Good Riddance!

You think Barack Obama is glad to see 2009 end?

1) Climate Change Conference Stalled

2) Democrats Squabble Over Healthcare Reform

3) Whiny Republicans Throw A Temper Tantrum

4) First Time Jobless Claims Are Surprisingly Higher

5) Obama's Support Is Winnowing Away

This closely mirrors the first Bush year, when he could get nothing done and was falling apart, until one fateful day in September of 2001.

We hope Obama will not resort to allowing a tragedy on his watch, but one never knows for sure.

I wouldn't say he desperately needs good news, but it's certainly looking as though he could stand a bit of picking up and the clock is running, after all. He needs something in the first half of 2010 in order to consolidate the gains Democrats have made over the past six years in Congress.

Curiously, it's the attacking from the left that flummoxes me. I get that an awful lot of hope (pun intended) was placed on Obama's shoulders, but come on! The economy this year, the worst since the Great Depression, has hampered any effective legislation he could possibly have been expected to pass, AND he's had to herd cats from his left and his right in order to do what he has been able to accomplish.

And it's most assuredly NOT helping that the moronic leadership in Congress has been nipping at his heels instead of assisting his agenda.

Hell, you'd almost be tempted to blame Bush/Cheney for sabotaging the nation, poisoning the well ahead of Obama's takeover, in order to give one final bird to the people of the United States.

If liberals, and I count myself a liberal, albeit one with a mind, are going to blame anyone, then let's shift the focus to where the blame truly belongs. If Republicans could blame Clinton (or worse, Jimmy Carter) for Bush's failings eight years out, certainly we can be sporting enough to blame Bush for failing to live up to his fiduciary duty to protect the nation and its citzenry, just one year down the road.

Perhaps what we need to do is to take all the naysayers, left and right, stick 'em on a rocketship and send it off to Earth Two.

We could call it the "B-Ark"

WIN FOR OBAMA!!!!!

It feels good to write that after hearing about how for eight years, Bush kept us safe from terrorists, and then having it turn out that, welllllll....it was police work that saved the day, even if the threat was hardly credible to begin with:

Four men were arrested Wednesday night in what the authorities said was a plot to bomb two synagogues in the Bronx and shoot down military planes at an Air National Guard base in Newburgh, N.Y.

The men, all of whom live in Newburgh, about 60 miles north of New York City, were arrested around 9 p.m. after planting what they believed to be bombs in cars outside the Riverdale Temple and the nearby Riverdale Jewish Center, officials said. But the men did not know the bombs, obtained with the help of an informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, were fake.

The "informant" in question was a Sunni Muslim who was working with the FBI in exhcange.

I'm betting he was not tortured.

After the Sears Tower plot of 2006 was exposed, we were told time and time again about how effective the Bush administration had been in foiling terror attacks.

This time?

Around 9 p.m., a law enforcement official said an 18-wheel New York Police Department vehicle blocked the suspects’ black sport utility vehicle at 237th Street and Riverdale Avenue. Another armored vehicle arrived and officers from the department’s Emergency Service Unit took the men out of the truck and handcuffed them.

After the plot was broken up, the team of uniformed officers took the suspects away.

So it was good old fashioned police work...none of this military-industrial-covert espionage crap that Bush tried to ram down our throats. Identify a plot and work to uncover the breadth and depth of it, then shut it down and roll up the cells.

Reminds me of the good old safe days of the Clinton administration with Janet Reno!

And should serve as a reminder of the cynical gloating of the Bushies, who treated the most insignificant terror plot revelation as a two-year child who just took a dump would expose it to his mom.

"Lookit! Lookit what I did!"

Honestly!

I'm really pissed about something: politicians lie.

OK, that's a man-bites-dog story if I've ever heard one but let me continue.

All politicians lie, it's true. Indeed, all politicians lie most of the time or at least hedge the truth with truthiness.

That doesn't bother me. I don't really want to know what's going on behind the scenes for most things until the public roll out happens. Too many details, too much information and then you'd have people arguing about how they didn't know, as opposed to why they didn't know.

Like I don't need to know wiring to appreciate electricity, I don't need to know the processes behind most legislation and administration.

Here's the thing, tho. We've just come out of eight years of the most egregious lying in the history of America, and that's pissing me off. Why? Because it makes Barack Obama look stupid, is why.

Bill Clinton lied. Indeed, he was the consummate liar of both stripes: the lies I can live with and the lies I hate. When Clinton was in his element, say with encouraging Congress to pass legislation, his lies were spot on, and again, I could live with not being told something was going on when indeed something was going on.

Clinton, when he was out of his element, like with the Lewinski scandal, was a horrible liar. He was out of his comfort zone. Rather than not revealing truths, he was forced to deny the truth. Those are the lies, I think, most people get offended by.

Bush et al, took this to a brand new level. Under the guise of hiding the truth, in reality, people like Cheney and Gonzalez, Libby and Rove ended up bald-faced lying to us. For eight years!

In the end, I think part of Bush's horrendous polling numbers was a direct function of this: there's only so much that Americans will put up with before screaming "ENOUGH!"

Now, to Barack Obama. I've read a little of his stimulus package. I know there's dissembling in there, of course. For one thing, it has to be based on last year's budget numbers and last year's budget numbers are not the whole truth, to be sure. In most places, it will be worse than the budget tells us. In some, better.

Here's the thing, though. The first lie, white or black, that Obama is caught up in will be magnified and turned into a major crisis of confidence. Just look at how the Richardson withdrawal played out in the MSM: Obama misstepped.

No, he didn't. He can't be blamed because Richardson flat out lied, except to the extent that his vetting team fell flat on its face. For that, he needs to take responsibility, but not to me. I don't care. I expected it, in fact.

No, I'm talking about the first lie in his numbers, which of course are inaccurate as I've just outlined. The hue and cry will be awful.

Bush lowered the bar for many things in the Presidency: accountability, humility, communication, bipartisanship (remember how he would work with Dems?).

But in this, in honesty, there might be the greatest tragedy of all his failures and flaws.

For that, he must never be forgotten or forgiven.

Politics Stops At The Border, Right?

Then explain this:

US intelligence analysts are putting the final touches on a secret National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Afghanistan that reportedly describes the situation as "grim", but there are "no plans to declassify" any of it before the election, according to one US official familiar with the process.

Officials say a draft of the classified NIE, representing the key judgments of the US intelligence community's 17 agencies and departments, is being circulated in Washington and a final "coordination meeting" of the agencies involved, under the direction of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, is scheduled in the next few weeks.

According to people who have been briefed, the NIE will paint a "grim" picture of the situation in Afghanistan, seven years after the US invaded in an effort to dismantle the al Qaeda network and its Taliban protectors.

Lemme think, now...what happens in the next few weeks...*koffkoff* electionisonlyfiveweeksaway*koffkoff*

Ah, yes, and a grim picture of Afghanistan would play against the public image of John McCain on national security.

