Who will step up?

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane & My Left Wing click to enlarge The list of do-nothing Democrats gets longer and longer every day we are in Iraq. In 2006, Americans sent a powerful message with their vote to end the war in Iraq. Now that the Democrats are in control of both halves of Congress, we are still in Iraq. We will be in Iraq for the foreseeable future. Bush has even said it will be his predecessor that brings the troops home. He has also embraced a “South Korea” scenario where we NEVER leave Iraq. Since the 2006 election, even MORE Americans see the Iraq invasion as a horrible mistake and want our troops brought home and support such legislation. Still, we remain in Iraq. We don’t even have a withdrawal plan and this shouldn’t be surprising. We had no plan going into Iraq, why should we expect BushCo to have one for coming OUT. It is time to STOP enabling Democrats and START making them vote for US, not their corporate contributors. The people of the 11th District may have voted to put Shuler in Congress, but it was a national effort of progressive bloggers and small donations from all over the country that paid for the ads, the mailers - the whole campaign. But Congressmen like Shuler should be made aware of just how tenuous their hold of their Congressional seat is. If he keeps voting the same way as Elizabeth Dole, I will do all I can to support his challengers in the 2008 Primaries. In fact, any Democrat that keeps a voting record akin to Elizabeth Dole’s needs to be replaced. My question to you is, who will step up?

Does the GOP See an Opening?

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane & My Left Wing click to enlarge With whispers expressed through a bullhorn, Fred Thompson seems to be running for President. Undoubtedly this will energize the Republican base and certainly it will make it more difficult for Pelosi, Reid and the Defeat-o-crats to get the issue of the war solved. Unless there is a tidal shift on the left, the 2008 election will be up for grabs by either party. But, and there is always a “but,” but there is yet another “known unknown,” to use a Rumsfelding term, for the progressive political side and it is Al Gore. If Gore gets in to save us from the GOP and the Clintons, it will be an interesting race, especially between two Southerners, two former Senators from Tennessee.

Mr. Bush, your party is jumping ship without you.

click to enlarge You are in trouble when George Will and William F. Buckley begin to think not only is Bush's foreign policy strategery flawed, but it is so horrid, it has the chance to sink the Republican Party back to where it was during the Great Depression. George Will from ABC's This Week: They do not want to have, as they had in 2006, another election on Iraq. George, it took 30, 40 years for the Republican Party to get out from under Herbert Hoover. People would say, "Are you going to vote for Nixon in '60?" "No, I don't like Hoover." The Depression haunted the Republican Party. This could be a foreign policy equivalent of the Depression, forfeiting the Republican advantage they've had since the '68 convention of the Democratic Party and the nomination of [George] McGovern. The advantage Republicans have had on national security matters may be forfeited. And from Buckley's column (courtesy thesaurus link) : The political problem of the Bush administration is grave, possibly beyond the point of rescue. The opinion polls are savagely decisive on the Iraq question. About 60% of Americans wish the war ended — wish at least a timetable for orderly withdrawal. What is going on in Congress is in the nature of accompaniment. The vote in Congress is simply another salient in the war against war in Iraq. Republican forces, with a couple of exceptions, held fast against the Democrats' attempt to force Mr. Bush out of Iraq even if it required fiddling with the Constitution. President Bush will veto the bill, of course, but its impact is critically important in the consolidation of public opinion. It can now accurately be said that the legislature, which writes the people's laws, opposes the war. If Christopher Hitchens ever leaves the plantation, you might as well order the tombstone for the GOP.

What have the Republicans accomplished?

click to enlarge Let's all put on our non-partisan hats today and try to come up with a list of the positive things the Republicans have accomplished in the last 20 years. Come on, you can do this. I will barely hurt. I'll wait. Take your time. Nothing? Me neither and I slept in my damn hat.

Liddy Come Home! (NC-Sen)

click to enlarge Why us? Why is North Carolina saddled with such a useless and inactive Senator as Elizabeth Dole? She is ranked as one of the "10 Worst Senators" by Empowering Veterans and the real question of her residence always comes into play. Her husband, Bob Dole is a resident of Kansas and they are still married. So how is it she is a resident of NC? How many other couples do you know that have residencies to two separate states? NC deserves better.