The Enemy

I Love A Parade!

"Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing...after they have exhausted all other possibilities."

-- Winston Churchill

George Allen just gave his concession speech. By all accounts it was classy and humble. So, it's official; the Lieberman spanner not withstanding, Democrats have taken Congress. I think it's fair that everyone takes a deep breath and enjoys the afterglow; maybe take the afternoon off. Go to the park, feed the ducks, or sit quietly on a bench and watch Republicans tear each other apart.

Actually, there seems to be some real reflection and self examination going on in certain conservative quarters. That is to be commended and encouraged. These are people Democrats can work with in the coming months -- they should not be alienated with badly choreographed, extremely drunk, in-your-face "Kiss My Ass" victory dances.

Still, when Rush Limbaugh steps forward with his hat in his hand, sniveling that he's been lying and that he didn't mean many of the thing's he said, that he was only following party orders and that, he for one, actually welcomes the new Overlords. Well, I just want to punch him in his bloated, Oxycontin-chewing, Santorum-smeared face.

Asshole!!

***************** 

I don't want to rain on a much deserved parade--BUT, I do have grave concerns about the coming months. The bulb atop my little Tin Foil Hat is flashing 'Etruscan Sun Yellow', that means 'Threat Level Elevated'.

Have expectations been raised to high? Have the Democrats just inherited an unwinnable situation in Iraq for which they will be ultimately  held responsible? (remember, Vietnam was initially Kennedy's war but is associated by many with Nixon.) Will a continuation of the President's policies in Iraq be successfully spun as Democratic impotence? Will Republicans be able to successfully skip-out two years hence leaving a foreign policy bomb in Democratic hands as it detonates? Will the ensuing explosion permanently destroy any Democratic hopes for the future? Will a now berserk, foaming Republican attack machine wreck havoc on Democrats, and by extension the country, as they did during the Clinton administration (The Arkansas Project, Anita Hill, Paula Jones, Troopergate, Whitewater, Monica Lewinsky, Kenneth Starr and whisper campaigns that included suggestions of murder, rape and illegitimate children.)

In a word, are Democrats being set-up?

Still, 'Little Tin Foil Hat' not withstanding - Glenn Greenwald has nudged the optimist in me awake! He has some words many on the Left would do well to consider while swaning about the High Road in their party dresses.   

The basic mechanics of American democracy, imperfect and defective though they may be, still function. Chronic defeatists and conspiracy theorists -- well-intentioned though they may be -- need to re-evaluate their defeatism and conspiracy theories in light of this rather compelling evidence which undermines them (a refusal to re-evaluate one's beliefs in light of conflicting evidence is a defining attribute of the Bush movement that shouldn't be replicated).

Karl Rove isn't all-powerful; today, he is a rejected loser. Republicans don't possess the power to dictate the outcome of elections with secret Diebold software. They can't magically produce Osama bin Laden the day before the election. They don't have the power to snap their fingers and hypnotize zombified Americans by exploiting a New Jersey court ruling on civil unions, or a John Kerry comment, or moronic buzzphrases and slogans designed to hide the truth (Americans heard all about how Democrats would bring their "San Francisco values" and their love of The Terrorists to Washington, and that moved nobody).

All of the hurdles and problems that are unquestionably present and serious -- a dysfunctional and corrupt national media, apathy on the part of Americans, the potent use of propaganda by the Bush administration, voter suppression tactics, gerrymandering and fundraising games -- can all be overcome. They just were.

More Here

And speaking of the High Road (with a couple of changes by me)

Dear dismayed conservatives:

We hereby make these promises to you.

We will protect your lives and livelihoods.

We will listen to and respect your beliefs.

We will never try to force you to change your religion or sexual orientation.

We will do our best to reduce the number of abortions in our country.

We will have no tolerance for corruption and cronyism, even in our own party. ESPECIALLY in our own party.

We will never tell you that you are unpatriotic.

We will never threaten you.

We will never tell you that your opinion doesn't count.

We will never waste your lives for power.

WE will work for true election reform and protect the integrity of all of our votes, yours included!

We will hold our leaders to a high ethical standard and when they succumb to lust for power, we will hold them accountable.

If we forget this, please, please, please, remind us.

We need you to do this. You are America as much as we are.

Let's Roll.

Ricky...(call me)

"...Mama? You were right, Mama. They all laughed at me. Can you come get me?...Mama?...Mama?"

Rumsfeldstein

Above: Angry villagers chase the frightened and confused Rumsfeldstein out of town.

The first casualty of the election: Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is resigning, effective immediately.

