Term Limits are Teh Stupid

San Antonio has the most insane term limits restrictions of any municipality in the nation, to the best of my knowledge. Two two-year terms and you’re out. That means the entire city council is automatically rotated out every four years whether they are doing a good job or not.
Thus we are always stuck with an inexperienced city council with no collective memory of things that have gone on before. Therefore, council members have to rely on the city staff for its experience and collective memory to get things done.
Why would we do this to ourselves? Do we like having a city government run by entrenched bureaucrats who do not have to answer to the voters? Because that is effectively what we have now. Whose bright idea was this?
Well, it was partly this reactionary group that got the ball rolling at the behest of this looney bird.

But the real question is whether we are going to continue to listen to these knuckledragging morons, or are we going to at least take some minimal steps to correct the situation.
I think having four two-year term limits is ridiculous, counter-productive and undemocratic. But at least it is better than what we currently have.
The term limits rule has been disenfranchising San Antonio residents by making our elected council members weak and unresponsive to their constituents.
And as this study noted it has even depressed voter participation in city elections.

The implementation of city council term limits in San Antonio since 1991 is clearly associated with lower voter participation in municipal elections turnout. Lower voter participation rates are particularly evident in inner city council districts, while council districts 8, 9 and 10 voters participate in high numbers. In addition, over the period examined, voter registration rates have increased while Spanish surname rates have remained relatively consistent. Overall levels of political efficacy have increased but rates for Mexican Americans and African Americans remain low relative to Anglos. Finally, some members of council have resigned from office to pursue other private and public sector interests rather than complete terms.
The relative competitive nature of city council and mayoral elections in the 1980s called for a greater mobilization of voter effort ("get out the vote" campaigns) and, as a result, seem to have produced a higher turnout rate. With terms limits, municipal elections in the City of San Antonio have witnessed fewer intensive voter mobilization efforts and subsequently lower turnout. Less competitive elections are also associated with less interest, lower levels of participation and lack of political efficacy.

Lack of political efficacy. What does that mean? It means the power or capacity to produce a desired effect (i.e. effectiveness). So our city government is less effective as a result of term limits. I guess there are some who would think this is a good thing, but they would be wrong.
Can you imagine anyone advocating that a business be run in this fashion? Every four years the CEO and his entire executive team is kicked out and replaced with new people who have no experience. Sound like a good plan? Would you invest in that kind of company?

McCain the stealth candidate

John McCain slipped into San Antonio the other day for a private fundraiser at the San Antonio Country Club and raked in a reported $1.3 million.
It never ceases to amaze me that there are people out there who can drop $10,000 in a moment’s notice for something like this. But San Antonio is a big city (7th largest in the U.S.) and all you have to do is drive around some of the ritzy neighborhoods to get an idea about just how much wealth is out there.
So I’m not sure if $1.3 million was a good haul for McCair or if it was just chickenfeed. But one that is sure is that if you couldn’t afford to drop $10,000 in McCain’s hat, then you were probably unaware that he was even in San Antonio. There was no advance notice, no public appearances and the McCain campaign gave short shrift to the local media.
That was evident from the story that ran this morning. It was a fine story considering the reporter had no access to the candidate or any of the people attending the fundraiser. The only person quoted in the piece is John Larson, the Republican county commissioner who is running for Congress against Ciro Rodriguez. At least he respects the power of the local media.
Since the McCain folks wouldn’t acknowledge the local press, they got a crappy story, at least from their perspective it was crappy.
Since the reporter had 25 inches to fill and no one to talk to, she filled it with whatever she could find. That turned out to be a YouTube video blasting McCain for flipflopping on the windfall profits tax and an interview with Democratic State Sen. Leticia Van de Putte blasting McCain for associating with poor old Clayton Williams who is still getting grief over his stupid rape joke 18 years after it blew the tires off of his gubernatorial campaign.
She also took the time to note that McCain’s moronic anti-earmarks stance would leave the San Antonio River Improvements Project high and dry.
I’m sure the McCain people probably weren’t happy with the story, but that’s what you get when you fail to take advantage of the local press. If they had given the reporter just a smidgen of access to the candidate, I’m sure she would have filled the story up with his quotes and the story might have had more prominent play to boot.
Maybe next time they’ll learn.

