Still deluding themselves

Most conservatives I know are still in denial about the 2006 midterm election results. They want to blame their loss on their party’s failure to crack down on domestic spending programs - that tiny part of the federal budget that pales in comparison to the Defense budget and the Entitlement programs. This, of course, is ridiculous.

The election was all about Iraq - Bush’s quagmire - and I think we have only seen the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the electorate’s disgust for this bloody debacle. I will predict right now that no Republican will win the 2008 presidential race, especially if this war drags on for another two years as is likely. And any Democrat who wasn’t sufficiently opposed to the war will have difficulties getting elected - including Hillary Clinton. It’s ironic that Hillary’s decision in 2003 to play it safe and support Bush’s war resolution could turn out to be the biggest albatross around her neck in 2008. Personally, I hope she decides to sit this election out and let Al Gore have another shot at it, but I’m not sure her financial backers would support that decision after pouring so much money into her Senate re-election campaign against token opposition.

The war opponents were right from the beginning. That could not be more clear today as the Iraq Study Group’s report shows. It will probably take us another two to three years to fully extricate ourselves from that mess, and many more American soldiers will die as a result. And in the end we will have little to show for it. There is no “democracy” in Iraq today. The country is divided into warring factions and there is no “good” side for us to back.

On the one hand we have the Sunnis, the once-dominant minority that ruled the country with their authoritarian Baathist Party headed up by Saddam Hussein. On the other side we have the Shiites, the bitter and revengeful, newly-empowered majority led by Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi army militia which is supported by the Iranian mullahs and the militant Hezbollah. The Mahdi Army is said to be more powerful than the fledgling Iraqi Army that we are so desperately trying to prop up long enough for us to skeedaddle. There is no clear distinction between the good guys and the bad guys in this fight. Whenever a bomb goes off you might as well flip a coin to determine who was responsible.

That’s why we’ve got to get out. We are stuck in the middle of a turkey shoot and nobody wants us there. Even long-time war supporters like Republican Sen. Gordon Smith are finally acknowledging this reality.

Early retirment

I saw the bad news today over at Off the Kuff: The Fox Trot comic strip will soon be joining the ranks of Calvin and Hobbes, The Far Side and Bloom County as popular strips that ended too soon.

FoxTrot waltzes its way into early retirement.

This is awful! Fox Trot was one of my Top Tier comics strips that I looked forward to reading everyday. I remember when it first came on the scene in 1988 just as we were losing Bloom County. At least Bill Amend will continue to do the Sunday strips for now, but I will miss him during the rest of the week. It’s too bad that we keep losing these great strips while the dead wood strips just continue to hang around forever, some to the point of petrification.

Here are my Top Tier daily strips now that Fox Trot will be bowing out (* = only available online):

For Better or For Worse
Luann
Doonesbury
Zits
Curtis
Monty*
Big Nate*
Rudy Park*

Dilbert used to be up there but has fallen off to my second tier list since being relegated to the inside business section where I often forget to go to read it.

Second Tier strips include:

Dilbert
Rose is Rose
Non Sequitur
Piranha Club
Drabble*
Baldo
One Big Happy
Funky Winkerbean*
Crankshaft*
Heart of the City*
Get Fuzzy
Preteena*
Sally Forth
Sherman’s Lagoon*
Candorville*
Bizarro
La Cucaracha*

Abandon ship!

Lie rats scurrying to get off of a sinking ship....

Important Bush Administration officials are ready to leave the government rather than undergo two years of hell from Democratic committee chairmen in Congress. Leading the exodus are officials of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), fearing investigation by two chairmen, Representatives Henry Waxman (D-CA) and John Dingell (D-MI).

And good riddance.

Why do Republicans hate America?

