"Who do you want to see take the lead role in setting policy for the country: George W. Bush or the Congress?" asks NBC/WSJ. The answer is congress by a 62 to 21 margin. One more reason to think that the weakness and conflict-aversion of the congressional Democrats is a bigger source of their low approval ratings than is any alleged overreaching. The President is very unpopular and people are apparently desperate for Congress to play a bigger role.
« Ted | Main | Mile High »
Leadership
27 Jan 2008 01:46 pm
Comments (11)
....people are apparently desperate for Congress to play a bigger role.
Unfortunately, it should be obvious by now that Congress shall play no such role.
I personally think that campaign finance is the root problem here, but that problem also seems apt to persist.
1) Matt will hold this opinion until there's a Democratic President and a Republican Congress - at which point, he'll be outraged by the idea
2) It's a truly stupid idea anyway. Explain how 435 people, all of whom pull in their own direction, are going to provide anything that even vaguely smells of leadership?
Yes, we must all follow the big man.
1) George Soros, in a recent interview with Austria's Der Standard, indicated that the USA is facing the worst financial crisis since World War II. To read the interview:
a) Go to here: http://derstandard.at/
b) Enter Soros in the search bar at the upper right corner
c) In the results listing, page down to entry 9:
"In den USA droht eine Rezession"
d) cut and paste in Altavista's babelfish then select to translate from german to english
2) Soros noted that via contagion we will probably drag Europe down with us --which means rescue via Exports won't work, pace Paul Krugman
3) This bag of shit needs to be hung around the Republicans' neck -- else it will be hanging around the Democrats' neck come November.
2) It's a truly stupid idea anyway. Explain how 435 people, all of whom pull in their own direction, are going to provide anything that even vaguely smells of leadership?
Well, it's actually 535 people. One plan would be for the majority of them to get together and elect Majority Leaders worthy of the name.
Yes, I think George Soros---and Don Williams---are completely correct...
But given how worthless the Democrats in Congress have been on almost everything since they won their landslide victory in 2006, I'd say they really do *deserve* to have it hanging around their necks almost as much as do the Republicans...
I personally think that campaign finance is the root problem here, but that problem also seems apt to persist.
I don't know if you see this working by the same mechanism as I do, but I'm inclined to agree. All the power over the executive the backroom boys lost when conventions yielded to primaries, they regained over the legislature with the rise of donation restrictions and direct mail fundraising. You went from each candidate having his own financial base to all candidates sharing a base in the hands of party bosses and power brokers, and they don't hesitate to use it as leverage, thus the remarkable party discipline of late.
1) Actually, this article by the New York Times suggests that some Democrats have been trying to point out George Bush's fault -- that it is the closely held news media that is conning America:
2) Re the weakening economy, the NY TImes FALSELY argues:
"From a strictly economic perspective, it is difficult to blame Mr. Bush for the current crisis. Even some economists who have been critical of the president, like Bruce Bartlett, who worked in the Reagan and first Bush administrations, say he cannot be held liable for the burst of the housing bubble or problems in credit markets"
3) This is utter bullshit. It is George Bush who has signed off on over $4 Trillion in federal debt. For the past 7 year, George Bush has not just been President, he has been the LEADER of the Republicans who controlled Congress -- who chose to waste enormous sums in unnecessary wars promoting the agendas of Big Oil, Big Defense, and the Neocon Israel Lobby.
Who have spent more on military imperialism over the past 7 years than the next 23 largest military powers combined.
Under the myth that a nuclear armed hyperpower is threatened by the equivalent of a motorcycle gang.
4)Our economy is struggling because the Productive sectors of our country are struggling under the staggering burden of just paying the interest on almost $8 Trillion of debt personally incurred by "fiscal conservatives" Ronald Reagan-George H Bush and George W Bush.
5) It is George W Bush and the Republican Congresses who chose to steal $2 Trillion out of Social Security/Medicare Trust Funds and give it to the superrich so that the superrich could create jobs in CHINA --not America.
6) Buried well down in its article, the New York Times acknowledges indirectly how it has been suppressing the truth:
"Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, has been warning for months of a looming “Bush recession.” The day before the stimulus deal was reached, Mr. Emanuel released a chart entitled “The Legacy of George W. Bush’s Presidency,” which contrasted a litany of economic indicators, like the price of gasoline and median household income, from 2001 to today. None favored Mr. Bush. "
7) But hey, what can you expect from the paper of Judith Miller? The Truth?
Who do you want to see take the lead role in setting policy for the country: George W. Bush or the Congress?"
The R Congress spent its post-Gingrich years passing corrupt pork bills, illegally data-mining the voters and proposing silly, doomed constitutional amendments at the behest of the social conservatives (knowing/hoping the proposals would fail).
The current D Congress has seemed interested only in banning cigarette sales at the Washington gift shop, firing the Congressional cook and chastising long-dead empires (while continuing the previous Congress's tradition of porkbarreling, data-mining and corruption).
Bush is, well, Bush.
No good choices, here.
The problem is that Ned Lamont didn't win. If he had, they would understand that their future in the Senate is on the line.
Comments closed February 10, 2008.
| 
Heads in the Sand
1) What's really disgusting is that the Republicans and George Bush are NOT being held to account for their past irresponsibility --$4 Trillion more federal debt than what Bush projected just a few years ago, a hideously expensive, unnecessary war, degradation of our currency, and the oncoming recession.
2) Because the Democrats are too fucking cowardly. Who are the Republicans to press for "bipartisanship", given that they are the ones who have fucked this country and that they never showed any interest in bipartisanship when they were in power?
3) Now Treasury Secretary Paulsen is bashing the Democrats for "delay" on a stimulus package. Why can't at least ONE goddamm Democratic leader stand up ,tell the country that the Republicans got us in this shithole, and tell Paulsen to go to hell.
4) If Nancy Pelosi showed a little spine and told this country the truth about what the Republicans have done, the people wouldn't just vote the Republicans out of office this November -- they would string the fuckers up from the lampposts.
5)Instead, Washington Democrats act like a timid, abused wife trying to excuse/cover up the acts of a vicious drunken husband. Telling the beaten kids that daddy isn't feeling well but that he loves them.
6) The only way this complicity makes sense is if the Democrats are not really competitors to the Republicans --but are co-workers serving the same rich masters.
Rich masters who deflect popular anger and social unrest by conning us into believing that we are overthrowing the evildoers --and hence there's no need to assign blame or shoot the motherfuckers like they do in the Third World.
7) Why may explain why we can have an income distribution -- a Gini coefficient -- worst than most South American regimes and yet our superrich sleep easy. Because they know they have coopted/bought off the alleged leaders of the Revolution.
Posted by Don Williams | January 27, 2008 2:09 PM