The Vanquished

As commenter IK noted in the previous thread, I have recently taken to commenting at BeldarBlog, a right-wing blog run by an attorney based in Dallas. Beldar has been a most gracious host so far. At least, he hasn’t banned me from the site yet.
It is kind of sad that I am forced to go to a Dallas-based blog to find someone to debate the issues with, but alas it seems that I have vanquished most all of the conservative blogs here in San Antonio. (With the exception of But, that’s just my opinion. Hang in there, JimmyK!)
There once was a thriving rightwing blogger community here in the Alamo City. We had Insane Antonio, now abandoned. Another site called Raving Heretic, also abandoned. There was the Ranting Raven’s A View From the Nest, now in retirement. There was Ben’s World, by a St. Mary’s University law student who I presume has now graduated. There was Tex the Pontificator, also retired. And, of course, there was Bill Crawford (aka Alamo City Commando) and his All Things Conservative site, the big daddy of them all. The Commando is now AWOL and no one will acknowledge what happened to him. I like to think that he finally got the courage of his convictions and volunteered for military service in Iraq.
Finally, there is Conservative Dialysis by my friend Nick, but his last post more than a week ago may have been his coda. A comment I left there a week ago has yet to be approved.

Fortunately, the liberal blogging community in San Antonio is thriving. In addition to my humble abode which has been around for more than five years now, we still have the The Agonist, the longest running blog in San Antonio, which is run by Sean Paul Kelly. There is also B and B by Pete Bryant. Pete represents San Antonio on the board of the Texas Progressive Bloggers Alliance.
And now we have two ATC outcasts who have launched their own blogs: Beginning To Wonder by AnnPW and
Happiness, Anyway by Donna, as well as Maximum Volume by Voice of Reason.
Then we have Dig Deeper Texas; Pulp Friction; Ablogistan; Harman on Earth and probably some more that I’m missing.

Best Rock Bands

It is funny the things you come across with Google. Today I typed in “Rock Bands” and came up with MSNBC’s list of the10 best rock bands ever from 2004. OK, I’m a sucker for lists so I had to check it out:
It started out fine enough...

The Beatles
The Rolling Stones

No arguments there. Those would be my first two picks too.

U2

OK, not my No. 3 choice but definitely in my top 10

The Grateful Dead

Um, No. While I can appreciate them, I’m not a Deadhead and they would not be on my top 10 list.

Velvet Underground

Whoa!! Hold on! Now we are way off course. No way! Who can name even one song by the Velvet Underground? I’ve even tried to listen to some of their albums. Absolutely not.

Led Zepplin

All right, now we’re back on track again. Good choice.

The Ramones

Screech!! Blam!!! Back in the ditch again! I hate punk music. Yuck!
This list just won’t do. I have to make my own.

The rest of their list includes
Pink Floyd
Bob Marley and the Wailers
Sly and the Family Stone

Good bands but not good enough to make my Top 10 (except maybe Pink Floyd).

So here goes my list of the definitive Best Rock Bands:

The Beatles
The Rolling Stones
The Who
The Beach Boys
The Doors
Led Zepplin
Pink Floyd
U2
Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band
The Police

And my list of runner-ups (or the second top 10)

Creedence Clearwater Revival
The Band
Van Halen
REM
The Eagles
Aerosmith
Santana
Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers
Heart
Rush


Of course this leaves out a lot of “solo” artists who no doubt have very capable and talented backing bands. A top 10 list there would include:

Elvis Presley
Chuck Berry
Buddy Holly
Bob Dylan
David Bowie
Elton John
Billy Joel
Rod Stewart
Jimi Hendrix
Prince

UPDATE

OK, I’ve reworked my Best Rock Bands list into per decade categories. (Yes, I know I have 11 in the 80s category. So sue me.)