From the WSJ today:

Like a retreating army, Republicans are tearing up railroad track and planting legislative land mines to make it harder for Democrats to govern when they take power in Congress next month.
Already, the Republican leadership has moved to saddle the new Democratic majority with responsibility for resolving $463 billion in spending bills for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1. ....
The unstated goal is to disrupt the Democratic agenda and make it harder for the new majority to meet its promise to reinstitute "pay-as-you-go" budget rules, under which new costs or tax cuts must be offset to protect the deficit from growing.
....With Congress turning off the lights this week, there seems no chance of saving the appropriations process. Instead, most of the government will remain on a stopgap bill through Feb. 15, and in kicking this can down the road, the Republican leadership has no idea where it will stop rolling.
"It's a demonstration of the irresponsibility of Republicans that they would leave this country with this mess," said the next House speaker, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.). "But we won, we will deal with it."


Heaven forbid that the Sore-Loserman Party would actually work with the incoming majority for the benefit of the American people. Their goal now is to make everything as crappy as possible so that in two years they can claim that Democrats are to blame for the mess.

Update
More on this from Kevin Drum:

"It's astonishing that this hasn't gotten more attention. Do you remember all those stories that made the rounds after the 2000 election about outgoing Clinton officials trashing Air Force One and the White House before skipping town? There was nothing to it, of course: a few pranks here and there, but otherwise just the normal wear and tear typical of previous transitions, according the General Services Administration, which had (naturally) been called in to do a scorched-earth investigation. Finally, after weeks of anonymous leaks accusing the Clintonites of major vandalism, the director of the White House Office of Administration was forced to admit that he couldn't document any damage or repairs.

But the stories! There were hundreds of them, all agog over the news that a few staffers had removed the W keys from their keyboards. So immature! So childish!

But Republican legislators punting on half a trillion dollars worth of spending bills because they're "tired" and they want to gum up the works for the incoming Democrats? It's barely worth a yawn. Some priorities, eh?"

E-N’s lame runoff endorsement

I thought the Express-News’ editorial endorsement of Henry Bonilla for the general election was pretty bad, but this re-endorsement for the run-off election is even worse.

Here it is in all of its truly pathetic awfulness:

A congressional showdown is under way, pitting Republican incumbent Rep. Henry Bonilla against a former colleague, Democrat Ciro Rodriguez.
The two once served together in Congress. Now they are fighting for the same seat — Congressional District 23.
The highly diverse district runs from western Bexar County all the way to El Paso County and is the largest congressional district in the country.
Bonilla, a seven-term congressman, is rightly criticized for putting the interests of his party over the needs of his constituents. That was well-evidenced when he sought to allow GOP House members, such as former Majority Leader Tom DeLay, to maintain their leadership posts even if indicted on felony charges.
But Bonilla sits on the powerful House Appropriations Committee, which is important for Texas and Bexar County.
Seniority is no small matter in Congress. Rodriguez had the potential to build on his seven years in office, but he lost his re-election bid two years ago — exceedingly rare for an incumbent.
The runoff election comes at an inopportune time — at the peak of the holiday season.
But that shouldn't stop voters from getting involved in this important race.
If you're a District 23 resident, be sure to cast a ballot, whomever you vote for.

If I were a Republican, I’d be ticked because that is about the lamest, weakest endorsement I think I have ever read. They start off by criticizing Bonilla over the Tom DeLay debacle and charge him with putting the interests of his party over those of his constituents. But then they demur and go ahead and endorse him based soley on his seniority (seven terms compared to four for Ciro Rodriguez) and his position on the House Appropriations committee.
But they fail to note that what little advantage Bonilla has in seniority is practically nullified by the change in House leadership. It will do Bonilla little good to have a few more years under his belt when he is stuck in the minority party for the next dozen years or so. But Rodriguez, however, could “build on his seven years in office” and wind up with a key committee or subcommittee chairmanship. Plus, we don’t yet know what committee assignments Rodriguez might score, but he could easily end up with a seat on the Appropriations committee too, possibly filling the seat that would be vacated by Bonilla.

So my question is are the editorial writers at the Express too dense to understand this? Or are they under some pressure to endorse Bonilla when they really don’t want to. My guess is the latter. I think the big bosses at the E-N expect that Bonilla, with his huge monetary advantage, will win the runoff and they don’t want to burn any bridges for themselves by endorsing his runoff opponent. And the editorial writers are either required to follow their bosses’ lead or they do not have the courage of their convictions. Whichever, it is a sad spectacle.

