrison Keillor

It's July and I hadn't been to a ballgame yet this year, the sign of a misspent spring. I got there just as the runner pulled up at second and the next batter came to the plate, a girl, the only girl on the field, and I climbed into the bleachers, a meager crowd, and the moment I sat down I knew I was sitting next to the batter's father.

He was silent and yet bursting with feeling. Rays of fatherly devotion emanated from him.

She looked good at the plate, nice easy stance, hands cocked behind her right ear, bat high and straight up.

"How's she doing?" I said. He said she was doing great. He didn't take his eyes off her. She took two low pitches and the third was a fat one down the middle and she put the wood to it and the centerfielder, who had been playing her shallow, turned and ran helter-skelter toward the fence and got there as the ball caromed off it and the girl was steaming toward second with her mind on third.

----
A ballgame is a great place to get to know somebody. You talk sideways during the interludes of which baseball has many, and since the game itself is so orderly, you can converse in non sequiturs, and after I told him about my 10-year-old girl, who loves to swim, and we agreed on what a great age 10 is and what intense pleasure a kid is capable of, we got to the grim business of What Do You Do For A Living. He said he was a cop. I said I was unemployed. (You tell people you're a writer and they tend to clam up.)

"Tough times," he said. I nodded. We might've gotten onto politics then, but we got onto music and Ireland and so forth, but I thought, "Here is a guy the candidates have to talk to this summer." A cop is a realist and he knows where Rockwell leaves off and surrealism begins, and here is his girl taking a big lead off third base and he loves her so beautifully and unabashedly and wants the world to be there for her when it comes her time to fly.

I'm 65 and have a good life and can't claim that the Current Occupant has done me much harm at all. It's when I think about 10-year-old girls I start to get hot under the collar. This clueless man has dug a deep hole for them and doesn't seem vaguely aware of it. He has spent us deep in a hole, gotten us into a disastrous war, blithely ignored the long-term best interests of the country, and when you think of the 4,000 kids who now lie in cemeteries, and for what? -- you start to grind your teeth. For the sake of the girl with the beautiful swing, I hope we get a better president than the disgusting incompetent we've wasted eight years of our national life on.

You're how old?

FOREVER YOUNG

Joan Baez

May God bless and keep you always
May your wishes all come true
May you always do for others
And let others do for you
May you build a ladder to the stars
And climb on every rung
And may you stay forever young

May you grow up to be righteous
May you grow up to be true
May you always know the truth
And see the lights surrounding you
May you always be courageous
Stand upright and be strong
And may you stay forever young

Forever young, forever young
May you stay, oh, forever young

May your hands always be busy
May your feet always be swift
And may you have a firm foundation
When the winds of changes shift
May your heart always be joyful
May your song always be sung
And may you stay forever young

Forever young, forever young
May you stay, oh, forever young

Got Vertigo?

Carpetbagger Report has a couple of interesting posts up regarding an exchange between Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Senator Barbara Boxer during the hearings on Iraq last Thursday.

The spin has set the conservatives off in a tizzy. Carpetbagger cites from the apparent source of this (fake) controversy, the New York Post...

From part one:

NYP: Boxer was wholly in character for her party – New York's own two Democratic senators, Chuck Schumer and Hillary Rodham Clinton, were predictably opportunistic — but the Golden State lawmaker earned special attention for the tasteless jibes she aimed at Rice.

Rice appeared before the Senate in defense of President Bush's tactical change in Iraq, and quickly encountered Boxer.

"Who pays the price? I'm not going to pay a personal price," Boxer said. "My kids are too old, and my grandchild is too young." Then, to Rice: "You're not going to pay a particular price, as I understand it, with an immediate family."

Breathtaking. Simply breathtaking. […] The junior senator from California apparently believes that an accomplished, seasoned diplomat, a renowned scholar and an adviser to two presidents like Condoleezza Rice is not fully qualified to make policy at the highest levels of the American government because she is a single, childless woman.

Carpetbagger:

Following the NY Post's lead, conservative bloggers have been in a frenzy, accusing Boxer of everything from callousness, to anti-feminism, to homophobia.

I'm afraid these critics have lost their collective minds.

In the context of the hearing, Boxer was talking about the costs of the war being shouldered by a small portion of American society, and that those sacrifices generally aren't felt by senators or cabinet secretaries. It was a point about personal sacrifice — and how thousands of families are paying the ultimate personal price for this misguided war.

The NY Post accused Boxer of arguing that Rice isn't "qualified" to be Secretary of State because she has no children. That's insane; Boxer said nothing of the sort. The senator merely noted that neither she nor Rice stand to lose any close relatives in this conflict. That doesn't have anything to do with either of their qualifications or their personal lives.

Carpetbagger has a second installment up today about Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) allegedly insulting Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

And now, the spin cycles...