50s
Buddy Holly and The Crickets
Bill Haley and The Comets
The Coasters
The Drifters
The Platters
The Clovers
Frankie Lymon and The Teenagers
The Moonglows
The Flamingos

60s
The Beatles
The Rolling Stones
The Who
The Doors
Pink Floyd
The Beach Boys
Creedence Clearwater Revival
The Band
Buffalo Springfield
The Faces

70s
Led Zepplin
Queen
Boston
Aerosmith
The Eagles
Heart
Santana
The Bee Gees
Deep Purple
ELO

80s
U2
The Police
Van Halen
Rush
Prince and The Revolution
Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers
Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band
The Cars
Cheap Trick
J. Geils Band
ZZ Top

90s
Guns N Roses
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Smashing Pumpkins
The Black Crowes
REM
Stone Temple Pilots
Pearl Jam
Rage Against the Machine
The Offspring
Green Day

2000s
The White Stripes
Los Lonely Boys
JET
Maroon Five
The Foo Fighters
Limp Bizkit
Velvet Revolver

Habeas Corpus is not a right, it’s a responsibility

The Supreme Court, by a slim margin, has once again confirmed the responsibility of the U.S. government to assure that all people under our control are treated humanely and responsibly. Part of that responsibility is to assure to the best of our ability that those who are in our custody are there for a legitimate reason.
That is what the writ of habeas corpus is all about. It is not a “right” bestowed on American citizens at birth. It is a responsibility that we have assumed as a nation. It does not benefit our society to incarcerate people without good reason. It is morally and ethically wrong and it places an undue financial burden on taxpayers. So why shouldn’t we do everything within reason to assure that we are not incarcerating innocent people? The purpose of Habeas Corpus is to keep innocent people from being detained, not to let guilty people go free.
A lot of the outrage on the right centers around the perception that we are granting “terrorists” a special privilege that is usually reserved just for American citizens. But the right to not be incarcerated when you are innocent should not be just for American citizens, it should be for everyone. And thus it is our responsiblity to make sure that is so with the people under our authority.

Immigration idiocy

Our U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service is about to deport a kid who has been in this country since he was a toddler and who just graduated from high school as valedictorian.

The family arrived in the United States in 1995 on six-month tourist visas, said Virginia Kice, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Settling in Fresno, Arthur's father, Ruben Mkoian (he and his son spell their last names slightly differently), worked as a truck driver. The teen's mother worked in a jewelry store, and the family set about living their lives, which soon included a younger brother for Arthur.
Mkoian believes that if they were to return to Armenia, his family would be subject to reprisals because of his attempts to expose corruption at the government agency where he worked.
After the family's visas expired, they applied for U.S. residency. That application was denied, Kice said.
Immigration wheels turns extremely slowly. An immigration judge finally ruled in 2002 that the family had no legal right to remain in America.
The family tried again by applying to the Board of Immigration Appeals; that was rejected, also. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last year denied their petition for a hearing.
"I would remind people that this family had ample access to due process," Kice said. "The case has been in litigation for more than 10 years. Immigration experts on every level determined that they had no legal basis to be in the United States."

This is nuts. Why even have these courts and judges if they take this long to make decisions like this? If they had nabbed them within a year or two of their arrival that would have been one thing. But 13 years later we are going to uproot them and send them packing after they have caused no problems and, in fact, are contributing positively to our society?

Fortunately, a bill sponsored by Sen. Dianne Feinstein could resolve things by granting the family citizenship.
This is the common sense thing to do in this case, but unfortunately common sense is something that is sorely lacking in many parts of our country.
I first learned of this case this morning by reading this dreadful column by Ruben Navarette who essentially applauds the decision to deport the kid and his family. Why? The law is the law, he states flatly. But the real reason is darker than that as he goes on to admit. It turns out that Navarette can recall a case a few years ago where a Hispanic kid may have been deported under similar circumstances, so now he thinks this kid is getting special treatment because he is not Hispanic (he is an Armenian.)
In other words, Navarette is being a racist jerk. The San Antonio Express-News should quit giving this jerk a forum and drop his syndicated column.

Wall Street Journal slanders John Lennon

The headline on the column catches your attention right away.
The Case Against John Lennon
And then there is the pull quote that highlights the column:

Nothing to live or die for — what a nightmare.