Worst President Redux

This should pretty much seal Bush's status as the worst president ever. If even Donald Rumsfeld now admits that Iraq is a mess, the charade is over. It's time to pull the plug on this disaster. Bush needs to face up to the fact that his presidential legacy will forever be in the toilet and rather than trying to prop up some face-saving, ass-covering B.S. in Iraq, he needs to concentrate on doing something, anything with the last two years of his presidency.

Douglas Brinkley has a column that spells it out very clearly.

"...after six years in power and barring a couple of miracles, it's safe to bet that Bush will be forever handcuffed to the bottom rungs of the presidential ladder. The reason: Iraq..."

TV catch phrases

Kuff gives us the List of 100 top TV catchphrases according to the folks at TVLand.
I agree with Charles that news events should have been exclused and there are a number of things on the list I wouldn't hesitate to strike, but overall It's not a bad list. Still, I can immediately see some glaring omissions:

"Nanu, Nanu!" - Mork and Mindy
"Beam me up, Scotty." - Star Trek
"Damn it, Jim! I'm a doctor, not a ...." - Star Trek
"You're traveling through another dimension..." - Rod Serling's intro to Twilight Zone.
"Crikey!" - The Crockodile Hunter.

And I'm sure there are many more...

My TV Network

You’ve heard of fantasy football leagues. Well, here is my version of a fantasy television network. If I had my own TV network that I could lineup with any shows that I wanted, this is what it would look like:

The Mike Thomas Network (MTN)

MONDAY
Star Trek
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Angel

TUESDAY
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Hercules: The Legendary Journeys
Jack of All Trades / Cleopatra 2525

WEDNESDAY
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Xena: Warrior Princess
Lost

THURSDAY
Star Trek: Voyager
The Twilight Zone
Babylon Five

FRIDAY
Enterprise
The X-Files
Sliders

SATURDAY
Danger Mouse / The Simpsons
Mystery Science Theater 3000

SUNDAY
The Wonderful World of Disney
The Muppet Show
Monty Python

GOP presidential contenders

Just take a look at the leading Republican contenders for the 2008 presidential election:

Rudy Giuliani
John McCain
Mitt Romney
Chuck Hagel

What's wrong with this picture? Where are the conservatives?? Are they just going to sit this election out? I can't believe the GOP would nominate a liberal from New York (Giuliani) or a liberal from Massachusetts (Romney) as their standard bearer. And McCain? Sure, I think he's a conservative, but that's not the first word that comes to mind when people describe him. That word would be "maverick."
So maybe there is something to this Newt Gingrich for President campaign. He would be the only "true conservative" in the race, not to mention the only southerner.
But at this point it looks like the Republicans are just going to take a pass on the '08 election. Maybe they think they can come back stronger than ever in 2012 after we've had four years under President Hillary Clinton. What they fail to understand and refuse to see, however, is that four years under Hillary will be a blissful experience following the eight-year debacle that was the George W. presidency.

A very good month

What a great month this was!
It started off with the Democrats kicking Republican butts all across the country, quickly followed by a cowed President Bush finally canning Secretary of War Donald Rumsfeld.
The middle of the month was marked by my little girl’s first birthday!
And now we cap off the month with an Aggie victory over the Texas Longhorns!

Unfinished business

Democrats will have a big mess to clean up when they take control of Congress in January. The do-nothing Republicans are leaving a big pile of unfinished spending bills for Democrats to deal with when they come back from Christmas break.

GOP leaders have opted to leave behind almost a half-trillion-dollar clutter of unfinished spending bills.

This should serve as the final legacy for this bunch of incompetent, corrupt, worst-all-time lawmakers. The Republicans have clearly demonstrated that they are grossly incompetent when it comes to actually governing the country. We can all be thankful that the grown-ups will soon be back in charge again.

Sharp vs. Cornyn in ‘08

Rumor has it that John Sharp may be gearing up to challenge Sen. John Cornyn in 2008.

