It’s Election Day, and I have a bad feeling that the Republicans are going to steal yet another election from the bumbling Democrats. There are just too many Diebold voting machines out there, plus the usual tactics for suppressing votes.
The October surprise ended up being the Saddam trial verdict. Gee, no political calculations there – just good ole American luck! I wonder why all those conservative pundits who were decrying the political timing of the Mark Foley scandal are not now harshly criticizing the politicization of the trial timing. I guess consistency isn’t a family value.
I realized yesterday that I can hardly even listen to Bush speak anymore without turning my stomach. I heard him on the radio last night whipping up a crowd of supporters. He said something about how Saddam has been found guilty and is now going to hang, followed by thunderous applause from the crowd. It was quite unseemly, not unlike a French Revolution mob’s bloodthirsty calls for beheading the King. We Are Barbarians! We Are Proud Of It! Yea For Us!
I remember six years ago when I was horrified about then Governor Bush’s glee in executing criminals, even mocking one of them. Many of them did not have fair trials and at least one of them was later found to be innocent. I thought this lack of concern for human rights would translate into the normal Republican disdain for civil rights and erosion of programs designed to help the least among us. That the anti-Christian values of helping the rich and protecting the privileged would win the day.
As someone interviewed on the Daily Show mentioned (I can’t remember her name), these fears were a major failure of imagination on the part of liberals. Who would have thought that six years later, this country would have embarked on an aggressive, unilateral, and unjustified war, killed hundreds of thousands of people, created chaos and strife abroad, legalized torture, illegally wiretapped Americans, and emptied the treasury in support of tax breaks for the wealthy. Ironically, none of this would have been possible without the help of conservative Christians at the voting booth, voting against the values of their very own founder.
I don’t know whether Americans are capable of holding this Republican administration accountable for their deeds. I thought it was obvious two election cycles ago that some accountability was needed, which is why my political predictions are pretty useless these days. I guess we’ll find out in a few hours.
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
Election Day Musings
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5 comments:
Did you vote in Illinois or Indiana? It looks like your vote might be more valuable in Indiana, where the congressional race in your distric was close, if I remember correctly.
I absenteed in Illinois, since that is my permanent address. My liberalism compels me to vote legally, which is such a drag.
"...emptied the treasury..."
Hate to break the news to you, but the 'treasury' has been empty for decades. If you're refering to the Clinton era government surplus (of course you are), then you have a good memory, though a selective one. The national DEBT was never paid off during Bubba's time, he just made it possible to pay off a little more of the principal. But did he?
That's alright, Dan. I know how tricky it is to get around those reality-based facts, as Jon Stewart calls them, and yet still make your point (in the same manner as the Republicans).
;-)
I'm the same as Republicans because the figurative "emptied the treasury" must be taken literally to have integrity? Are you saying it must refer to a literal vault somewhere that had piles of money in it that have been literally carted off by George Bush, and anything short of that is the equivalent of lying about WMD or swiftboating a war hero?
If we are going to be literal about it, the treasury is quite full of dollars it prints everyday. By your logic, you are the same as Bush when you claim the treasury is empty.
All I'm saying is that Bush didn't create the national debt, as you seem to have inferred in your post.
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