New Business vs. Business as Usual

The spotlight returned to the 2008 Presidential race this week as Senator Obama made speeches in several different states and Senator Evan Bayh, assumed to be a contender, officially declined to run.

Pundits framed the potential candidacies of Obama and Hilary Clinton as "New Ideas vs Old Ideas", which may be true. But a similar line of thinking works with the putative Republican frontrunners, Rudy Giuliani and John McCain.

McCain is coming to represent business as usual, while Rudy represents a new direction for the GOP, one less focused on curbing social liberties and more focused on competent stewardship--"New Business vs Business as Usual". The catastrophic failures and ineptitude of the Bush Administration will give candidates like John McCain a tough time.

Though posing as a Maverick, McCain has rarely broken step with the President, and his support of a troop surge in Iraq may doom his candidacy before it ever gets off the ground. By sending more troops to stem a brutal civil war (apparently against the advice of the Joint Chiefs), Bush might as well be putting the military and treasury on the roulette table and betting it all on the number thirteen. His chances of success are virtually none, while his chances of compounding tragedy are high.

A former Democrat, Liberal Republican Giuliani is a candidate that Democrats uneasy with Hilary Clinton can embrace. Unlike ultra-conservative McCain, Giuliani won't be tainted by the mistakes of the Bush team, and won't be swayed by religious fanatics on the ultra-right fringe, the same fanatics McCain once denounced but now embraces.

Keep in mind that many Republicans despise McCain, and consider him untrustworthy. His nomination is anything but certain. At this early stage, I suspect Republicans understand that McCain may not be electable, and may overlook Rudy's social policies and support him in numbers large enough to overcome McCain.

If so, Hilary would be in trouble. But then, frontrunners are vulnerable and Hilary has Obama, Edwards, Gore and others to contend with. No matter how much Democratic voters like her, if they feel she is unelectable they won't support her, either. The stakes in 2008 are too high.

Happy Holidays!

- JT Compton

Afraid To Work

Once again, congressional Republicans are giving us a brilliant demonstration of why they lost power, and why their party has become the standard-bearer of sloth and hypocrisy.

Republican Representatives have become outraged by a five-day work week recently mandated by the Democratic Leadership. They claim Democrats are anti-family because the new rule will keep them from their kids—and whatever else they want to do in their free time. No wonder nothing meaningful got done on Capitol Hill in the past five years. No wonder, when asked by The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart to point to one good thing Congress had done in that time, Senator Lincoln Chafee couldn't muster a single answer. Those poor Republicans. What a disgrace.

So are Republicans becoming Socialists? Do they feel entitled to Government pay regardless of the quantity or quality of their work? Or instead, do they feel entitled to their positions because they see themselves as the wealthy elite? Or are they anti-capitalism? Or are they anti work? Do they not understand that most Americans—often both parents—work five days or more per week to support their families? Do they think voters put them into office to write flag-burning amendments?

Until they get off their fat, lazy wallets and try to solve the problems facing this nation (many of which they bear responsibility for), they will continue to lose elections. Until they stop listening to their CEO buddies in their private clubs and listen, instead, to the millions living without health insurance, without stable jobs, without pensions and without hope, they deserve nothing less than the boot.

Which brings me to Tom DeLay, poster boy for everything corrupt and unethical about the Bush Congress. Tom still thinks he has a future in politics and maybe he’s right. Maybe there are enough gullible people in Texas or wherever he claims to be living nowadays to fool with his phony-pious "I was a victim of the media" nonsense.

But like other politicians whose egos drive them into big trouble, DeLay still doesn’t get the joke. He doesn't grasp that he's become a disgraced laughing stock. In fact, his newly introduced Blog had to be taken down because it received a massive flood of negative comments from Americans disgusted and horrified by his scandalous Congressional conduct.

So Republicans, both those in office and those who have resigned in disgrace, can keep kicking and screaming and pretending the world has done them wrong. And in the process, they’ll keep losing elections and losing ground in American politics. Given their recent history, maybe that’s not such a bad thing.

- JT Compton

Regarding Lost Patience

Donald Rumsfeld officially resigned today and suggested that America had lost patience with the war in Iraq.

He was close.

We have lost patience, but not with the war. We’ve lost patience with incompetence, bungling, lying and myopia. We’ve come to see that “staying the course” means doing the same things over and over again while expecting different results--which is the definition of insanity.

Too bad President Bush and Vice Dick Cheney still don’t get it. They are already busy trying to avoid most of the Iraq Study Group Report recommendations. Rather than defer to a non-partisan committee of some of the nation's most experienced foreign policy and strategic thinkers, they seem determined to rely upon their own broken judgment regardless of the cost.

But as any psychologist knows, a broken mind can’t fix itself. We have every reason to expect that an administration with such a pitiful and disastrous track-record lacks the ability to turn things around on its own.

Let’s hope the nation can stand two more years of their denial and intransigence. Because the way they are behaving, it doesn’t appear the Bush dead-enders intend to do anything differently. Getting rid of Rummy only shrank the inner circle of true believers.

- JT Compton