Needless to say, I’m thrilled to hear this bit of news. I’ve enthused about Sharp before. I thought he should have run for governor this year and I believe he would have had a better shot at taking down Perry than Chris Bell did.
If Democrats are going to reclaim a Senate seat we are going to have to get a candidate with some built in name recognition. Barbara Radnofsky was great, but she was a total unknown and never had a chance going up against Kay Bailey Hutchison. Cornyn may prove to be invulnerable to, but if 2006 taught us anything it is that we have to keep trying and take every race seriously.

Denny Hastert evicted

Go Speaker Pelosi! The new House leader is booting the Republicans out of prime office space that they have been sitting on for more than 50 years.

In something of a break with recent tradition, the incoming Democratic speaker, Nancy Pelosi of California, is planning to expropriate the second-floor suite of offices now occupied by the current speaker, J. Dennis Hastert — a handful of rooms providing a spectacular view of the Mall.

The Democrats may boot Dick Cheney out of his office space too...

Vice President Dick Cheney might also come out a loser in this literal floor fight. Democrats have an eye on an office on the House side that Republicans granted to him as a kind of second home in the Capitol, to complement his office on the other wing of the building, where, by virtue of the Constitution, he presides over the Senate (he has no formal role in the House). Representative Charles B. Rangel, Democrat of New York, is interested in reclaiming Mr. Cheney’s House space for the Ways and Means Committee.

Heh heh heh heh.

Blogger update

I'm slowly working on updating my blogroll on the lefthand side of the page. I'm clearing out the deadwood blogs that are now defunct, updating those that have changed URLs and delinking a few that I linked because they linked to me but who no longer link to me.

In other bloggy news, Haloscan recently added a nifty feature that allows me to show who has commented most recently over on the righthand side of the page. That is one of the last bells and whistles I had wanted to add to my site and now Haloscan offers it for free. When I started this blog 3+ years ago it was bare bones with nothing much more than text and links. Now I can do all kinds of things like upload pictures, search archives and manage comments that I once thought were only available through fee-based services.

I was also delighted to find out this week that my blog has finally paid off after all this time. The little ads that occasionally run at the bottom of the righthand column have actually generated some revenue and last week the BlogAds service deposited $43 into my Paypal account. WooHoo!
Of course, I doubt my blog would have ever generated even that amount of ad revnue had I not been fortunate enough to be included as a member of the Texas Progressive Bloggers Alliance. I think I have Sean-Kelly of The Agonist to thank for that.
By the way, I heard Sean on the radio this evening (KTSA 550AM) talking to Charles Kuffner of Off the Kuff. I understand he will be on for the rest of the week in the evening slot until the regular host comes back from vacation.

Future looks bright

Kos has a good preview of the 2008 Senate elections which are even more favorable to Democrats than 2006. This was not supposed to be a good year for Democrats. The party had to defend 18 seats compared to just 15 for the Republicans. And yet Democrats held everyone of their seats while winning nearly half of the available Republican seats. Quite remarkable.
In 2008, the odds get even better for the Blue team. Democrats will be defending just 12 seats that year compared to 21 for the Republicans. If the Democrats win the White House that year, they are likely to sweep a number of Senators and Repesentatives into office with them. So we are in a great position for that to happen.

On the presidential side, I’m very confident that the Democrats will retake the White House, especially if Republicans continue to drag their feet on getting us out of Iraq. It is too early for the polls to be of much use, but so far the potential Repubican contenders all have serious flaws that would make it difficult for them to win.
First, there is John “Unindicted Co-conspirator” McCain, of Keating Five fame, who seems to be the GOP front-runner at this point. It will be interesting to see how McCain’s past problems with ethics will play after Republicans gleefully skewered John Murtha for his involvement in a 20-year-old scandal.
Then there is Rudolph Guiliani, who dropped out of his first race against Hillary Clinton because of a sex scandal. What makes him think people will forget all of that? And then there is the fact that he is a liberal on most social issues - pro choice, gay marriage, etc. Are the Republicans just going to pitch the religious fundamentalists overboard?