Or maybe not. If I'm the McCain campaign, I want this report released to make people understand that the past eight years have been a boondoggled blunderfest, that has to be fixed.

This issue plays to Obama, too, to be sure: the agent of change trope is tailormade for the case I made for the "Maverick". In other words, the declassification of this report would neither hurt nor really help either candidate.

Which is why it will likely remain conveniently classified until November 5, when miraculously it will be leaked to the Washington Post.

After all, it's important that the American people hear confirmation of what Admiral Michael Mullen said last week to Congress we're running out of time. "I'm not convinced we're winning it in Afghanistan," were his exact words.

Couple that with the story about the deteriorating situation Pakistan in last week's Time Magazine, and you have a now-regional fuck up on the part of the Bush administration.

All this is happening while the clown car that is the White House has distracted you with handwringing and bickering over the $700 billion bailout as proposed by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.

Fingerpointing seems to be the order of the day on the Hill. All eyes focused on McCain's support or lack thereof of Paulson's deeply flawed package, while Nancy Pelosi has demanded strong Republican backing in the House.

Give Pelosi credit. She's at least taking a stand. Harry Reid has all but dissappeared here. Can you say "Senate Majority Leader Clinton"? I knew that you could. So now we uncover the bargain Hillary and Barack came to.

Things are so bad in the House that even the Dark Lord of the Shits, Dick Cheney, can't keep his stormtroopers quiet, probably because they've deliberately kept their minions in the dark.

That's not to minimize the bailout or underlying economic troubles of the country. Bush and company have managed to do what Osama bin Laden, 19 terrorists and four airplanes could not: bring America to its knees.

What it does point out is, yet again, the Bush administration is deliberately paying lip service to an unfolding foreign crisis in order to let it fester to the point where the US is, once again, forced to go to war.

Only this time, it will be for the good of the economy, and not just the oil barons. You think jingoism was the order of the day in the early Aughts, wait till you seen what happens next!

It ain't gonna be pretty, folks.

Putting Lipstick On A Pig

It's September 11 once again, now seven years out from the attacks that paralyzed my city and horrified the nation and the world.

 

As John Lennon once sang, "And so this is Christmas, and what have you done? Another year over, a new one just begun."

 

It has gotten so far from the hopes and dreams of a nation of September 12, 2001 that we have dumbed down the attacks. Unable to capture and bring to justice the real criminal behind the tragedy, despite an admitted new effort to land him in the desperate eleventh hour hopes of salvaging a legacy, we've decided to try and change the story: Osama bin Laden was never the man behind the attacks, Khalid Sheik Muhammed was!

 

And we have always been at war with Eastasia.

 

Under Bill Clinton, while internally we were divided thanks to a small handful of uberpartisan numbnuts who believed in party ahead of God and country, we presented to the world a beacon of hope, of good will, of what was right with this nation and could be right for the world. On September 11, indeed, the world stood side by side with us and declared "we are all Americans" from France to Palestine and beyond.

 

That's all gone now, along with our "inheritance" of freedom, democracy, and abundance. We slide slowly into the abyss of has-been, clinging to whatever outcropping of rock extends pitifully past the margins, but inexorably, we lose our grip little by little, and slip to the next handhold: we elected a man who pushed us over the precipice by lying us into an invasion we had no business attending to, watching him fumble even that distraction as the world looked on in horror (except Russia, who licked her lips and pounced on her satellite states), and then not having recognized our mistake in electing George Bush in 2000, a man who was clearly unfit for the job, then slapping the world in the face with a cold towel by RE-electing this moron.

 

Our freedoms slipped off our backs, and now we walk the streets in terror, not of some hooded bearded man with a bomb strapped to his chest, but of the cop with the M-16 searching our backpacks and briefcases, of the long line waiting to board a plane barefoot, of applying for a bank account.

 

We sat and watched our livelihoods ported to Mumbai or Djarkarta, and as our houses lost value so extensively that many of us could not even recoup and repay our mortgages if we somehow managed to find some moron dumb enough to buy our house at the going rate.

 

Teen suicides have been up each year since 2005 in this country, at an alarming rate caused in large part by suicides among those occupying Iraq. Meanwhile, teen pregnancy rates have reversed field, after declining in the decades since Roe v. Wade, meaning we are creating a permanent underclass of single moms-- the shotgun at Levi Johnston's back notwithstanding. Meanwhile, life expectancy has begun to drift downward.

 

Five million more people do not have health care since 2000. Millions more are underinsured, preferring the extra few bucks to pay the rent,  gambling with their lives. Ten million more struggle today in the depths of poverty without even the safety net of a welfare check to protect them from catastrophe.

 

All this, but today, on this sacred day, at this sacred moment, you only read about "lipstick on a pig" jokes.

 

We went from "morning in America" to "morons in America", in less than four years, now eight. On a day, at a time, that we should be re-dedicating ourselves to our American brothers and sisters, re-consecrating the memory of those we've lost, we're distracted by the clown in glasses and high heels and her sidekick, Rusty the Wonder P.O.W.

 

I can't imagine why. But it has to stop. We're being attacked, this time by an enemy we actually can see, and fight.

 

Ourselves.

All hail Memeorandum!

Demolition Man

People spoke, either admiringly or jealously, of Ronald Reagan as "the Teflon President," where corruption and scandal slipped off him like a fried egg from a skillet. It should be noted that the implication of the moniker is that Reagan was indeed a corrupt bastard whose lingering death was thoroughly justified, just as John "Teflon John" Gotti was among the most notorious gangsters this country has ever produced.

But far outclassing them all, I think, in terms of his Teflon coating is George W. Bush. To-wit:

Under pressure over impending impeachment charges, President Pervez Musharraf announced he would resign Monday, ending nearly nine years as the head of one of the United States’ most important allies in the campaign against terrorism.

By my count...Japan and England being among the largest coups... this now makes something like a half dozen world leaders who had closely allied themselves with Bush's Middle Eastern hegemonic ambitions who have now fallen on their swords partly because of it.

Yes, there are lingering corruption charges in Pakistan and Pakistan is not exactly a hotbed of good government, but Musharraf was considered a fairly benevolent leader prior to 2002, and was popular.

The moment he was basically blackmailed into partnering with Bush's ill-fated search for Osama bin Laden, his popularity began to spiral downward.

And yet, there's ol' Dumbya sitting there, just tearing pages off the calendar and packing boxes, waiting to leave office. Nothing seems to touch him despite the fact that he knew about the Plame affair, despite the fact he personally knew there were no WMDs in Iraq, despite the fact he received a Presidential Daily Briefing a month ahead of September 11, and did nothing,

This goes beyond minor internal corruption. This goes beyond the Constitutional violations of the Nixon administration. This certainly goes beyond consensual sex! This is the deliberate and negligent seditious behaviour of someone who at the kindest does not have his nation's best interests at heart, doesn't care, and at worst is raping the resources of this nation to benefit some private agenda.