Less than a week ago, George W. Bush said that he hoped that Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney would serve in his administration through the end of his second term. "Both those men are doing fantastic jobs and I strongly support them," Bush said in an interview.

Now the president says that he's had "a series of thoughtful conversations" with Rumsfeld, and that the two of them "agreed" that the "time is right for new leadership at the Pentagon." At a White House press conference going on now, Bush all but conceded that he misled reporters who asked him about Rumsfeld last week. "The reason was that I didn't want to inject a major decision about this war in the final days of the campaign," he said. "The only way ... to get you on to another question was to give you that answer." More here.

Andrew Sullivan

Watching the president's press conference, we have finally gotten to see what happens when George W. Bush is forced to face reality. It wasn't pretty. He was prickly from the word go, defensive, and also revealing. He was trying to say (I think) that he had already decided to fire Rumsfeld last week, even as he was insisting that Rummy would stay for two more years. So Bush's own spin is that he was lying through his teeth last week. Good to have that confirmed in his own words.

More here

Bush As Typhoid Mary

Oct. 24: Bush campaigned for Republican House candidate Vern Buchanan in Florida. Buchanan lost.

Oct. 26: Bush campaigned for Republican Senate candidate Mike Bouchard in Michigan. He lost. Bush also campaigned for Iowa House candidate Jeff Lamberti. The president kept calling him "Dave," but he lost, too.

Oct. 28: Bush campaigned for Republican Rep. Mike Sodrel in Indiana. He lost.

Oct. 30: Bush campaigned for Max Burns in Georgia and Shelley Sekula-Gibbs in Texas. He's losing; she lost.

Oct. 31: Bush campaigned for Mac Collins in Georgia. He's losing.

Nov. 2: Bush campaigned for Sen. Conrad Burns in Montana. He's losing.

Nov. 3: Bush campaigned for Steve King for Congress and Jim Nussle for governor in Iowa and for Sen. Jim Talent in Missouri. King won, Nussle lost, Talent lost.

Nov. 4: Bush campaigned for Rep. Marilyn Musgrave in Colorado. She won.

Nov. 5: Bush campaigned for Adrian Smith in Nebraska and Jim Ryun in Kansas. Smith won. Ryun is losing.

Nov. 6 Bush campaigned for Rick Perry in Texas and Asa Hutchinson in Arkansas. Perry won, Hutchinson lost. Bush also campaigned for Charlie Crist in Florida, but Crist ditched the president in favor of his own event at the other end of the state. Good call: He won.

PRAISE JEEBUS!!

Its a new dawn, its a new day, its a new life for me
And I'm feelin –– gooooooooood.
Nina Simone Feeling Good

I remember going to bed late November 7th 2000 believing that Al Gore was El Presidenté, only to awake the next morning in a nightmare. So it was with great trepidation that i shuffled up to the computer this morning in my bunny slippers and robe, clutching my Ovaltine. I held my breath, turned the crank, plugged the series of tubes into the Internets...and whad'ya-know!

Not only did the center hold overnight, but that rough beast, slouching toward Bethlehem, has been hit with a tranquilizing dart –– Rumsfield is stepping down. Pelosi is poised to become the first madam speaker in U.S. history, and barring any numerical hiccups in Virginia or Montana, the Senate 'long shot' is now a reality.

This is so huge, it means so much on so many levels that I can't process it all right now. I am speechless. I think we can leave all the analyses and prognosticating for the days ahead. Right now I'm just enjoying the moment.

You can't see me, but I'm dancing in my bunny slippers.

It's Heck'a Ugly Out There

OPEN THE POD BAY DOORS, HAL!
The AP says voting machines "began wreaking havoc the minute the polls opened" today, slowing the voting in Ohio and Indiana and forcing some Florida precincts to give up on the machines in favor of paper ballots.

In Delaware County, Ind., the AP says officials will ask the courts to extend voting tonight because a computer error has already prevented voters from voting in 75 precincts. A local election official tells AP that the cards that were supposed to have activated the machines weren't programmed properly.

I Said Vote, BITCH!!
A poll worker in Louisville Kentucky was arrested Tuesday and charged with assault and interfering with an election for allegedly choking a voter and pushing the voter out the door, an official said.

Election officials called police, and the voter wanted to file charges, said Paula McCraney, a spokeswoman for the Jefferson County Clerk.

"That about tops off the day," McCraney said.

Vandalism
Republicans and Democrats in New Jersey and Colorado, respectively, are out with claims that the other side has engaged in acts of political vandalism.