From part two:

Carpetbagger:

In an interview with The New York Times on Friday, Ms. Rice suggested that Ms. Boxer had set back feminism by suggesting during the hearing that the childless Ms. Rice had paid no price in the Iraq war.

NYT: "I thought it was O.K. to be single," Ms. Rice said. "I thought it was O.K. to not have children, and I thought you could still make good decisions on behalf of the country if you were single and didn’t have children." …

[T]he White House spokesman, Tony Snow, suggested earlier on Friday that Senator Boxer's comments were antifeminist. "I don't know if she was intentionally tacky," Mr. Snow said in an interview on Fox News. "It's a great leap backward for feminism.”

Carpetbagger:

At the time of the hearing on Thursday, when the exchange actually happened, no one even raised an eyebrow. Rice wasn't offended, Senate Republicans raised no objections, and there were no gasps of outrage from the audience. It was a largely meaningless half-minute confrontation.

And then Rupert Murdoch's New York Post had an idea, which was embraced by conservative blogs and talk radio (Rush Limbaugh, a champion of single African-American women, was all over the story). The White House looked at all of this and apparently concluded, "Wait, we can turn this nonsense into a controversy? And attack Boxer instead of defend our indefensible policy? Great idea!"

Once again, consider exactly what Boxer said:

"Now, the issue is who pays the price. Who pays the price? I'm not going to pay a personal price. My kids are too old and my grandchild is too young. You're not going to pay a particular price, as I understand it, with an immediate family. So who pays the price? The American military and their families. And I just want to bring us back to that fact."

Carpetbagger continues:

Rice began to respond about her personal losses, saying, "I can never do anything to replace any of those lost men and women in uniform, or the diplomats, some of whom…"

Boxer cut her off. "Madam Secretary, please, I know you feel terrible about it. That's not the point. I was making the case as to who pays the price for your decisions."

This wasn't about Rice's personal life. Rice knows it, Tony Snow knows it, anyone who actually bothers to read and/or listen to what was said knows it.

The President Who Cried Wolf

Bush's legacy: The president who cried wolf

Olbermann:
Bush's strategy fails because it depends on his credibility

Special Comment By Keith Olbermann

Excerpts:

Only this president, only in this time, only with this dangerous, even messianic certitude, could answer a country demanding an exit strategy from Iraq, by offering an entrance strategy for Iran.

Only this president could look out over a vista of 3,008 dead and 22,834 wounded in Iraq, and finally say, "Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me" — only to follow that by proposing to repeat the identical mistake ... in Iran.

Only this president could extol the "thoughtful recommendations of the Iraq Study Group," and then take its most far-sighted recommendation — "engage Syria and Iran" — and transform it into "threaten Syria and Iran" — when al-Qaida would like nothing better than for us to threaten Syria, and when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would like nothing better than to be threatened by us.

_____

Mr. Bush, the question is no longer "what are you thinking?," but rather "are you thinking at all?"

"I have made it clear to the prime minister and Iraq's other leaders that America's commitment is not open-ended," you said last night.

And yet — without any authorization from the public, which spoke so loudly and clearly to you in November's elections — without any consultation with a Congress (in which key members of your own party, including Sens. Sam Brownback, Norm Coleman and Chuck Hagel, are fleeing for higher ground) — without any awareness that you are doing exactly the opposite of what Baker-Hamilton urged you to do — you seem to be ready to make an open-ended commitment (on America's behalf) to do whatever you want, in Iran.

_____

We are going to put 17,500 more troops into Baghdad and 4,000 more into Anbar Province to give the Iraqi government "breathing space."

_____

Mr. Bush did not mention that while our people are trying to do that, the factions in the civil war will no longer have to focus on killing each other, but rather they can focus anew on killing our people.

Because last night the president foolishly all but announced that we will be sending these 21,500 poor souls, but no more after that, and if the whole thing fizzles out, we’re going home.

The plan fails militarily.

The plan fails symbolically.

The plan fails politically.

Most importantly, perhaps, Mr. Bush, the plan fails because it still depends on your credibility.

You speak of mistakes and of the responsibility "resting" with you.

But you do not admit to making those mistakes.

And you offer us nothing to justify this clenched fist toward Iran and Syria.

In fact, when you briefed news correspondents off-the-record before the speech, they were told, once again, "if you knew what we knew … if you saw what we saw … "

"If you knew what we knew" was how we got into this morass in Iraq in the first place.

The problem arose when it turned out that the question wasn't whether we knew what you knew, but whether you knew what you knew.

You, sir, have become the president who cried wolf.

_____

Your assurances, sir, and your demands that we trust you, have lost all shape and texture.

They are now merely fertilizer for conspiracy theories.

They are now fertilizer, indeed.

The pile has been built slowly and with seeming care.

_____

Mr. Bush, this is madness.