It makes you immediately start singing John Lennon’s song “Imagine” in your head. “Nothing to live or die for... hmmmm hmmmm hmmmm hmmmm hmmmmm.”
My gosh, you think, how awful! John Lennon said there is nothing to live for?!? That is so wrong!

Well, yes, it IS wrong, because it is a misquote. Intentional or not, I’m not sure, but the actual lyrics from the song say “...nothing to KILL or die for....” Not nothing to live for.

So what is going on here? Why is the WSJ promoting a column with such a provacative title and using a misquote to mislead readers into a negative reaction against John Lennon?
The column itself is a mess. It is poorly written, jumbled and fails to adequately explain how John Lennon or his song “Imagine” has anything to do with what the column appears to be about.
Here is the pertinent section that mentions Lennon:

Mr. Sharansky has a new book, titled "Defending Identity." It would be equally accurate to call it "The Case Against John Lennon."
Or, more specifically, the case against "Imagine," Lennon's anthem to a world with "no countries . . . nothing to kill or die for/And no religion too." For Mr. Sharansky, a nine-year resident of the Perm 35 prison camp, that's a vision that smacks too much of the professed beliefs of the ex-Beatle's near namesake, Vladimir Ilyich.

What the hell? Does he think he’s being clever or something? Lennon sounds like Lenin. Get it? So obviously they must be related or they must think alike or something right?
Nevermind that “Lenin” was actually an alias for Vladimir Illich Ulyanov, while the surname Lennon dates back hundreds of years to old Ireland.
No, they sound alike so there must be a connection. Right? Kind of like how Obama sounds like Osama so they must be related too. Yeah. That’s the level of reasoning that the column sinks to.
Absolutely pathetic.
And of course he never goes back and explains how V.I. Lenin’s brutal and dictatorial ways have any similarity or correlation to Lennon’s ode to world peace.
But fortunately for the cretins who run the WSJ editorial pages, John Lennon is dead and can’t defend his classic work against their asinine columnist’s offhanded smear.

McCain family values

Ever wonder why we don’t hear more about this lady?

The wife U.S. Republican John McCain callously left behind

McCain likes to illustrate his moral fibre by referring to his five years as a prisoner-of-war in Vietnam. And to demonstrate his commitment to family values, the 71-year-old former US Navy pilot pays warm tribute to his beautiful blonde wife, Cindy, with whom he has four children.
But there is another Mrs McCain who casts a ghostly shadow over the Senator’s presidential campaign. She is seldom seen and rarely written about, despite being mother to McCain’s three eldest children.
And yet, had events turned out differently, it would be she, rather than Cindy, who would be vying to be First Lady. She is McCain’s first wife, Carol, who was a famous beauty and a successful swimwear model when they married in 1965.
She was the woman McCain dreamed of during his long incarceration and torture in Vietnam’s infamous ‘Hanoi Hilton’ prison and the woman who faithfully stayed at home looking after the children and waiting anxiously for news.
But when McCain returned to America in 1973 to a fanfare of publicity and a handshake from Richard Nixon, he discovered his wife had been disfigured in a terrible car crash three years earlier. Her car had skidded on icy roads into a telegraph pole on Christmas Eve, 1969. Her pelvis and one arm were shattered by the impact and she suffered massive internal injuries.
When Carol was discharged from hospital after six months of life-saving surgery, the prognosis was bleak. In order to save her legs, surgeons
had been forced to cut away huge sections of shattered bone, taking with it her tall, willowy figure. She was confined to a wheelchair and was forced to use a catheter.
Through sheer hard work, Carol learned to walk again. But when John McCain came home from Vietnam, she had gained a lot of weight and bore little resemblance to her old self.
Today, she stands at just 5ft4in and still walks awkwardly, with a pronounced limp. Her body is held together by screws and metal plates and, at 70, her face is worn by wrinkles that speak of decades of silent suffering.
For nearly 30 years, Carol has maintained a dignified silence about the accident, McCain and their divorce. But last week at the bungalow where she now lives at Virginia Beach, a faded seaside resort 200 miles south of Washington, she told The Mail on Sunday how McCain divorced her in 1980 and married Cindy, 18 years his junior and the heir to an Arizona brewing fortune, just one month later.