The Democrats, meanwhile, have Hillary Clinton currently occupying the top spot on the leader board. Whether she will actually run or not is not yet clear, but I think she could very likely win if she does. The Republicans have done their best to villify her and make her out to be some kind of extreme left-wing moonbat, when her moderate voting record in the Senate clearly demonstrates otherwise. In fact, I think Hillary has already been thoroughly vetted to the point that she is inoculated from most attacks that the right-wing smear machine could dream up at this point.
If Hillary runs, I think she will tap someone like Evan Bayh as her running mate. Barak Obama needs more seasoning and should serve a couple of terms in the Senate before making his move.

Immigration laws gone awry

Immigration laws in our country are a mess right now and nothing illustrates that better than this situation going on right now in Chicago where a woman is holed up in a church trying to avoid deportation while her 7-year-old boy is traveling the country lobbying politicians in Washington, D.C. and in Mexico City to give her a break.
Surely there is something more pressing that our immigration officials could be doing right now rather than harrassing this poor, hard-working woman and her little boy. Let her alone and go and try and stop some drug shipments on the border.

Meet the New Boss II

Here is a quick rundown of the power shift in the Senate when Democrats take charge next year:

Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry
Saxby Chambliss, Ga. — Tom Harkin, Iowa

Appropriations
Thad Cochran, Miss. — Robert Byrd, W.Va.

Armed Services
John Warner, Va. — Carl Levin, Mich.

Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs
Richard Shelby, Ala. — Christopher Dodd, Conn.

Budget
Judd Gregg, N.H. — Kent Conrad, N.D.

Commerce, Science and Transportation
Ted Stevens, Alaska — Daniel Inouye, Hawaii

Energy and Natural Resources
Pete Domenici, N.M. — Jeff Bingaman, N.M.

Environment
James Inhofe, Okla. — Barbara Boxer, Calif.

Finance
Charles Grassley, Iowa — Max Baucus, Mont.

Foreign Relations
Richard Lugar, Ind. — Joseph Biden, Del.

Homeland Security
Susan Collins, Maine — Joe Lieberman, Conn.

Health, Education, Labor and Pensions
Mike Enzi, Wyo. — Edward Kennedy, Mass.

Investigations
Norm Coleman, Minn. — Carl Levin, Mich.

Judiciary
Arlen Specter, Pa. — Patrick Leahy, Vt.

Rules and Administration
Trent Lott, Miss. — Dianne Feinstein, Calif.

Small Business
Olympia Snowe, Maine — John Kerry, Mass.

Veterans Affairs
Larry Craig, Idaho — Daniel Akaka, Hawaii

Ethics
George Voinovich, Ohio — Tim Johnson, S.D.

Intelligence
Pat Roberts, Kan. — John D. Rockefeller IV, W.Va.

Meet the New Boss...

When Congress comes back after the Christmas break, Democrats will be in the majority for the first time in a dozen years. And that means more than just Nancy Pelosi taking the Speaker’s gavel. It also means there will be new chairmen taking charge of all the committees in the House and Senate.
Here is a quick rundown of the power shift in the House with the current Republican chairman listed first and the potential Democratic chairman listed second. Note the lack of Texans chairing any key committees thanks to Tom DeLay. But then, what does Tom DeLay care? He’s from Virginia.

Agriculture
Bob Goodlatte, Va. — Collin Peterson, Minn.
(Note: Charles Stenholm of Texas would have been in line to chair this key committee before Tom DeLay’s re-redistricting shenanigans)

Appropriations
Jerry Lewis, Calif. — David Obey, Wis.

Armed Services
Duncan Hunter, Calif. — Ike Skelton, Mo.

Budget
Jim Nussle, Iowa — John Spratt Jr., S.C.

Education and Work Force
Howard McKeon, Calif. — George Miller, Calif.

Energy and Commerce
Joe Barton, Texas — John Dingell, Mich.

Financial Services
Michael Oxley, Ohio — Barney Frank, Mass.

Government Reform
Thomas Davis, Va. — Henry Waxman, Calif.

Homeland Security
Peter King, N.Y. — Bennie Thompson, Miss.
(Note: Jim Turner of Texas would have been in line to lead this key committee before Tom DeLay’s re-redistricting shenanigans)

International Relations
Henry Hyde, Ill. — Tom Lantos, Calif.

