It's almost over

Yet again, the weather folks got it wrong. We were supposed to have a snow shower and the inches are adding up. My community service project will have to occur on another day.

Being home, I've been granted the space to reflect. Our national nightmare is almost over. W will return to civilian life, no longer in a position to work through his unresolved issues at the expense of our country.

Lord only knows how long and how many resources it will take to correct the mess created in the last eight years. Maybe the grown ups will stand up and assist Obama manage our country. Will there be a return to civility that was lost after Bush 41 left office? God, I hope so.

The Clintons arrival to DC was never accepted, the hicks from Hope.  The insanity began before Bubba took the oath of office. His inability to be disciplined and her codependency did not help the situation.

I must give W credit, he single handily created an activist citizenry. There were civic discussions. Some civil, others not so much.  People were engaged. We, as a community, no longer ignored the elephant in the room, our prejudices and racist tendencies. 

Our work as citizens has just begun. We have to do better. We have to be responsible. If you are making $40K you can't afford a $700k house.  If you can't afford something, maybe you should wait. Is saving for a big screen TV so bad? Do you really need a new car every three years?

We managed to get over ourselves. We listened to message and did not get stuck on the pigmentation of the messenger.

Thank God, Obama did not know his place and wait his turn. Thank God, he is reaching out to everyone. Concept? A President of the United States, not just a base.

While bouncing around Tuscany, I a sense of being an AMERICAN, not an African-American. 

Maybe, Bush should have spent more time outside our wonderful borders to get a better appreciation of the wonders of us.

We have once again, transitioned power without bloodshed. How many countries can reflect on their histories and boast this?

W hop on your bike and ride into the sunset..... you were and continue to be a failure.

May God forgive you...

W success

W was and is a failure.  He managed to trump Nixon and Hoover in the race for the worst President. 

However, he has succeeded in doing what no Democrat or Democrat apparatus has been able to do...........destroy the conservative brand of the Republican Party.

The "silent majority" originating with Nixon, further developed by Reagan are moving away from the Republicans.

Anyone not sleeping in a cave knows the litany of reasons why. As the pundits argue the last election, the "sleeping majority" is casting a shadow over the room.

They have not been polled because they are too busy working just to pay their bills. They did not buy homes they could not afford, their friends and family are diverse. They love their country, the God of their choice, lover of their choosing and the children they chose to raise.

They are worried about the air we breathe, the human and physical infrastructure, the safety of our food and toys.

They don't give a damn about whether how our President worships or even if he or she worships. They want and need a leader.

Team W ignored the "sleeping majority".  For those who weren't spurred into action by the environment, Katrina and a senseless bank breaking war, the Wall street debacle woke them from their fitful slumber.

Well done W, you managed to call to action our citizenry and destroy a machine built on the amass of power for power sake.

Bush, DNA, loser

I wonder if there is a test for habitual losers.....

h/t:Trakker

Herbert: Oh Happy Day, For the Oil Companies

"One of the starkest examples of U.S. priorities came during the eruption of looting that followed the fall of Baghdad. With violence and chaos all about, American troops were ordered to protect one particularly treasured target — the Iraqi Oil Ministry. As David Rieff wrote in The Times Magazine in November 2003:
“This decision to protect only the Oil Ministry — not the National Museum, not the National Library, not the Health Ministry — probably did more than anything else to convince Iraqis uneasy with the occupation that the United States was in Iraq only for the oil.”
How convenient that the peculiar perspective of the oil-obsessed Bush administration can now be put to use advising the Iraqi government on its contracts with big oil."

Once again, Bob Herbert nails it. Did we forget, the guy who folks wanted to have a cup a coffee with is an oilman?

Far too many voters, vote against their own economic interest because cultural reasons. The Republican party kidnapped God and high jacked values during the Nixon administration.

The money being spent to retrieve the oil in Iraq will not be spent on the bridges, health care or new green initiatives.

Folks were outraged when Clinton and Company stole a few White House trinkets before they left. What we are witnessing with this band of theives is the theft of our economy. Worse the death and destruction of our war heroes and the collateral damage to their families.