I think it is interesting that the key decision that launched McCain’s political career many years ago was to dump his first wife in favor of a wealthy, beautiful heiress whose money financed his first bid for Congress (as well as some significant support from Charles Keating.)

I did not (say that)

Is this a gotcha moment?

Is he lying? Is he senile? Or is it all just a big misunderstanding?
Imagine if Barack Obama got caught denying that he said something in a speech he had given just a week before?
Would it be ignored? Or would it blow up into a huge scandal?
Does it really matter whether he said it or not? Before the age of Youtube would anybody have noticed or cared anyway?

Bush's oil boom/job bust

Better go gas up your car now while you can still find that cheap $4 a gallon gasoline.

Oil surges $11 to record $138
And they are projecting it will go up to $150 a barrel.
And here are the other headline stories right now:

Wall Street shakes as Dow sinks 400 points
Jobless rate spikes
Corporate America is getting nervous

Heck of a job, President Bush!

I think the question now is not whether or not Barack Obama will be elected in November, but whether or not the country can survive until then.

Cabinet speculation Part II

Revisiting a topic I brought up in March, more names are starting to pop up for possible cabinet posts in a Barack Obama administration. From serious looks at Obama insiders and advisors to speculation on popular political figures, there are lots of interesting choices.
I think Hillary Clinton is not likely to get the VP slot, but she could have her pick of cabinet posts (almost). The question is whether she would consider a stint as Secretary of HHS (where she wouldn’t even be the first woman to hold the post) to be worth her time. Or would she prefer to remain in the Senate and possibly hold out for a Supreme Court nomination as part of a deal to win her full support and backing for the Obama campaign.
Here are the cabinet posts with some names that have been tossed around for various posts:

President Barack Obama
Vice President Jim Webb/Bill Richardson/Hillary Clinton/Kathleen Sibelius
Secretary of State Joe Biden/Chris Dodd/ Bill Richardson
Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel/Richard Lugar/Sam Nunn
Attorney General John Edwards/Eric Holder
Secretary of Education George Miller/Mazie Hirono
Secretary of Health and Human Services Hillary Clinton/Kathleen Sebelius
Secretary of Energy Janet Napolitano/Brian Schweitzer
Secretary of Homeland Security Richard Clarke/Richard Lugar
Secretary of Interior Arnold Schwarzennegger/Brian Schweitzer
Secretary of Veterans Affairs Max Cleland
Secretary of Commerce Michael Bloomberg/Harold Ford Jr./Olympia Snowe
Secretary of Treasury Chris Dodd/Larry Summers/Laura Tyson
Secretary of Agriculture Tom Harkin/Tom Vilsack
Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Bill Bradley/Henry Cisneros
Secretary of Labor John Edwards/Ed Rendell/David Bonior
Secretary of Transportation Jesse Jackson Jr./Xavier Becerra/James Oberstar
Secretary of Environment Al Gore/Lincoln Chafee (New cabinet level position)

Chief of Staff Tom Daschle/David Plouffe
Office of Management and Budget Rosa DeLauro
U.S. Trade RepresentativeAustan Goolsbee
Office of National Drug Control Policy Kurt Schmoke
United Nations Ambassador Al Gore/Bill Richardson/Bill Clinton
National Security Advisor Susan Rice/Anthony Lake/Anthony Zinni
CIA Director Wesley Clarke

Who am I leaving out?

Ode to Hillary

I was ready to support you as president if you had won the nomination. I would have followed you to the ends of the earth and fought with you in the trenches against the forces of the status quo to advance health care and economic opportunity to all Americans.
But you lost.
So get the hell outta my face.
Loser.

Means vs. Ends

From the first chapter of Eric Alterman's new book:

One reason liberals today find themselves vulnerable to vituperation from so many quarters simultaneously is the difficulty they face in explaining, even in the most rudimentary terms, their basic philosophical beliefs. While contemporary conservatives may actually ignore their own principles in practice, they can at least explain them.