That last alone ought to be an impeachable offense.

The trouble here now is that, between an unstable nuclear power, Pakistan, and an angry aggressive rival, Russia (Putin, who opposed the Iraq invasion, is still strongly in power. Wonder why...), Bush has left the fuse to the powder keg lying dangerously close to a sparking flame.

And it's getting warm in here...

(props to Memeorandum for tapping this)

The Bush Legacy

I had intended a very different post this morning, until I logged into the news...

1) Caucasus ceasefire holds despite war of words - The ceasefire in the Caucasus conflict appeared to be holding today as Russia reported the pullback of Georgian troops from South Ossetia and denied Georgian claims that it was deploying more troops on Georgian territory outside the disputed province.

In particular, Moscow denied Georgian claims that 50 of its tanks were in Gori, the Georgian city near the Ossential border. The city had been abandoned by its authorities who had fled, said General Anatoly Nogovitsyn, deputy head of the Russian General Staff. "We cannot find anyone. How they were evacuated and what happened there is a mystery to us," he said.

Russia continued to vent its anger on what it called Georgian aggression and atrocities as European foreign ministers gave the Union's blessing to a ceasefire accord that was brokered in Moscow yesterday by Nicolas Sarkozy, the French President and current EU chairman.

2) Western Aid Workers Ambushed, Killed Near Kabul - Afghan officials say gunmen have killed three foreign aid workers - all women - during an ambush in eastern Logar province.

3) Lebanon Bomb Kills at Least 10 People - A bomb hidden in a briefcase exploded on a bus in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli during morning rush hour on Wednesday, killing at least 10 people and wounding 30 others, the Lebanese Army said.

Lebanon has suffered a wave of bombings in recent years, including the 2005 killing of the former prime minister Rafik Hariri, which led to political upheaval in the country. However, the attack Wednesday was the first large-scale bombing in months.

4) Death toll hits 20 in Kashmir protests - Violent protests continued across Kashmir Wednesday, as the death toll from the past two days of demonstrations rose to 20, a senior police official said.

5) Philippines 'Liberates' 15 Villagers From Muslim Rebels - Philippine security forces on Wednesday announced they have "liberated" 15 villages forcibly occupied by Muslim rebels since July after three days of heavy fighting in southern Philippines.

Philippine Defense Chief Gilberto Teodoro, Jr., said the rebels retreated on Sunday after heavy air and ground assaults. More than 80,000 people displaced by the conflict in North Cotabato, have returned home.

Teodoro's statement was confirmed by Major-General Armando Cunanan, commander of the Armed Forces Eastern Command. He confirmed that the estimated 800 Moro Islamic Liberation Front guerillas that occupied the villages have fled.

6) Pakistan bomb hits military truck; at least 14 dead - At least 14 people were killed Tuesday in the roadside bombing of a Pakistani military truck, an attack authorities blamed on Islamic militants.

The powerful blast occurred just outside Peshawar, the nearest large city to a tribal area along the border with Afghanistan that has been raked by fighting for nearly a week.

7) Al-Qaida linked group takes sides in recent coup - A terror group linked to al-Qaida called for holy war in Mauritania following a coup last week that overthrew its democratically elected government.

"You Muslims prepare for war and raise the banner of jihad. Let us shed our blood, let our limbs be dismembered until we regain the wise caliphate rule," said the statement posted Tuesday on an Islamic web site.

The statement was signed by Abu Musab Abdulwadood, the leader of Al-Qaida in Islamic North Africa, a cell that has been blamed for a string of attacks in Mauritania including last year's murder of four French tourists.

8) Three Security Officials Killed in W. China - Three security officials were killed at a roadside checkpoint in western China's Xinjiang region Tuesday when at least one assailant jumped off a passing vehicle and stabbed them to death, state media reported. It was the third deadly incident in nine days, coinciding with the opening of the Olympic Games in Beijing.

We were supposed to be bringing peace to the Muslim world. We were going to give them a spoonful of democracy and hold their noses and ram it down their throats until they swallowed it whole, then pat them on the head and say "Good boys! Now go out and play..." only they spit the medicine out and decided to go out and play.

Which makes sense. Our president plays with his tin soldiers, and expects everyone else to busy themselves with their day-to-day lives, even his own people.

What the Bush regime and their cabal do not seem to grasp is that freedom comes with a price: blood.

Dumbya has tried to run bloodless coups across the Arabic and Muslim world, but these are not stupid people. These are nations with histories and cultures and yes, they've been thru this before, as recently as the 20th Century when the patrician states of Europe divvied up the Middle East along economic and not population lines.

And now the djinn is out of the bottle. Now the festering violence that had simmered but remained in control, bottled up by the rational thoughts of men and women, has flared up and is spreading across the nations of Asia and even Europe like a fire that cannot be contained by mortals.

And Bush and his cronies laugh, leaving a world far worse off than they inherited. We were at peace. We spent eight years of the Clinton Administration at peace and in prosperity, with surpluses of goodwill and good money.

Now our dollar, so closely tied to those interests that we have antagonized, has fallen through the floor. When Bush took office, the euro purchased about 80 cents American. Now, the dollar purchases about one-third of the euro. Now our dollar, tied to the price of oil, works against us, not for us, as consumers pay more and more for gasoline and heating oil, precisely because our President has bungled the first and only mandate of his office: to faithfully execute the office of President of the United States.

That's not *some* states, Mr. Bush, but ALL states, and that means you had a fiduciary duty to this country to prevent harm. And that means not only interior to our borders but to protect us from harm outside them as well: aid workers shouldn't be killed in Afghanistan because of miserable decisions on your part that will benefit you long after you have shuffled off these (and I use the term loosely, because you clearly believe in lip service) "responsibilities".

Indeed, it is likely that whomever handles your personal wealth has already instituted a "win-win" for you. If this were a fair and decent world, you would be made to pay restitution out of your pocket to the thousands of families of American soldiers who have died fighting your war, sir.

Your war. Not ours. You scratch your head and wonder why the nation nearly to a man disagrees with you on this point? It is because we had no say. Indeed, we were told that dissent in a time of terror alerts was unpatriotic, as if patriotism stops outside our borders.

Well, we see a far greater terror within and it sits in a chair in an Oval Office at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and fortunately, it will be extricated, by hook or by crook, on 20 January, 2009.

Mark that date carefully, Mr. Bush, the day you are exiled from public life, the day when even the neo-cons of the Cato Institute will refuse your calls.

And you will watch in solitude as President Obama and those who succeed him, for indeed, you have started something that will outlast even this next generation of Presidents, successfully prosecute the global conflict that history will deem you have started single-handedly, simply because they have to. It is at that time the true mettle of your faux patriotism will be found wanting and a new paradigm of love of country will emerge.