If this is not the case for treason, I really don't know what is?

Leave Right

"Both views of Iraq are right: the situation is awful and, four years on, cleverer U.S. commanders are winning a few. The enduring horror counsels a swift exit. The positive shifts bolster a catchphrase Cordesman found doing the rounds in Baghdad: “strategic patience.”

I side with the latter, provided the patience is indeed strategic and not just a means to kick the mess into the post-Bush world. That strategy should involve the following elements.

First, continue bolstering Sunni power and allegiance through aggressive use of aid and local security deals. A rough balance of power between the main Iraqi communities — Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish — is in the interests of Iraqi stability.

Second, while accepting that Iraq’s central government will at best be a respectable fig leaf and that strong provincial authorities are essential, pressure the weak Shia-dominated coalition to share oil money, power and space. Stronger American-backed Sunnis and fewer U.S. troops may help focus Shia minds.

Third, establish, with United Nations help, a regional framework for talks between the neighboring powers. Use this to reach out to Iran. Tehran wants America to fail in Iraq but not to the extent that Shia gains are reversed. That provides some leverage.

Fourth, recognize that all Middle Eastern problems — Israel-Palestine, Lebanon, Iran and Iraq — are tied and that the U.S. needs a coherent diplomatic strategy for containing jihadist fanaticism through ideological persuasion. An uncritical embrace of Israel does not help. And whatever happened to Karen Hughes, our invisible public diplomacy czar?

Fifth, protect the countless Iraqis who have helped America and are vulnerable. The U.S. urged Iraqis to rise up in 1991 only to abandon them to slaughter. Never again should be our policy.

The above may just avert the worst: a regional war in which a disintegrating country’s neighbors are drawn into carnage that makes current bloodshed pale.

Some see Iraq as the ultimate demonstration of the demise of American power. Fast withdrawal is in that view’s logic. But if you believe, as I do, that global stability still hinges on the credibility of that power, “strategic patience” is the least bad of the terrible options Bush’s now amnesia-clouded incompetence has bequeathed."

Bush visits Iraq

" President Bush arrived at an airbase west of Baghdad Monday on an unannounced visit, the White House said.

He plans to meet face-to-face with top military commanders, the U.S. ambassador, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and provincial tribal leaders.

Air Force One touched down under the blazing sun at an airbase in Anbar province. The White House said the base was chosen because of the "remarkable turnaround" in the province.

The president stopped in Iraq en route to an economic summit in Australia and ahead of a briefing in Washington September 15 by the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeous."

The timing coincides with the British pull out last night. My guess is they used this trip to seize the headlines. The MSM is providing the much needed cover.

See you in September

"Surely it was a coincidence that this latest statement of official Bush administration amnesia was released on Aug. 6, the sixth anniversary of the President’s Daily Brief titled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.”

And so the president, firm in his resolve against “Al Qaeda in Iraq,” heads toward another August break in Crawford while Al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan remains determined to strike in America. No one can doubt Mr. Bush’s triumph in the P.R. war: There are more American troops than ever mired in Iraq, sent there by a fresh round of White House fictions. And the real war? The enemy that did attack us six years ago, sad to say, is likely to persist in its nasty habit of operating in the reality-based world that our president disdains."

I'm sure the soldiers stationed in Iraq would like to take the sweltering month of August off.

No one died in Watergate

"No one died in Watergate. This time around, the White House lying and cover-ups have been not just in the service of political thuggery but to gin up a gratuitous war without end."

What?

I'll assume Mr. Goldberg has been living in a cave for the past six agonizing years........

Analyst says Bush is full of crap

"The primary concern is in Al Qaeda in South Asia organizing its own plots against the United States," he said. Al Qaeda planned the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks from its bases in Afghanistan.
The top leaders of the terrorist network, Gistaro added, are "able to exploit the comfort zone in the tribal areas" of Pakistan and Afghanistan and are "bringing people in to train for Western operations."
"We see increased efforts on the part of Al Qaeda to try and find, train, and deploy people who could get into this country," he testified."


Hey Condi, show your boss a map.

How about a man who is woman enough?

