We're all moderates now.
By buzzbrockway Posted in Congress — Comments (10) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
The new moderates who will take control of the US House and US Senate in January have begun to outline their priorities. As expected, they perfectly reflect what the people said they wanted last Tuesday:
The cutting and running from Iraq will begin in 4-6 months:
“We need to begin a phased redeployment of forces from Iraq in four to six months,” Mr. (Senator Carl) Levin said in an appearance on the ABC News program “This Week.” In a telephone interview later, Mr. Levin added, “The point of this is to signal to the Iraqis that the open-ended commitment is over and that they are going to have to solve their own problems.”
Read on . .
As an expression of support for our troops, Speaker-in-waiting Nancy Pelosi announced her support for Jack Murtha as House Majority Leader. Murtha is well known for the colorful phrases he uses to support the troops, such as:
Our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood. - Source
And this:
The Army's broken. It has serious recruitment problems. Stop-loss, in effect, is a draft of 50,000 soldiers who can't get out. The Army Reserve and Guard have been mobilized. And (our) young officer corps is being hollowed due to the large numbers leaving the service. - Source
I'm sure the troops will welcome his leadership with open arms. After all that's what people voted for last Tuesday.
Universal Health Care aka Hillarycare is back on the table and will likely propel the Former First Lady to the White House:
She (Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton) also said Democrats would focus on improving the quality and affordability of health care _ a touchy matter for the former first lady, who in 1993 led her husband's calamitous attempt to overhaul the nation's health care system. The failure of that effort helped Republicans win control of both the Senate and House the following year.
"Health care is coming back," Clinton warned, adding, "It may be a bad dream for some."
Things are going so well for the "new middle" that Dan Rather is getting back into the news anchor business:
Returning to television with "Dan Rather Reports," his new weekly magazine, he will now be available in just the four million satellite and cable homes reached by media mogul Mark Cuban's high-definition channel HDNet. By contrast, "The CBS Evening News," which Rather anchored for 24 years, reaches virtually all the nation's 111 million TV homes, and it's watched by more than seven million viewers nightly.
"We are broadcasting to a tiny audience," Rather readily acknowledges.
Don't worry Dan, since we're all moderates now I'm sure the audience will be there for you....just like it used to be.
Last I looked, GWB is still President. Doesn't matter what happens in Congress, only he, as CINC, can order troops here or there. Only thing those dolts on the Dem side can really do is try to cut funding for the war, and the Veto Pen is there and waiting - without a solid 2/3 in either chamber to reject the veto (unlike in '74).
No, contrary to the doomsayer's on talk radio, some here on this blog, and in other right-thinking places (right being used here to mean "us who thing clearly on issues) nothing major is going to happen in the next two years. NADA!
Sure, once the Dem majority figures that out, they will tack off into the impeachmeant issue because that is the meme that the MSM will demand, but even that will not happen. Can't - not enough dumb Dems out there that will listen to their NetRoot wackos because they are not dumb. By my count, the Dems now have an 11 member majority in the House, and a +2 I majority in the Senate. This is really not all that earth-moving, folks, and many of those Dems are in districts that are not all that Dem friendly (see horaceox earlier post on the most excellent analysis of that).
So, this is going to be a status-quo Congress. Yes, once the opposition realizes that they cannot really change anything, the focus will be on their investigations of a lame-duck president. But none of that really will go anywhere, IMHO, as most of those newly elected Dems from nominally Republican districts will want to be re-elected, not tossed on some flimsy principle advocated by the NetRoot base. So they will join in the hearings but, when it comes crunch time, will do basically - nothing.
Not unlike our supposed "conservative Republican Congress" majority we thought we enjoyed for the last four years.
No, what we lose most is the ability to get good judges onto the courts, and good people in positions to represent our country (nee John Bolton). This is the major loss we suffered, and the one that bugs me the most. Mark my words, as I already see it with the Gates nomination - not one Bush appointee will be approved in the next two years.
The American public needs to be better informed about the consequences if we left Iraq now. It would affect the entire Middle East and Iraq would once again become a breeding ground for terrorists. It would be viewed as a huge victory for the terrorists and we would have an increased chance of being attacked again. More of this needs to be emphasized to the American people, especially by President Bush and other Republican leaders so that Americans can reconsider the pros and cons of leaving Iraq.
It seems to me that Bush has been saying all of this stuff every time he gets on the stump or in front of a camera. The American public doesn't seem to be buying it. Unless you're theorizing that by voting for people who called for endless variations on cut-and-run, we really somehow intended to get a more "competent" approach to the situation. (Which most people would probably define as fewer doom-and-gloom stories on television news rather than any kind of serious success in Iraq.)
"Other Republican leaders": there are leaders in the Republican Party??? News to me.
Cut and run as fast as possible and blame Bush for any resulting disasters. And in the meantime conduct endless "oversight" hearings to try to make Bush look bad in any way possible and to set the table for a Democratic sweep in 2008.
Nothing matters except winning the White House and keeping Congress in 2008.
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Bipartisanship = give + take. Republicans give. Democrats take.
They are in control of the Congress both chambers. The resulting disasters are something they are going to own. If the GOP had held either the Senate or the House then they could still blame Bush and the GOP, but now they can't.
You’re a persistent cuss, pilgrim.
John Wayne to Jimmy Stewart in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
will blame all problems on Bush? "We were just trying to clean up his mess and avoid it being even worse than it turned out. He never should have gotten us into this mess to begin with, so you can't blame us because fixing it ain't pretty."
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Bipartisanship = give + take. Republicans give. Democrats take.
All I am saying is that before they could blame Bush and the Congress for everything. Anything that happens in the next 2 years in Congress they will own it. They will try to get RINOs to sign on, but any disaster will have their name on it.
You’re a persistent cuss, pilgrim.
John Wayne to Jimmy Stewart in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
The democrats don't dare take any action to get us out of the war without republican support. They know that they would be blamed and responsible.
Biden said they hope some republicans will join them soon. This is another reason it is good that Chaffee lost. It's also good that McCain is in pro-war because this is his favorite situation to be in, where he can be the turncoat that hands a big victory over the democrats.
That's the big danger, if just one or two republicans join in the call to pull out, the MSM and democrats can paint it as "bipartisan".
Bla bla bla partisanship rules the day.
While you guys cast stones around and puff your chests out, we are LOSING the war in Iraq, and seriously at risk of ruining any chance of success in Afghanistan.
We really need a dialog about what we need to DO, and to SACTIFICE, to achieve victory. Not more of the same slackjawed "more of the same, only harder this time" or the weakkneed "just pull out now" stupidity.
Newsflash, guys: neither approach is winning. Time for a new approach!
(I suggest the deployment of > 500K combat troops and quickly).
Listen to me carefully, you pathetic excuse for a dope...
This thing you call a "phased redeployment", because I suppose it tested well with your focus groups, is nothing of the sort.
There will be no "phases" - it will be a bum's rush out of the country.
There will be no "redeployment" - unless you consider "leaving and never coming back" for a new definition of the word - or unless you're planning on "redeploying" them somewhere the left would prefer they be, like Darfur.
No, it's a "retreat", a "surrender" - or, in terms you might understand - it's a "we don't have to stones to stay and fight the jihadists so we're quitting" sort of thing.
And by the way - you're not fooling anyone.
God help us.
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"I don't know." -- Helen Thomas, when asked by White House spokesman Scott McClellan, "Are we at war, Helen?"