Americans will love them, not you. You will be reviled in ways that few Presidents can even have nightmares about. You will sit in seclusion, riding out the war on your thousand acres in Paraguay, believing you are safe, not even cowboying up long enough to sit through what you started at Ground Zero, America (possibly more than just a catchy phrase developed by your marketeers, an actual nuclear bombsite).

You will not be afforded the reconstruction that even the most hated President of our time, Richard Nixon, was afforded, because Americans of all stripes will see you for what you are: a shameless, godless buffoon of disproportionate idiocy, a man who took a peaceful, prosperous country and tore it apart like a little boy with an Erector set, leaving twisted metal and the burned out engines of American lives lying on the floor.

But who could parrot talking points with the best of them.

That, sir, is your legacy. Enjoy it.

I'm Going To Miss George Bush

President Bush is rehearsing his speech, using the teleprompter, for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.

He begins with "Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!"

Immediately his speech writer rushes over to the lectern and whispers in the President's ear:

"Mr. President, those are the Olympic rings. Your speech is underneath

He's Not Even Pretending Anymore

Why does George W Bush hate America so?:

WASHINGTON — The White House predicted Monday that President Bush would leave a record $482 billion deficit to his successor, a sobering turnabout in the nation’s fiscal condition from 2001, when Mr. Bush took office after three consecutive years of budget surpluses.

The worst may be yet to come. The deficit announced by Jim Nussle, the White House budget director, does not reflect the full cost of military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the potential $50 billion cost of another economic stimulus package, or the possibility of steeper losses in tax revenues if individual income or corporate profits decline.

The new deficit numbers also do not account for any drains on the national treasury that might result from further declines in the housing market.

The real chilling part of this story comes a paragraph or two later...

Mr. Nussle predicted Monday that the deficit would more than double in the current 2008 fiscal year — to $389 billion, from $162 billion in 2007 — before shooting up to $482 billion in the 2009 fiscal year, which begins in about two months.

(emphasis added)

Well, the neo-cons got what they wanted. Grover Norquist must be chuckling behind his latte and scone. They've destroyed America.

The combination of enormous budget deficits, which seem to stretch ad infinitum, a recession, which will likely deepen into a Depression, although no one you know will ever admit to it in our lifetimes, and the ghastly costs of an irresponsible and illegal war, which will cost us in ways we can't even begin to monetarize, have created the perfect economic storm.

One that will force harsh choices on Americans in the coming administration. This is the ultimate "scorched earth" policy: spend, spend, spend and leave nothing in the till for the next guy.

It is, in my opinion, no coincidence that the two largest deficits in American history, $413 billion in 2004, and $482 billion next year, come at the nexus of elections that could see the shift of power from Republicans to Democrats.

In 2004, it was possible for John Kerry to win the election-- certainly he was poised to-- and Bush clearly wanted to destroy this great nation in a temper tantrum.

And now, with Bush leaving office to either his greatest Republican rival or to the Democrats, and with history's judgement of his administration already weighing in negatively, he's pooped his diaper again!

Even McCain is alarmed by what he has perceived from these numbers: he's being stabbed in the back once more:

“There is no more striking reminder of the need to reverse the profligate spending that has characterized this administration’s fiscal policy,” Mr. McCain said.

$482 billion dollars is a lot, to be sure, and that's just the half of it, newswise. See, the Iraq war is fought off-budget. The coming mortgage crisis package, as half-assed as they are, will add a minimum of $25 billion (and in my estimation, more like $75 billion) to the budget deficit short term.

And this is before the warning shot that the IndyMac bank bailout foreshadows!

For example, the S&L crisis of the Reagan years...funny how these always happen under Republicans...cost the government $125 billion over ten years. This crisis could make that crisis look like a bad day at the track! A March 2008 report said that the subprime mortgage crisis alone could cost the government $300 to $500 billion dollars to solve.

So forget the Iraq invasion. Forget Katrina. Forget September 11, and his cowardly dash to safety.

George W Bush will go down in history as the first President to truly hate his country.

Gee, Here's A Surprise!

Political patronage in the Justice Department? Whoda thunk?:

WASHINGTON - Scores of highly credentialed young lawyers and law students were denied interviews for coveted positions at the Justice Department because of an illegal screening process that took political and ideological views and affiliations into account rather than merit, Justice Department investigators concluded in a report released Tuesday.

In 2006, some applicants for sought-after jobs in the department's honors program and summer intern program were rejected because they were members of the American Constitution Society or Planned Parenthood or because they expressed concern about gender discrimination in the military, the report found.

Other students or graduates who were brushed aside included a University of Alabama law graduate, ranked sixth in the class, who had written a paper on the detention of aliens under the USA Patriot Act, a Yale Law School graduate who was fluent in Arabic and a Georgetown law student who had worked for Sen. John Kerry's presidential campaign.

In another case, a Harvard Law student was passed over after criticizing the nomination of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court.

Believe it or not, this does not concern me overly. In an administration as overtly partisan and hostile to Democrats and moderates (they call them "liberals" to boot!) as the Bush administration, there are bigger fish to fry than whether a few summer interns were passed over for less qualified candidates because Daddy gave to the wrong party.

What we SHOULD be focusing on is that party ideology became so blatant as to create an atmosphere that forced even Republicans already working for the DoJ to deny their own sense of equity and equanimity and tow a biased and unfair politicized agenda.

It's one thing to seek out an agenda-driven department, Presidents do that all the time, even with "nonpartisan" panels, it is another thing entirely to treat a department of professionals like it was just another commando unit in a far greater army of oppression and injustice.

When your own partisans, in other words, think something is a bad idea, rather than dispose of them, it might make sense to keep even their timid and modest objections in mind when fomenting policies and executing same. Just a thought, altho this administration is long on tales of people forced out, Colin Powell and John O'Neill being the marquee names, for moderation in anything.

You get bad apples in all administration and the truth is, Alberto Gonzalez was an unabashed failure as Attorney General of the United States. This is just another example of his fraudulent oversight of the department.

But keep in mind, as Joe Conason points out, that Gonzalez used the tool made available to him by someone who ought to know better: Arlen Specter:

But that wholesome safeguard was breached in December 2005, when the Senate renewed the Patriot Act. At the behest of the Justice Department, an aide to Sen. Arlen Specter slipped a provision into the bill that permitted the White House to place its own appointees in vacant U.S. attorney positions permanently and without Senate confirmation. So silently was this sleight of hand performed that Specter himself now claims, many months later, to have been completely unaware of the amendment's passage. (Of course, it would be nice if the senators actually read the legislation before they voted, particularly when they claim to be the authors.)

The staffer who reportedly performed this bit of dirty work is Michael O'Neill, a law professor at George Mason University and former clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. As the Washington Times explained when O'Neill was appointed as the Senate Judiciary Committee's chief counsel, many observers believed that Specter had hired him to reassure conservatives of his loyalty to the Bush White House. Right-wing distrust had almost ousted the Pennsylvania moderate from the Judiciary chairmanship, and appointing O'Neill was apparently the price for keeping that post.