"Even in an era when male politicians can mist up with impunity, it was startling to see the defense chief melt down at a Marine Corps dinner Wednesday night as he talked about writing notes every evening to the families of dead soldiers like Douglas Zembiec, a heroic Marine commander known as “the Lion of Falluja,” who died in Baghdad in May after giving up a Pentagon job to go on a fourth tour of Iraq. “They are not names on a press release or numbers updated on a Web page,” he said. “They are our country’s sons and daughters.”

The dramatic moment was disconcerting, because Mr. Gates, known as a decent guy who was leery of the Bushies’ black-and-white, bullying worldview, has clearly been worn down by his effort to sort out the Iraq debacle. He and Condi, who worked together under Bush I, have been trying to circumvent the vice president to close Gitmo without much success, while the president finds ingenious new ways to allow torture.

Mostly, though, it was moving — a relief to see a top official acknowledge the awful cost of this war. The arrogant Rummy was dismissive. The obtuse W. seems incapable of understanding how inappropriate his sunny spirits are. And the callous Cheney’s robo-aggression continues unabated. (What could be more nerve-racking than the thought of President Cheney, slated to happen for a couple of hours yesterday while Mr. Bush had a colonoscopy? Could it be — a Medal of Freedom for Scooter?)

Mr. Gates captured the sadness we feel about American kids trapped in a desert waiting to be blown up, sent there by men who once refused to go to a warped war themselves."

The Math doesn't add up

I guess Bush skipped math to attend cheerleading practice............

Kudos to Booman.

Don't believe the hype

"Bush continues to dissemble and distort the facts — he recently insisted that "the same folks that are bombing innocent people in Iraq were the ones who attacked us in America on September the 11th." Although al-Qaida in Mesopotamia didn't exist on Sept. 11, its recruits now have battle-tested maneuvers they can bring to American shores. There is no reason to believe they can't fight us there and here at the same time.

Even if the Bush White House had remained focused on bin Laden, splintering his organization would have proved difficult. It's hard to stop every fanatic with a bomb or a gun. But we might have been better prepared if the president and his advisers had used the terrorism threat to shore up our defenses and ramp up our emergency planning rather than to manipulate us into voting for their candidates and supporting their foolish war.

In our sixth summer since Sept. 11, after countless color-coded alerts and shoeless shambles through airport security, we no longer believe the hype. This may be just what bin Laden had in mind."

Bush cedes power to Cheney

No comment.

Krugman: Scandal a Bush Family Tradition

"Mr. Bush says that Mr. Libby’s punishment remains “harsh” because his reputation is “forever damaged.” Meanwhile, Mr. Bush employs, as a deputy national security adviser, none other than Elliott Abrams, who pleaded guilty to unlawfully withholding information from Congress in the Iran-contra affair. Mr. Abrams was one of six Iran-contra defendants pardoned by Mr. Bush’s father, who was himself a subject of the special prosecutor’s investigation of the scandal.

In other words, obstruction of justice when it gets too close to home is a family tradition. And being a loyal Bushie means never having to say you’re sorry."

Yet another bad decision

The decision as was the timing was wrong. Since Bushie pulled this option out of his bike shorts, he simply put the spotlight on the obvious class distinctions.

Just because an option is available, doesn't mean you have to exercise it.

Or did Scooter threaten to sing if he served one hour behind bars?

Richter, Levey: Bush explores truce with Congress?

"With public support of the war dropping, President Bush has authorized an internal policy review to find a plan that could satisfy opponents without sacrificing his top goals, the officials said.

The president and senior officials "realize they can't keep fighting this over and over," said one administration official, who along with others declined to be identified because they weren't authorized to speak publicly or because decisions were pending."

Bush is, without question, the most "rigid" man on the planet. As a practice, compromise with Bush has meant "you move to my way of thinking."

Bush and Congress have collectively ignored their employers, who clearly want an end to this war.

V-I-O-L-I-N-S

No, Mr. President, these are not fiddles, they are violins...

Bush approval rating all time low

Neon Gods gem of the day:

Bush can't possibly have Cheney's or Congress best him....

He has lost his mind

I wonder if he has "President" engraved on his bib?