Saturday, May 26, 2007
Random observations:- Throughout the media on Friday, the votes in Congress were consistently characterized as "funding the troops" instead of "funding the war". A disgrace.
- If you haven't been reading the Howler and Anonymous Liberal, you should. Their observations that the media is setting up to portray any Democratic presidential candidate as "troubling" and Republicans (especially Fred Thompson) as "experienced" and "genuine" are correct. 2008 could be another dismal election year, like 2000 was. The latest in this saga is the McCain/Obama idiocy promoted by Politico.
- Bush's press conference on Thursday was cringe-inducing for anybody with an IQ over 110. Fred Kaplan has a decent review of ths stupidity.
- The attempted manipulation of elections by the Justice Department and White House is not getting sufficient coverage. That the press and pundits aren't all over this story is quite striking.
- The Murdoch of Moscow. The New York Times had an interesting editorial about the press in Russia. Key points:
After Mr. Putin took over, national television stations were the first to lose their independence. Major newspapers are increasingly controlled by those who do the state’s bidding. The radio correspondents for the Russian News Service, the main source of news for radio stations, resigned earlier this month to protest censorship by new owners.
In the meantime, polls show President Putin’s popularity has soared. No wonder. Fewer and fewer Russians can see or hear from anyone who opposes him, his policies or his government. - The vote in Congress for the supplemental for Iraq: Congress, especially the Senate, does not represent current public opinion. Two-thirds of the Senate are legacy seats, from elections in 2002 and 2004. And the Senate is not representative of the people, but of the states. That's why when a war gets started, it takes a long time to shut it down. Not defending everything E. J. Dionne says, but he does note that:
Rep. Dave Obey (D-Wis.), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, said recently that no one remembers how long it took to reverse the direction of American policy in Vietnam. Obey is hunkered down for a lengthy struggle.
Happy Memorial Day Weekend.
posted by Quiddity at 5/26/2007 12:33:00 AM
2 comments
RE: The president's news conference and the war in Iraq.
Why isn't there a distinction made between the sectarian fighting (civil war if you must) and the insurgency.
If American troops must stay, which seems certain as long as the wussy Democrats control congrees, shouldn't they concentrate their efforts fighting the Al Qaida wannabe insurgency and not the sectarian death squads which is a local issue?
To be more accurate and get the sound bite jump on the conservatives, we should call the Al Qaida wannabe insurgents Bush babies.
Regarding the funding of the war, I hope we all realize that come 2008 the Republicans will NOT be able to say the Democrats lost the war by failing to support the funding of the troops.
If I was a Democrat running for President I would point out that Bush was given carte blanche to win, but Bush failed to do so due to a fundamentally flawed policy.
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