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2007-04-02 Home Front: Politix

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Posted by ryuge 2007-04-02 07:22|| || Front Page|| [6 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Amen to that

Posted by DanNY 2007-04-02 07:44|| 2007-04-02 07:44|| Front Page Top

#2 I think Bush is tired and done, he tried to get the world and America to see what needed to be done and they rejected it and now he is probably thinking screw them. I would.( tho I do think Bush shot himself in the foot a couple times)

Posted by djohn66 2007-04-02 07:59|| 2007-04-02 07:59|| Front Page Top

#3 Someone once said "The best Defense is a good Offense." All I have seen in the past years is Defese and back peddling. The Donks case is weak and it wouldn't take much to topple that house of cards.

Posted by Cyber Sarge 2007-04-02 10:40|| 2007-04-02 10:40|| Front Page Top

#4 Bush can't really fight back; he's toxic - even the Repubs in Congress no longer feel they can associate with him. He's making as few waves as he can now so that at least he still has the potential to get a veto sustained (should he ever decide to use one.)

Posted by Glenmore">Glenmore 2007-04-02 12:13|| 2007-04-02 12:13|| Front Page Top

#5 So many times the Bush administration has been unwilling to defend itself. Part of the problem is W's speech impairment. Part of it is just fatigue.

Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2007-04-02 12:54|| 2007-04-02 12:54|| Front Page Top

#6 This could have been written (with different details) years ago. The administration has been passive forever, and outrageously so.

Not outrageous because it hurts his approval ratings, because those don't matter - outrageous because the administration has mishandled fundamental issues in a way that will hurt the country and the world after Bush leaves office. Leave aside the infatuation with magic and finesse in Iraq (that's a malady that runs deep in the military, not the administration's creation).

The crucial and common sense concept of pre-emption has been horribly mangled, and the role of (unavoidably flawed) intelligence in all that has never been explained. It took guts to act pre-emptively even being Bush, and even in the aftermath of 9/11. The next president may need to act even more decisively in a pre-emptive mode - and look at the political and public perception landscape Bush is bequeathing to the next CinC.

As for Bush being toxic, the performance of the political class (GOP, and the presumably still extant small number of serious Dems) actually speaks for itself, and is as troubling as the WH's inexplicable passivity. Bush is toxic to the midgets who now populate the Hill, and who are in Washington for no apparent reason other than to be in Washington.

Words like treason are cheap in website comment sections like this, and generally inappropriate. But cowardice and cluelessness are entirely justified strong words to use WRT the current political class. I can't imagine the country or world would be any less well off if all 535 members of congress disappeared from Earth this afternoon. Usual Twain-like snarkiness aside, that's a very damning observation. As a WH flails for no good reason, there's not a single voice, not a single personality that's even once stood up to provide some leadership. It's a lilliputian moment in American politics.

But it's even worse than that. The descent of the major media into unprofessional, partisan, mediocre analytical advocacy is well understood.

But less appreciated is the evaporation of standards in public service. The preposterous and loathsome Wilson couple are the poster children, but the leakers of the NSA program and the SWIFT operation are even more troubling. Thousands of rank-and-file public employees toil in strict compliance with all their professional and legal and ethical obligations, many risking their lives, often disagreeing with some policy that's current. And then arrogant, irresponsible, clueless senior types in comfortable Washington jobs take it upon themselves to be FISA Court, Supreme Court, National Security Council, and President all in one, and make momentous decisions about classified programs. And their felonies aren't even investigated effectively, no one goes to Club Fed.

And that's not all. The Supreme Court just starts making shit up - even more than they already had in the 70s and 80s. They insert their ridiculous and baseless interpretation of Common Article III as law of the land - thus neatly usurping the proper constitutional roles of the Senate and the executive branch. So now an unelected panel of folks with no particular understanding of security issues obligates the US to international standards we specifically have refused to accept through the elected executive branch that has the job of dealing with such matters. And silly me, I used to think it was a bit rich even in the early 1990s to be explaining "rule of law" and the importance of a free press to ex-Soviets ..... sheesh.

This WH is way, way past needing to fight back (and on substance, not political atmospherics). But seems to me like the wheels (professionally, ethically, in terms of standards) have come off the system in many other ways that can't be addressed by a WH public affairs or political offensive.

Posted by Verlaine 2007-04-02 15:44|| 2007-04-02 15:44|| Front Page Top

#7 Verlaine '08!

Posted by xbalanke 2007-04-02 16:01|| 2007-04-02 16:01|| Front Page Top

#8 I can't imagine the country or world would be any less well off if all 535 members of congress disappeared from Earth this afternoon.

Which is why I've been obliged to speculate upon the intense irony of Washington DC being targeted for a terrorist nuclear attack when they have done so incredibly little to prevent such a catastrophe.

Outstanding commentary, Verlaine!

Posted by Zenster">Zenster 2007-04-02 19:04|| 2007-04-02 19:04|| Front Page Top

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