Madness

Larry Beinhart: 2007 - Year of Madness

Buzzflash - Excerpt:

George Bush can't leave Iraq.

Look at it from where he sits.

Getting Saddam was going to be Bush's jackpot.

He was going to go in, win it, bring democracy to the Middle East, make it clear that no should ever dare challenge America, and establish America's vision as the world's vision. If Bush had won that hand he would have been declared one of history's great men.

He went all in.

He used all the political capital he'd acquired from 9/11. Plus he gave up on Osama bin Laden, Mullah Omar and Afghanistan. He told lies about why we went to war. He violated the basics of international law. He alienated our allies. If he won, all that would be forgotten and forgiven. Worth the price. Proof of his daring manliness. Success erases more sins than being born again ever will. Just ask Jimmy Carter.

But he lost.

Can he get up and walk away from the table?

No.

The moment he folds his Iraq hand, all that's left is to ride out of history on a Greyhound bus. There he goes, President Loser, bet his poke on the wrong war. Played the hand all wrong. Was he the worst president ever, or just second or third worst?

His only choice is to stubbornly stay at the table, ignore the voices telling him that he's broke, and chase his losses. Maybe a miracle will happen. People do win the lottery. But you do have to be in it to win it.

Maybe he won't hit the jackpot, but he has to hope he can at least break even. Cut his loses. Something. At this point, he, personally, has nothing more to lose. He's playing with other people's lives and money.

Even if the war remains a quagmire, death and destruction with no end in sight, Bush -- personally -- is better off. American service men and women, Americans who are paying the bills, Iraqis, and the rest of the world, may not be. But he's better off. Because that will force someone else to pull the plug. Bush will then maintain that had we just stuck to it, it would have succeeded eventually. He will then hire an army of payable pundits and whorish historians to churn out books and papers to say so. That's what the half billion dollar presidential library is for.

Bush is "commander-in-chief." Congress can't undeclare the war they so foolishly gave him permission for. The generals won't mutiny or organize a coup (and we should be very thankful for that).

The war will continue.

The opposition to the war will grow. The more it grows, the more Bush will hunker down and the more he will insist that it continue. Either as a small force, to be whittled away, death by death, cripple after cripple, or, as much as he can, he will escalate. Doubling down. There is no formula for getting out of the war that eliminates the moment of recognition that he is a failure, an abject and utter failure.

h/t Bergs

Olbermann On "Sacrifice"

Snippets:

The additional men and women you have sentenced to go there, sir, will serve only as targets.

They will not be there "short-term," Mr. Bush; for many it will mean a year or more in death's shadow.

This is not temporary, Mr. Bush.

For the Americans who will die because of you, it will be as permanent as it gets.

The various rationales for what Mr. Bush will reportedly re-christen "sacrifice" constitute a very thin gruel, indeed.

The former labor secretary, Robert Reich, says Sen. John McCain told him that the "surge" would help the "morale" of the troops already in Iraq.

If Mr. McCain truly said that, and truly believes it, he has either forgotten completely his own experience in Vietnam ... or he is unaware of the recent Military Times poll indicating only 38 percent of our active military want to see more troops sent ... or Mr. McCain has departed from reality.

Then there is the argument that to take any steps toward reducing troop numbers would show weakness to the enemy in Iraq, or to the terrorists around the world.

This simplistic logic ignores the inescapable fact that we have indeed already showed weakness to the enemy, and to the terrorists.

We have shown them that we will let our own people be killed for no good reason.

We have now shown them that we will continue to do so.

We have shown them our stupidity.

Mr. Bush, your judgment about Iraq — and now about "sacrifice" — is at variance with your people’s, to the point of delusion.

Your most respected generals see no value in a "surge" — they could not possibly see it in this madness of "sacrifice."

The Iraq Study Group told you it would be a mistake.

Perhaps dozens more have told you it would be a mistake.

And you threw their wisdom back, until you finally heard what you wanted to hear, like some child drawing straws and then saying "best two out of three … best three out of five … hundredth one counts."

Your citizens, the people for whom you work, have told you they do not want this, and moreover, they do not want you to do this.

Yet once again, sir, you have ignored all of us.

Mr. Bush, you do not own this country!

___

You have dressed it up in the clothing, first of a hunt for weapons of mass destruction, then of liberation ... then of regional imperative ... then of oil prices ... and now in these new terms of "sacrifice" — it's like a damned game of Colorforms, isn't it, sir?

This senseless, endless war.

____

The only object still admissible in this debate is the quickest and safest exit for our people there.

But you — and soon, Mr. Bush, it will be you and you alone — still insist otherwise.

And our sons and daughters and fathers and mothers will be sacrificed there tonight, sir, so that you can say you did not "lose in Iraq."

Our policy in Iraq has been criticized for being indescribable, for being inscrutable, for being ineffable.