It is a good point. Liberals do have a hard time defining their belief system in comparison to conservatives. Ann takes a good stab at it here with her list of things that she wants.
I think part of the difficulty is that liberals have a much more complex and nuanced system than the simplistic and naive belief system of many conservatives. But Alterman hits on what I think is the key difference a little later in the book when he notes that liberals, unlike conservatives, are mostly concerned with outcomes, not the means. Conservatives, on the other hand, are all about the means. For rightwing ideologues, the means are all important. Anti-government, anti-tax, pro-big business, privatization, etc. It is that way or nothing and it doesn't matter whether it works better or not.
For liberals, however, we aren't so hung up on the means. We want results. We want a fair, equitable and just society where people have access to healthcare and education and a clean environment and so on. If we can achieve that through small government, low taxes and privatization then that's great! The problem is, as we've seen for the past eight years, it just doesn't work that way. You need government to do a lot of these jobs because it just isn't practical for private, profit-oriented businesses to do them. So you end up with liberals supporting big government programs not because they love big government, but because it is the only means to achieve the things we want and need in America.
Meanwhile, conservative stubbornly stick to their means because it is the core of their ideology and if it does not produce the desired results then they just make excuses about how we did not stick to the ideology fervently enough.

An analagous explanation for the failure of the surge

Some of my conservative friends are appalled when people say that the “surge” in Iraq failed. They think that it is self evident that the surge was a glowing success because of the sharp reduction in violence in Iraq and they get upset with anyone who suggests it was anything less than a miraculous success.
So let me try and explain why the surge was a failure using an analogy.

Imagine that you are driving a car on some backroad somewhere and suddenly you get a flat tire. Let’s say that the car represents Iraq and the flat tire represents the broken government there.
Now let’s say that you don’t have a jack to lift the car up, but fortunately a big, strong kid comes along and offers to pick the car up for you. You are amazed when he walks over and lifts the car in the air. You say “what an amazing thing this person has done by lifting the car in the air” and you rush off to find other people to see this amazing feat. Folks come from miles around to applaud and cheer as the boy lifts the car again and again. Finally, he tires and puts it down and goes on his way. Meanwhile, the tire is still flat.

In case you missed it, the big youth represents the U.S. Army at the peak of the surge. Our Army did a wonderful thing by lifting the car or quelling the violence in Iraq, but while we were doing it, nobody bothered to fix the tire, or the broken government that needs to get its act together and take over so that our troops can come home. So that is why the “surge” failed. Because nothing was accomplished while we were flexing our military muscles and now we are tired and can’t continue to surge anymore.

Can't win 'em all

The Spurs have nothing to be ashamed about. They had a terrific season and just fell short of going to the Finals for the second year in a row.
Most teams did not make it this far. But they couldn't make it over this last hump.
It still hurts to see them lose, but you can't win all the time or else winning would not be special when it does happen.
I'm not going to whine because Manu didn't score 30-plus points in every game. He had a great season. Tim Duncan is still playing solid basketball even if he is not the high scorer he used to be. And Tony Parker still has a long career ahead of him.
It will be interesting to see how many of the other players will be back next year.
Horry will retire. Finley, Barry and Bowen may be sent packing. Same with Oberto and Thomas. Udoka is probably the only one outside of the Big Three guaranteed to come back. We shall see.
I'm not sure that breaking up the team is the best option, but they will have to do something to stay competitive in the Western Conference.

Goodnight Bush

Over at Political Wire I see there is a wicked parody just out that skewers President Bush using the classic children’s book Goodnight Moon as its inspiration.
I can hardly wait to get a copy. The original book by Margaret Rose Brown has been a favorite at my house for the past five years.

Joe Biden for Sect. of State

Sen. Joe Biden had an Op-Ed in the WSJ on Friday responding to another Op-Ed a couple days earlier by turncoat Sen. Joe Lieberman.
The essay spells out some refreshingly common sense facts about U.S. foreign policy that have been ignored by the Bush administration.
He starts off talking about how Bush's foreign policy has been a failure because of its obsessive focus on the so-called "war on terrorism."