Evidently O'Neill rewarded Specter by sneaking through legislation to deprive him and his fellow senators of one of their most important powers, at the behest of an attorney general intent on aggrandizing executive power. The results of this backstage betrayal -- now playing out in a wave of politicized dismissals and hirings -- were perfectly predictable and utterly poisonous.

Specter, by dint of his politically moderate (in Republican perspective, dangerously liberal) positions, was forced to accept a situation whereby he had to genuflect to the more adamantine hearts of his oberfuhren.

And Now For News That Shouldn't Surprise Us...

Remember those touted "rebate checks" that were going to spur the economy?

Um...not so much....

MIAMI — The federal government is showering households with tax rebates to spur spending and invigorate a troubled economy. But many Americans are so consumed with debt and the soaring price of gasoline that they are opting to save the money or use it to pay bills, according to surveys, sales data and interviews with people from Florida to California.

Between late April and the end of last week, the Treasury handed out more than $50 billion of the $100 billion in tax rebates it plans to distribute to 132 million households. But only once in the last six weeks have chain stores registered an increase in sales, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers, whose weekly sales survey is a widely watched barometer.

“The initial sense is that people are not running out to the malls to spend their checks,” said Stuart G. Hoffman, chief economist at the PNC Financial Services Group in Pittsburgh. “It’s not quite proving to be a hot potato that’s burning a hole in people’s pockets.”

You read that right folks: only one week in the past 6 has seen an increase in consumer spending. I'd lay pretty good money that it was the second week in May, after everyone had sorted out their mortgages and rent, and decided, yes, the had a little extra to spend.

Here's where the lunatic logic of the Republican party comes into play: When tax rebates have been handed out to Americans, only 20 to 50 percent actually gets flushed back into the economy as fresh spending. THe rest, the other half to four-fifths, gets stuck paying down debts or otherwise improving the balance sheets of consumers.

In short, rebates don't really work. Well, that's not true, they COULD work, but only when consumers have enough income coming in and their debt levels are in line with those incomes. Like when the economy is humming along, for example. Which is when they wouldn't need them, right?

A rebate has to be very carefully timed to be distributed at the precise moment when the economy is just beginning to go south, but the effects of the souring economy haven't been felt in the pockets of the average taxpayer, in other words. Since no government in their right mind is going to do anything but talk up the economy at that stage, rebates are esentially ineffectual.

Rather than distribute that money, what the government could have done was make it 100% fresh money in the economy, and spent it themselves. In an ideal world, this is how it should go, but in that world, pigs really do fly.

The government would spend this money on new initiatives, carefully targeted by sector and geography, and thus drum up further private investment. Things like economic development, seed money for small businesses, and other investments that would show a long term return of tax revenue would be ideally suited for this money.

Further, if the government really thought the country was going to go to hell in a handbasket, it could invest this money in infrastructure repair which would have a two-fold effect: it would prime the country for the eventually recovery at the same time it would provide jobs for the working class, those who are most affected by the current sordid state.

If only Bill Clinton could have run for a fourth term...

Pot To Kettle: You're Black!

President Bush is in the Middle East to press Arab leaders to moderate their cultures: create economic reforms, increase opportunities for women, and embrace democracy.

Yea. Um. Hullo?:

SHARM EL SHEIKH, Egypt — After a showy celebration of America’s close ties with Israel, President Bush was expected to present Arab leaders with a lengthy to-do list on Sunday, telling them that if Middle East peace is to become a reality, they must expand their economies, offer equal opportunity to women and embrace democracy.

Mr. Bush’s three-day stay in Jerusalem last week has drawn criticism from Arab leaders, including the foreign minister of Saudi Arabia, who say he has been insensitive to the plight of Palestinians. He came to this Red Sea resort city to try to soften that impression and reassure regional leaders he is committed to their cause.

But in prepared remarks released ahead of a Sunday afternoon appearance at the World Economic Forum on the Middle East, a gathering of world leaders, diplomats and business executives, Mr. Bush seemed to chide as much as reassure.

“Too often in the Middle East, politics has consisted of one leader in power and the opposition in jail,” Mr. Bush said in the address, adding, “The time has come for nations across the Middle East to abandon these practices, and treat their people with the dignity and respect they deserve.”

Now, granted, neither Barack Obama nor Hillary Clinton is in any danger of being thrown in the hoosegow...altho the Rezko trial ain't over yet...but to say others must embrace democracy as we erode it away is a little like starting a land war in South Asia: idiotic.

The liberties we've given up, quietly, with little fanfare, are astounding. You can't travel anyplace out of the country without first being vetted. You can't open a bank account without proving every detail about your life, right down to your utility bill. You can't rent a movie or borrow a book from a library without some flunky at the DHS glancing at your activity.

You can't make a telephone call, cell or landline, without popping up on a list and god help you if that call is to a Muslim nation!

This is a democracy only in form and even there, with the imminent threat of stolen elections dangling over our heads, perhaps "name only" is a better way of putting it!

Similarly, "economic reforms" for Arab countries is code for "share the wealth". Emirs and sheiks control the lion's share of revenues flowing into nations from Saudi Arabia to Qatar.

For America, which now sees the largest single inequity in personal income since at least the Great Depression, to chide any other nation about its income structure is absurd, particularly as we worked hard these past seven years to institute a formal recognition that, indeed, the rich really DO get richer, off the backs of the working classes in this nation who create that wealth.

You know... Clinton voters.

A true acknowledgment of this terrible situation would see Hillary Clinton as the Democratic nominee, sweeping to election in November. Clearly, the middle classes are terrified of this. After all, the middle class relies deeply on the rich to create the cushy middle management jobs upon which they rely on to work without getting their hands calloused and dirty. We survive and subsist on the scraps of the rich, but those scraps are just big enough to keep us complacent.

Nevermind that job security and company loyalty no longer work both ways.

And yes, let's focus on Bush's other point for a second: women.

It's great to see a woman actually contend for the highest office in the land and arguably the most powerful job in the world.

It's highly symbolic, at the same breath. Look at how many Obombers and McCainistas claim she got there by dint of her husband.

Neither Obama nor McCain has exactly made it on their own either. Cindy McCain was independently wealthy, freeing John to be a politico, and Michelle Obama appears to have a fair amount of money in her own right, seeing as all these shady real estate deals were done in her name only.

That would be an interesting sidelight to an Obama administration: can the First Lady be imprisoned?

And it is this perception, that a woman somehow need a magical "leg up" while men do not, despite the fact that the old boy's network has been up and running for hundreds of years in America, must change. It is this segregated thinking that marginalizes women...and yes, minorities, too. And while it's not as pervasive as blatant discrimination can be, it is nonetheless insidious and affective.

So, Dumbya? Clean your own house first before you go around talking about the trash in other people's kitchens.