But it is all too easily understood now.

First we sent Americans to their deaths for your lie, Mr. Bush.

Now we are sending them to their deaths for your ego.

If what is reported is true — if your decision is made and the "sacrifice" is ordered — take a page instead from the man at whose funeral you so eloquently spoke this morning — Gerald Ford:

Put pragmatism and the healing of a nation ahead of some kind of misguided vision.

Atone.

Sacrifice, Mr. Bush?

No, sir, this is not "sacrifice." This has now become "human sacrifice."

And it must stop.

And you can stop it.

Keith Olbermann commentary: "Sacrifice"

Before We Go Eulogizing

Before We Go Eulogizing Gerald Ford...

by Wayne Madsen

As the nation eulogizes President Gerald R. Ford, who died last night in California, no one should lose sight of the fact that it was Ford who helped launch the careers of the two ugliest faces in the George W. Bush administration. Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. Cheney and Rumsfeld were deep-selected from lower-level positions in the Nixon administration and named as Chief of Staff and Deputy Chief of Staff for Ford's White House. After Rumsfeld was selected as Ford's Secretary of Defense, Cheney succeeded his longtime mentor as Chief of Staff.

Rumsfeld and Cheney made it their cause to "restore" the power of Nixon's "imperial presidency" to a future Republican president. That was all but impossible under Reagan and Bush I since the entire Congress was in the hands of the Democrats for all but six years. However, Cheney and Rumsfeld succeeded in their goal under George W. Bush.

In addition to the "gruesome twosome" of Rumsfeld and Cheney, Ford also propelled George H. W. Bush into the world of future chicanery when he named the former Texas congressman, UN ambassador, envoy to Beijing, and Republican National Committee chair as CIA Director. Bush, who only served as director for one year managed to involve the agency in a number of terrorist attacks, a direct slap at those who were trying to curb the excesses of the CIA under the Nixon administration, including outgoing director William Colby.

Bush approved CIA assistance in the illegal car bombing assassination of former Chilean Foreign Minister Orlando Letelier and his American colleague, Ronni Moffitt, on a Washington, DC street in the heart of Embassy Row. Under Ford, Bush also approved the bombing of a Cubana Airlines passenger plane off the coast of Barbados that killed over 70 men, women, and children.

Much is being made of Ford's statement in the wake of Nixon's resignation that "our long national nightmare is over." Mr. Ford's elevation of Bush, Sr., Rumsfeld, and Cheney did not end our national nightmare, it merely postponed it until January 20, 2001.

Rat-Holes and Rats

Exiting the Rat-Hole: Iraq & CheneyBush

By Bernard Weiner, The Crisis Papers

Excerpts:

The American people in the past several years have learned about all sorts of previously-kept secrets involving the Bush Administration: its pay-to-play corruptions via Abramoff and other lobbyists, its advocacy and implentation of torture as official state policy, its sending detainees in its custody to secret CIA prisons around the globe, its "extraordinary renditions" that deliver high-value suspects to countries abroad that are notorious for excrutiating torture methods, its eavesdropping without court warrants on Americans' phone calls and emails, its memos outlining how Bush can rule as an unchecked king able to ignore laws because of "national security" concerns (an assumption of power ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court when President Nixon tried it), and on and on. [...]

But everything we've learned in the past several years about the Bush Administration's policies and programs reveals an over-reaching drive for power and secrecy -- and always desiring more of both -- carried out by incompetents that never have had to face accountability for their drastic mistakes. Katrina is just the tip of the very large iceberg.

Bush claims that he did face a moment of "accountability," the 2004 election; he thereby claims that nothing can be done since then to hold him accountable for anything. He almost dares the House to impeach him, since he's pretty sure they won't. [...]

And then there is Iraq. [...]

This isn't even a lame-duck presidency. It's on artificial life-support and there is no guarantee it can last through the next two years without infecting the entire body politic with its dangerous dementia. [...]

Since Bush will never resign -- to him, it would be the equivalent of ego suicide -- that means the economic and political forces behind his administration will encourage the Democrats to finish him off, perhaps through impeachment. [...]

Thanks to CheneyBush's war, there is such a mess in Iraq now that maybe nothing will work. But we all know that continuing the war and Occupation under the current Administration's disastrous leadership offers little hope either to Americans or to Iraqis. Indeed, continuing on with the present leadership is a recipe for further disasters. [...]

Right now our troops are dying and coming home maimed for no good purpose, and nearly a half-trillion dollars have been poured down the rathole of this baseless ideological adventure, money that could be far better spent at home.

America will not be able to start dealing with the immense political and economic reconstruction work that needs to be done inside America until we can begin to get the 800-lb. gorilla that is Iraq off our collective back.

First published by The Crisis Papers, 12/12/06.
© 2006 - Bernard Weiner