Judiciary
James Sensenbrenner, Wis. — John Conyers Jr., Mich.

Resources
Richard Pombo, Calif. — Nick Rahall, W.V.

Rules
David Dreier, Calif. — Louise Slaughter, N.Y.
(Note: Martin Frost of Texas would have been in line to lead this key committee before Tom DeLay’s re-redistricting shenanigans)

Science
Sherwood Boehlert, N.Y. — Bart Gordon, Tenn.

Small Business
Donald Manzullo, Ill. — Nydia Velazquez, N.Y.

Transportation and Infrastructure
Don Young, Alaska — James Oberstar, Minn.

Ways and Means
Bill Thomas, Calif. — Charles Rangel, N.Y.

Intelligence
Peter Hoekstra, Mich. — Alcee Hastings, Fla.

First party switcher

Now that Democrats are in control of the House and Senate for the first time in a dozen years we can look forward to a bunch of Republican retirements by members unhappy in with their new minority status. And we can also look forward to some party switching by opportunistic politicians.
The first one has already made the jump: Joe Lieberman: Call me a Democrat. Lieberman is switching from the Connecticut for Lieberman Party to the Democratic Party. Nothing wrong with that.
Lieberman will be the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee in the Senate next year as long as he stays a Democrat and I don’t think there is any question about that. He told his constituents he was going to serve as an independent-minded Democrat. If he had announced that he would go to Washington and caucus with the Republicans he probably would not have won his election.

Winners and Losers

The midterm elections gave us some pretty clear winners and losers.

Here are the folks whose political power and ambitions got a boost on Tuesday:

Hillary Clinton - The front-runner for 2008 was re-elected in a landslide.
Barak Obama - Has seen his status go way up after campaigning on behalf of lots of winning candidates.
Nancy Pelosi - Speaker Pelosi
Harry Reid - Majority Leader
Edward Kennedy - Chairman Kennedy
Charlie Rangel - Ways and Means Chairman
Barnie Franks - Financial Services Chairman
Henry Waxman - Government Reform Chairman
John Conyers - Judiciary Chairman
Eliot Spitzer - Blowout win for Gov. of New York; Setting his sights on 2112.
Charles Schumer - Led the Democrats to regain the Senate
Rahm Emanuel - Led the Democrats to regain the House
Steny Hoyer - Majority Leader
John Murtha - Majority Whip
Joe Lieberman - Back from the dead
Bernie Sanders - The world’s most powerful Socialist.
Sherrod Brown and, of course, all other the new Democratic Senators and Representatives.

The losers were pretty easy to pick out as well:

George W. Bush - Lame Duck with 34 percent approval rating.
Donald Rumsfeld - Out on his rear and soon to be subpoened.
Karl Rove - Not the genius everyone thought he was.
Dennis Hastert - Guess he doesn’t have to resign now. The voters did it for him.
Bill Frist - So much for his presidential aspirations.
George Allen - Ditto
Rick Santorum - Double ditto.
Conrad Burns - Scandal-tarred loser.
Mike DeWine - Loser.
Jim Talent - KO’ed by Michael J. Fox.
Lincoln Chafee - Missed his chance to switch parties. Bye bye.
And all the other Republican losers on election day.

But there were a few Republicans whose political fortunes actually improved on Tuesday:

John McCain - So many Repubicans’ presidential aspirations were wiped out (George Allen, Bill Frist) that it practically left McCain as the only viable GOP contender for 2008.
Arnold Schwarzenegger - Bounced back from a disasterous year by moving left.
Charlie Crist - The new governor of Florida ran the other way when Bush came to campaign for him and managed to weather the Democratic onslaught.
Trent Lott - Now has a clear shot at regaining the leadership job he lost when he praised Strom Thurmond’s segregationist ways a couple of years ago.
John Boehner - He finally got Denny Hastert out of the way and has a clear shot at being the next Minority Leader.
Christopher Shays - Is guaranteed to be the leader of the Republican’s New England caucus in the House.