Appease Porridge Hot, Appease Porridge Cold

Not sure I understand Bush's point here:

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush on Thursday decried his critics' calls for negotiations with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as comparable to the appeasement of Adolf Hitler before World War Two.

Bush's comment in a speech to Israel's parliament appeared to be a swipe at Democratic presidential frontrunner Barack Obama, who has advocated meeting leaders of traditional U.S. foes such as Iran and Cuba without preconditions.

It also followed a visit to the Middle East by former President Jimmy Carter in which he met Hamas leaders, who are shunned by Israel and Washingtion, and urged efforts to draw the militant group into the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

[...]Bush, who has refused any contact with Ahmadinejad, said the Iranian president "dreams of returning the Middle East to the Middle Ages and calls for Israel to be wiped off the map", and lumped him together in an anti-Israel camp with Hamas, Hezbollah and Osama bin Laden.

"Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before," Bush said.=

I'm not sure I've heard Obama say that, necessarily, or anyone on the left. I know I don't think that's a good idea, either.

But....

What IS a good idea is what President Bill Clinton...you remember the guy, brightest President to sit in the White House since Jefferson, greatest President of all time, husband of candidate Hillary Clinton and someone Barack Obama has gone out of his way to paint with strokes of hatred and jealousy?...did during his tenure: reach out to Iranians moderates and try to establish a dialogue regarding what THEY want.

It's true, Ahmadinejad would probably leap at the chance to have face time with a President Obama, but it's not very likely that would amount to anything, unless it was preceded by many rounds of talks among lower level operatives and with opposition leaders in Iran, such as they are.

Remember, despite Ahmadinejad's posturing, Iran is a fairly moderate country with an educated population, a decent economy, and more important, some freedoms that other Muslim nations do not have.

To suggest that even the rookie Senator from Illinois would be foolhardy enough to justify Ahmadinejad's posturing in the face of that populace belies a deep disregard for the intellectual curiousity of both Iranians and Americans: we'd see through that in a heartbeat. Look what happened when Ahmadinejad spoke at Columbia.

The comparisons to Nazi Germany are a bit outre as well. Germany was controlled by Hitler. Ahmadinejad can't take a dump without the religious council ratifying it. And there's where the talking with Iran might bear some fruit. Mohammad Khatami and Akbar Rafsanjani, pragmatic reformers who have some sway with the council would be valuable players here.

Bush, thankfully, has rendered himself irrelevant prematurely. My suspicion is, someone in his administration watched "The West Wing" and tried to arrange a graceful exit for him like Jeb Bartlett's, and creating relevancy for the lamest of ducks in recent memory.

PostNATO Care

Well, some interesting developments in foreign relations today...

NATO has decided not to include the Ukraine and Georgia among its new members after strong objections from Russia. However, the alliance pledged that the two countries would eventually become members.

President Bush was a supporter of the Ukraine and Georgia's bids to become members of NATO.

Former Soviet republics Croatia and Albania were invited to become members in the decision announced Thursday.[...]

Macedonia was denied entry to the alliance after Greece blocked its invitation because of objections to the country's name. However, leaders said Macedonia can join as soon as it resolves the dispute, AP said.

Greece has a northern province that is also called Macedonia, and argues the former Yugoslav republic's insistence on being known as Macedonia implies a territorial claim.

The denial of Macedonia is a pretty silly matter, unless of course, you're Greek, or Turkish, for that matter. It's a little like denying York, Pennsylvania full American rights because it sounds like New York City.

However, the Georgia/Ukraine as well as Croatia/Albania questions...there's an interesting little bit of chemin de fer amongst the NATO allies. Russia, which of course was most decidely NOT a charter member of NATO, set up to defend against the Soviet Union's hegemony into Europe.

One almost gets the sense that Bush got the split difference: he lost out on Georgia and Ukraine, countries he had explicitly asked membership for, but was granted Albania and Croatia, which, while not former Soviet republics, certainly were under USSR influence in the old Warsaw Pact country of Yugoslavia. He had not lobbied for these. Give the baby his candy, perhaps?

This indicates the rise of Vladimir Putin's profile in European matters in tandem with the decline of American prestige in such affairs, even amongst our staunchest allies and pledged defenders.

In his book, Superclass: The Global Power Elite and the World They Are Making, David Rothkopf makes the observation that the 21st Century will see a kind of global government arise that will subsume national governments, and it won't be led by America.

While this was likely inevitable before the Bush administration fumbled foreign affairs so badly after the sparkling diplomacy of Bill Clinton, Rothkopf points out that only the Bush administration could have the world hating us...for being the victim of a terror attack!

This "New World Order," to use a hackneyed phrase, will originate in Asia, and be led by China, India (which is poised to become the most populous nation on the planet shortly) and-- you guessed it!-- Russia.

Indeed, several nations which have been mulling admission into NATO have not aggressively pursued admittance simply because they view NATO as not "European enough" (code word for "too dominated by the US").

Keep in mind that Russia, China, and India all possess nukes, and all have shall we say, close working relationships with Iran?

Foreshadowed

Consider this a glimpse of things to come:

Heavy fighting has been raging in Basra as thousands of Iraqi troops battle Shia militias in the southern city.

At least 12 people have died in the operation, which is being overseen in Basra by Iraqi PM Nouri Maliki, a day after he vowed to "re-impose law".

[...]Oil-rich Basra is in the grip of a bitter turf war between armed groups, including the Mehdi Army, say analysts.

The Mehdi Army - which supports radical Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr - called for a nationwide campaign of civil disobedience.

Yea. Some "civil disobedience", huh?

Sadr declareda ceasefire last summer, and apparently went into hiding for the past seven months, only to pop up again Tuesday, calling on Iraqis, and particularly Shi'ites, to engage in civil disruptions if American "attacks" did not cease.

These attacks consisted of wide-scale arrests of Iraqis (apparently non-discriminatory) across Iraq in an attempt to round up militia members.

The lone bright spot in this story is that the bulk of the fighting is being done by Iraqis themselves, against other Iraqis. Allied forces are providing support and reconnaissance functions.

The New York Times is reporting that Sadr has attempted to negotiate with American and Iraqi leaders, but that those talks have broken down.

We're in the middle of this mess, and sadly, it looks like McCain's prediction of 100 years (which he will shortly scale back to fifty) of American presence in the country is not too far off the mark. The Koreas have had us for nearly sixty years, and they are not that much closer to resolution of their grievances and disputes.

We will, I think, be forced to leave a military presence, even as a policing presence, in Iraq for some time to come, and it really doesn't matter who was right or who was wrong about the war.

The bus, to borrow a phrase, has been driven into the ditch. This kind of story will be the template for stories to come out of Iraq for the next few generations, I suspect: Iraqi fighting Iraqi, with Americans trying and failing to talk them both down from the ledge. Civil disobedience will take the form of more bullets and less bluster.