At the heart of this failure is an obsession with the "war on terrorism" that ignores larger forces shaping the world: the emergence of China, India, Russia and Europe; the spread of lethal weapons and dangerous diseases; uncertain supplies of energy, food and water; the persistence of poverty; ethnic animosities and state failures; a rapidly warming planet; the challenge to nation states from above and below.

Instead, Mr. Bush has turned a small number of radical groups that hate America into a 10-foot tall existential monster that dictates every move we make.

Indeed, Republicans are practically frozen by fear over the prospect of "terrorism" such that they can't fathom any other concerns in the world.
And what's more, partisan bloggers such as Beldar fully believe that the only measure of success for Bush's foreign policy or for his entire presidency is whether or not we have another 9/11 terror attack.

But back to the real world and Sen. Biden's excellent essay...

The intersection of al Qaeda with the world's most lethal weapons is a deadly serious problem. Al Qaeda must be destroyed. But to compare terrorism with an all-encompassing ideology like communism and fascism is evidence of profound confusion.

That's putting it awfully nicely. How about profound ignorance? Or profound stupidity?

Terrorism is a means, not an end, and very different groups and countries are using it toward very different goals. Messrs. Bush and McCain lump together, as a single threat, extremist groups and states more at odds with each other than with us: Sunnis and Shiites, Persians and Arabs, Iraq and Iran, al Qaeda and Shiite militias. If they can't identify the enemy or describe the war we're fighting, it's difficult to see how we will win.

But they aren't interested in "winning". The neverending war is great for them! Have you checked the price of oil lately?
But it is not so great for the rest of us. Now let's listen as Sen. Biden addresses Bush's "legacy."

On George Bush's watch, Iran, not freedom, has been on the march: Iran is much closer to the bomb; its influence in Iraq is expanding; its terrorist proxy Hezbollah is ascendant in Lebanon and that country is on the brink of civil war.

Beyond Iran, al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan – the people who actually attacked us on 9/11 – are stronger now than at any time since 9/11. Radical recruitment is on the rise. Hamas controls Gaza and launches rockets at Israel every day. Some 140,000 American troops remain stuck in Iraq with no end in sight.

Because of the policies Mr. Bush has pursued and Mr. McCain would continue, the entire Middle East is more dangerous. The United States and our allies, including Israel, are less secure.

It's not just that the Republican policies aren't accomplishing what they said they would. It is that they are making things infinitely worse the longer they go on.

It is a great article and I would encourage everyone to read the whole thing. I certainly hope that President Obama will consider tapping Joe Biden to be our next Secretary of State.

Overlooking the obvious

Jonathan Gurwitz has a good column today titled Republicans are in trouble and they don't know why.
But it seems that Gurwitz doesn’t know why either, or at least he can’t bring himself to admit it.
He makes several good points which are surprising coming from a right-wing pundit such as that the lengthy Democratic primary and the nasty catfight between Obama and Hillary is not going to save Republicans from the electoral drubbing that they’ve got coming this fall.

The Democrats' long, competitive primary race has allowed them to receive more media attention, raise more money, register more voters and create greater grassroots organization in more states than Republicans could dream.
A few months of intra-party squabbling isn't going to do serious damage to a major political party.

Gurwitz outlines the special election losses I mentioned in my previous post as symptoms of a political party that is self-destructing. He then goes on to make another good point that I’ve made in the past, which is that it is not ALL George W. Bush’s fault.

Though Bush's unpopularity certainly doesn't help, he isn't on the ballot. And the American people have no problem distinguishing between party affiliation in Congress and party affiliation in the White House — which is one reason polls show John McCain still has a decent chance of winning the presidential race.

I would say a “slim” chance of winning as opposed to a “decent” chance of winning, but the point is taken.
But here Gurwitz starts to go awry in his analysis and suddenly develops an accute case of tunnel vision that somehow prevents him from seeing the elephant in the room.
How can anyone write an entire column about the GOP’s election woes without once mentioning the Iraq war? But Gurwitz seems to think that voters are mostly upset about scandals and profligate spending and that it is the Republican Party’s failure to “oppose the spendthrift ways and pork barrel spending (of) the new Democratic majority” that has put them in trouble with the electorate.