To rattle sabers will be taken far more literally. You almost get the sense that Sadr hoped the American troops would be long gone by now, and figured there's no real reason to wait to take over the country, which would be an unacceptable resolution for America, which have pinned its feeble hopes on Maliki's government.

While McCain was wrong about Iran training Al Qaeda fighters, Shi'a warriors are most definitely allied with Iran, much like the Northern Ireland Catholics were allied with American Irish Catholics. That means money, influence, and weapons are at their disposal, possibly ad infinitum.

It would, of course, be a feather in Iran's cap to rule the nation that they once waged a terrible and terrifying war against.

Pundits on the left have, among others, have tried to paint Iraq's relevance to this election cycle, but I think the realpolitik is that all three remaining candidates would probably have to suck it up and accept our presence in Iraq until 2012, at least (something both Clinton and Obama have admitted to in debates).

Iraq will not be an issue in the campaign this year, not even as a retrospective review and mandate of George Bush's failures. The parry to any serious questioning about our involvement in Iraq would be "Yes, but..."

No use crying over spilled milk, I suppose, but you have to sit and wonder what we've lost, how much we've lost, in this foolish aggression of a few unprincipled men.

In What Universe Was This, Again?

As you may know, or not, depending on how wrapped up you've been in the election, President Dumbya is in Africa. You may even recall that, back in 2002, Bush made note in his State of The Union address that America would increase its aid to Africa because, as he stated at an international summit later that year, "We fight against poverty because hope is an answer to terror."

In fairness to Bush, he did increase aid substantially to Africa. The trouble is, as measured against GDP, US aid was still lagging far behind nations around the globe.

Too, much of that aid was tied into two evil underpinnings: first, that sexual abstinence be the main way of preventing AIDS (enforced by the insistence that no money go to organizations that were working with the sex trade workers) and second, that African nations tighten their patent laws, so that big pharma companies would have more protections and could charge higher prices for their drugs.

And yet, he had the nerve to say this to the BBC:

"I've got a firm, heartfelt commitment to the continent of Africa and have ever since I became president," Mr Bush said.

It is to laugh. Given his lack of commitment exhibited to any person of color who hasn't either married into or been adopted by his family, one has to ponder the possibility that Bush is utterly ignorant of what "commitment" truly means.

Africa is in dire straits, Mr. President. It is in dire need of food, medicine, shelter. It is mostly in dire need of water, not just for drinking, but for irrigation.

Most of all, sir, Africa is in dire need of security. Just a quick perusal of the headlines today will demonstrate this:

Kenyan militia strike back

Uganda peace talks to resume

Intervene in Nigeria, Bush urged

UN troops 'trapped' in Eritrea

Chad declares state of emergency

And that's not even counting the continuing tragedy in Darfur and the Sudan. Sure, malaria is an huge problem in Africa, but what moron would try to control nature when men themselves cannot be controlled with the current attitude of world leaders, one of willful ignorance?

"Freedom" is just another word for these people, Mr. Bush, and you had an opportunity in the wake of September 11 to do real good in the world, to make America a truly shining beacon of hope and democracy, of security and independence.

Instead, you bullied the world and your own people onto the edge of a cliff.

Bush's Final Budget

Bush's Final Budget. Sorry for repeating myself, but that sounded so delectable...

OK, so here it is: Bush's budget proposal for this final year of his circus administration:

President Bush’s final budget, a $3 trillion plan offered Monday that would continue his tax cuts and sharply reduce domestic spending, has little chance of surviving in a Democratic Congress. But the problems it lays out will survive and grow, presenting tough choices for the next administration.

How, for example, will the next president rein in the cost of retirement and health programs? What will he or she do about tax increases on Americans when Mr. Bush’s tax cuts expire at the end of 2010, or when the alternative minimum tax propels millions of taxpayers into higher brackets each year?

Beyond these familiar traps, how will a Republican president pay for further promised tax cuts or a Democratic president pay for a sweeping health care overhaul without increasing the red ink left by Mr. Bush?

Three trillion. By his own estimates, Bush projects a $470 billion deficit, which is higher than anything recorded previously, and that's before Iraq invasion spending!

This is a serious constraint that the next President will have to deal with. Even tho spending for the Iraq invasion is off-budget, so not reflected here, ending the invasion as soon as possible becomes imperative, because many of the incidental costs of that conflict are reflected in the departmental budget requests of agencies and cabinet offices as diverse as the Pentagon right down to the Department of the Interior (National Guardsmen have to be reimbursed from *somewhere* when they respond to disasters).

Fortunately, it's not as bad as Bush's budget paints. Bush has long had a reputation for being Chicken Little (if not just plain chicken) about a lot of things, trying to literally scare up support for dicey propositions and bizarre programs that conflict directly with national security, much less any rational modality of governance.

Discretionary spending, that is, non-military and non-mandated spending (which excludes Social Security) is less than three percent of the budget, which means we can't cut the education, welfare, and public works budgets any tighter than we already have. That means one of two places for the money to come from: Social Security or defense.

Assuming Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama end up president, you tell me: which gets slashed?

If you said defense, that's the right answer. And wrong answer. Wrong answer, since I have an idea that might help refresh the military, offer opportunity to working class Americans, and right a faltering economy before it's too late.

A few days ago, I off-handedly proposed as part of my NotPresident noncampaign, a real stimulus package that would help the American economy while de-militarizing our presence in the Middle East. In that package, I mentioned that we could take the savings from the Iraq invasion forces and put them to use here at home, rebuilding and mending and upgrading the infrastructure in America.

I have an additional thought: energy independence. Yesterday, as a one-off, I said that a good idea for creating a new economy based on renewable energy would be to offer a billion dollar prize.

Guess what institution would be offering that prize? If you guessed the Pentagon, you'd be right. Why the Pentagon? Why not the DoEnergy?

Accountability, for one thing: the Pentagon regularly handles budgets of this size and has in place a responsibility infrastructure that would have to be built into the Department of Energy.

More important, tho, is that the first applications of renewable energy in the real world would be defense-related, so we might as well let them perfect the technology before awarding the prize. After all, is there a better testing ground for the efficiencies of scale, redundancies and safeguards than in the chaos of even test battlefields?

I doubt it.

By combining the energy prize (maybe I'd call it the Gore Award) with the defense budget, we'd pretty much ensure that no Republican might come along to gut the budget for it. The Joint Chiefs of Staff would welcome the job security, and the companies who would be applying for the competition could remain assured that politic donations and lobbying would have nearly zero influence on the outcome.

And we'd be beating plowshares into swords.

Would this solve our immediate economic problems? Probably not, but it might and it would ensure that $100 a barrel increases in the price oil would never trouble us again. People would have jobs, and those jobs would carry over to the new renewable energy companies that would spring up as this technology is leased for components, software, and engineering into new products.

Too, we'd create a viable, if not thriving, economy of companies that would be greening the infrastructure that the current energy economy has in place: reforesting mountaintop removal coal mines, cleaning up crude refinery sites, finding new uses for natural gas pipelines, and such like that.

Budget deficits represent challenges, but they also represent opportunities to change wasteful and irrational ways of the past, ways that have failed us now, and to move in a direction that makes sense for us and our children and grandchildren.

And we would hardly have to tinker with tax rates, and we'd take tax cuts off the table for decades.

It's Sad To See What Our Government Has Been Reduced To...

How does a President deal with sky high oil prices?

A leader might bully a little the people who are holding back, if he felt they were doing it to pump up their profits. He might threaten or cajole them to pump out a bit more to help ease the strain.

A leader might recognize that this is a permanent, serious problem, and begin (even if a bit late) to try to correct our dependency on that oil.

A leader might make demands that both producers AND consumers work together to bring the price down until we can manage to absorb the increases.

A leader would never beg:

"I would hope, as OPEC considers different production levels, that they understand that if ... one of their biggest consumers' economy suffers, it will mean less purchases, less gas and oil sold," Bush said.

"Please sir, may I have some...more?"

That's our energy policy? Sheesh!

Cut The Fatheads

You can be sure the economy is in trouble when Congress and Bush can agree on something to do. Cut taxes:

Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill are also suggesting that they might be able to put aside longstanding partisan differences and work on a stimulus measure, lawmakers and aides said Friday.

In a fresh sign of the possibility of an agreement on a roughly $100 billion package of tax cuts and spending to spur the economy, Nancy Pelosi of California, the speaker of the House, and Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, wrote to President Bush on Friday saying, “We want to work with you.”

That little mash note is interesting, since one could easily make the case for ignoring the economy and letting it fester while Bush twists in the wind. Naturally, you'd want to do just enough to duck accusations of doing nothing.

Democrats might be feeling a little heat from their base, however, with all the kowtowing and rubber stamping they did in 2007. I've been of the mind that Pelosi and Reid were figuring the first year was about setting up the second year of the 110th Congress. Sadly, there at about 800 Americans in Iraq who had to die as part of this strategy.

Some Democrats say they could support tax relief focused on lower-income people and, perhaps, even tax cuts for corporations, if the White House and the Republican Congressional leadership accept some spending increases like extended unemployment benefits or aid to states to help them avert spending cuts.

The unfortunate truth is, Bush's first three tax cuts...2001, 2002, and 2003...ultimately did not benefit the economy in any substantive way, as it was really the sub-prime mortgage business and the ripple effect low-cost mortgages had across the economy.

People spent because they borrowed. This was not current income, not taxable income, and yes, the tax cuts may have generated some tax revenues because the wealthiest among us started shedding some long-term assets because of the the more favorable tax treatment, but it wasn't in line with what was supposedly the "booming economy" that resulted.

Indeed, tax revenues under Bush declined for every year until 2006 when compared to Clinton's last budget. And 2006 only went up because "a big increase in individual taxes on stock market profits and executive bonuses."

Like I said.

Will a tax cut help this time? Probably not. But the key element of this plan is increased government spending: extending unemployment benefits now, before the recession hits, is a sure-fire way of lessening the impact on people and is actually helping to close the barn door before the horse can get out. If it takes a tax cut to get that implemented until a real President comes along, so be it.

I feel both Congress and the President are severely underestimating the nature of this recession (you read that right: our bonds are in danger of losing "government-issue" status!)...I'm pretty sure it will be a depression, as I've said here before...and if I was running for President, I would address this issue in greater depth. Suffice it to say that nature is about to hand us lemons, and I'd have a lemonade stand set up already. We are presented with an opportunity the way FDR was: to do good for a lot of people and help this country improve, at the same moment.

But I digress.

I hope the Democrats are at least listening to Ronald Reagan's old "Trust, but verify" shibboleth:

Democrats said the White House would have to agree not to try to attach favorite measures like repealing the estate tax or making permanent Mr. Bush’s 2001 and 2003 cuts, just as Democrats would have to refrain from attaching extraneous spending.

“It would make sense for the president to do something in a bipartisan way,” said Representative Charles B. Rangel, Democrat of New York and chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. “But I’m scared to death to even talk about tax rebates because of what that might open up.”

A senior Republican aide said: “Republicans will have to talk about making the tax cuts permanent and all that kind of stuff. Democrats are going to want things on their long-term agenda. But if you figure those cancel each other out, there’s probably a playing field where everyone can agree.”

Somehow, I see a fillibuster in our future. And that would be the greatest tragedy of all.

UPDATE

Apparently, I'm not alone in my belief:

The measures now being debated in Washington and on the campaign trail — tax rebates, added help for the unemployed and those facing sharply higher heating bills and, most immediately, a move by the Federal Reserve to further cut interest rates — could certainly moderate the severity of a downturn. Democrats and the Bush administration are considering a package of such measures that could reach $100 billion.

But the forces menacing the economy, like the unraveling of the real estate market and high oil prices, are too entrenched to be swiftly dispatched by government largess or cheaper credit, some economists say.

There Must Be Something In The Water

A couple of news items tells me the Kool-Aid at RNC headquarters is being spiked up in anticipation of the November elections:

1) Bush sees Palestine state treaty within year - Now, nevermind that for sixty years, Israel and the Palestinians have been at each other's throats, and nevermind that both sides are guilty of atrocities of a nature that would make forgiveness hard for even Jesus, all you need to know in order to find this hilarious is that this is Bush's first trip to Israel during his Presidency. In the last year. Of a lame duck term. From an irrelevant politician who is advised by a group of neo-cons who aren't, to put it mildly, particularly objective about which side should get the lion's share of consideration.

2) Giuliani Targets Conservatives With Tax-Cut Plan - Nevermind that, as mayor, Rudy actually ended up raising taxes when the dust settled (he claims he reduced taxes, but by the time he left office, his last budget had created a net increase, at a time when the city economy was tanking. Too, the tax cuts were targeted towards businesses and the wealthy). Does anyone in the GOP realize (besides Mike Huckabee) that the Laffer Curve they're so fond of quoting has a downside, that you can cut taxes TOO MUCH and it starts to destroy the revenue stream that covers the basic needs of the nation????? We have failing infrastructure, a bloated government that's grown exponentially under a "compassionate conservative", debts to pay off AND an aging population. A tax cut is exactly what we DON'T need right now!

3) Romney's Fishy Delegate Claim - In layman's terms (especially if you own an Apple Computer), this is called the "reality distortion field" coming into play. The count based on election results is that Huckabee has 33 delegates, Romney has 19. By Romney's count, he has fifteen delegates, and Huckabee has 12. WTF?

Turns out that Romney is ignoring Iowa, claiming that it really didn't count since the caucus delegates are technically uncommitted, meaning Iowa was the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of primaries. *snark*

Sheesh! And these were supposed to be the adults of American politics!