Republicans continue to figure disproportionately in Capitol Hill ethics imbroglios, share in the spoils of earmarks and wasteful appropriations and fail to distinguish themselves from Democrats and from the disreputable record that cost them control of Congress.

What Gurwitz can’t bring himself to admit is that the real reason that Republicans are in the doghouse now is because we have tried their ideas these past eight years and found that they DON’T WORK.
Republican tax cuts were supposed to energize the economy, produce a windfall of tax revenues, balance the budget and lead to even more tax cuts. Instead, we got a stagnant economy, spiraling deficits, $4 a gallon gasoline, and we are on the brink of a recession.
On the foreign policy front, the war in Iraq was supposed to last no more than six months, cost less than half a billion dollars (which we were supposed to recoup in oil revenues) and result in a flowering of democracy across the Middle East. I don’t even need to recount the horrors of the last five years to demonstrate that it was all bullshit.
That is why the Republicans are going to get their butts kicked in the next election, Jonathan. Not because people are upset about earmarks or scandals. It’s the war and the economy. And Republicans don’t have a clue about how to fix either one.

Dead canaries

Republicans are down 0-3 in special elections this cycle and that bodes ill for their chances in November. All three were in once heavily Republican districts starting with former Speaker Dennis Hastert’s seat in Illinois. Last week they lost a seat in a heavily Republican district in Louisiana and this week it was a heavily Republican district in Mississippi that went from Red to Blue.

Republicans are understandably worried now.

Representative Tom Davis, Republican of Virginia and former leader of his party’s Congressional campaign committee, issued a dire warning that the Republican Party had been severely damaged, in no small part because of its identification with President Bush. Mr. Davis said that, unless Republican candidates changed course, they could lose 20 seats in the House and 6 in the Senate.
“They are canaries in the coal mine, warning of far greater losses in the fall, if steps are not taken to remedy the current climate,” Mr. Davis said in a memorandum. “The political atmosphere facing House Republicans this November is the worst since Watergate and is far more toxic than it was in 2006.”

If they can’t win seats in solidly conservatives districts in Louisiana and Mississippi, where can they win? And what makes them think they will have a prayer of a chance of winning back the White House after the most unpopular administration in the nation’s history finally vacates the premises early next year?
It is no longer a question of whether or not Democrats will win, it’s a question of how big their win will be. How many House and Senate seats will they take in the coming rout? Democrats are expected to pick up Senate seats in Virginia, New Mexico, Colorado, Minnesota and New Hampshire. But will Senate seats previously considered safe in Texas, North Carolina and Alaska also get swept up in a Democratic landslide?

If these special election outliers are any indication, I’d say we will have a lot more dead Republican canaries littering the floor pretty soon. That’s because the political atmosphere generated by the Bush administration is proving to be highly toxic to GOP candidates right now.

Give ‘em hell, Joe!

Sen. Joe Biden calls B.S. on President Bush’s latest B.S.

The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Joe Biden, D-Delaware, called President Bush’s comments accusing Sen. Barack Obama and other Democrats of wanting to appease terrorists "bulls**t” and said if the president disagrees so strongly with the idea of talking to Iran then he needs to fire his secretaries of State and Defense, both of whom Biden said have pushed to sit down with the Iranians.

“This is bullshit. This is malarkey. This is outrageous. Outrageous for the president of the United States to go to a foreign country, sit in the Knesset…and make this kind of ridiculous statement,” Biden said angrily in a brief interview just off the Senate floor.

“He’s the guy who’s weakened us. He’s the guy that’s increased the number of terrorists in the world. His policies have produced this vulnerability the United States has. His intelligence community pointed that out not me. The NIE has pointed that out and what are you talking about, is he going to fire Condi Rice? Condi Rice has talked about the need to sit down. So his first two appeasers are Rice and Gates. I hope he comes home and does something.”

He quoted Gates saying Wednesday that we “need to figure out a way to develop some leverage and then sit down and talk with them.”

Fortunately, no one really cares what Bush has to say anymore.