In New Jersey, the campaign manager for U.S. Senate candidate Tom Kean Jr. says that vandals "struck the Kean for Senate Headquarters and an auxiliary office of [New Jersey's] Star-Ledger by chaining closed the main entrance to the building as well as breaking off keys in the side door entrances."

In Colorado, meanwhile, the campaign for Democratic congressional candidate Jay Fawcett says staffers arrived at work this morning to discover that their offices had been sprayed with some kind of "vile skunk aroma" that made them virtually uninhabitable. The campaign says a car belonging to Fawcett's finance director was sprayed with a similar substance last week -- and that Fawcett himself was the target of an e-mailed death threat last night.

HA! Psych!!
The FBI is reportedly investigating allegations that Republicans in Virginia -- where the race between George Allen and Jim Webb could determine control of the U.S. Senate -- are using misleading telephone calls in an effort to suppress the Democratic vote. Some Virginia Democrats have reported receiving calls telling them -- falsely -- that their polling places have been moved; one says he got a call in which he was told -- again, falsely -- that he wasn't registered in the Commonwealth and could be arrested if he tried to vote there.

Robo-Call
A prerecorded voice tells voters that they're about to receive important information about a Democratic candidate. If the voter stays on the line, he or she hears negative information about the Democrat. If the voter hangs up, a computer dialer redials the same number repeatedly, misleading voters into thinking that they're being besieged by calls by a Democratic candidate.

For Those About To Rock!

I realize it's a little late, but if you haven't voted yet, and haven't had time to study the issues, there's someone to my left who's done the homework for you. At least for those residing in California. So checkit!––then go do your Democratic groove-thang.

An Improved Morality

I’ll admit that I was a little caustic in my initial response to Haggard’s plight, but for a host of very personal reasons I find the entire affair enraging. Fortunately cooler, more nuanced views can be found here and here.

In my Saturday posting I referred to David Frum’s NRO piece on Haggard. It seems I wasn’t the only one who found it both nauseating and revealing. Digby’s take on it is, as usual, nail on head;

"I have long written that the right has retired the concept of hypocrisy. But until I read this piece by David Frum over at alicublog I didn't realize that they had actually formulated a moral philosophy to justify it. It is truly astonishing ... Frum and his fellow neo-cons and faith-based robots have spent the last few years mangling the discourse with so much hypocrisy, so many outright lies and twisted moral reasoning that they may have permanently built an alternate universe that they can turn to whenever the need arises."

I’ve said my piece regarding Haggard for the time being. Given everything going on right now I think it’s time to move on.

Your Dirty Pillows

"I should've killed myself when he put it in me. But sin never dies. Sin never dies. At first, it was all right. We slept in the same bed, but we never did it. And then, that night, I saw him looking down at me that way. We got down on our knees to pray for strength. I smelled the whiskey on his breath. Then he took me. He took me, with the stink of filthy roadhouse whiskey on his breath, and I liked it. I liked it! With all that dirty touching of his hands all over me.(..) I was weak and backsliding, and now the devil has come home. We'll pray.

Margaret White, Carrie

The full text of the Haggard's letters to the New Life Church can be found here. The letters were read to his congregation on Sunday, Nov. 5, at the 9:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. services.

The Devil Made Me Buy This Dress

This from a concerned Evangelical:

"You accuse Haggard of being a hypocrite? God will surely judge you on all your own hypocrisy. I'm not going to judge Haggard, and neither should you. What happened is between him and God. God already knows the truth anyway. Unfortunately, so many people are unaware of the truth that they are sinners every bit as egregious as Haggard".

Sister... if you only knew.

The same people who are now admonishing us for rushing to judgment, insisting we show compassion and understanding for a fellow sinner, are the same people who went bullhorn ballistic over Clintons (failed) college marijuana experiment. The same people who then proceeded to drag the entire nation through the impeachment process because they couldn’t get past executive spooge on an ugly blue dress.

James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, blasted the media for reporting a "rumour" based on "nothing but one man's accusation."

Can anyone imagine what the right wing would make of Haggard's "confession" if it came from the mouth of a prominent champion of left-wing/liberal causes? They continue to compound the hypocrisy with more hypocrisy--it’s nothing short of breathtaking.

You know, there’s a very good chance Haggard will eventually claim to have been molested as a child, and hence the real victim in all this. Homosexuals will be successfully recast as the evil predator villains of the story (again), the true source of all this woe. The Devils punks bring another good man down with their dark chemistries and tight jeans.

In a feat of cognitive dissonance the faithful will not only redeem, but exalt this disgraced man as evidence of God’s compassion. By extension restoring their own sense of righteousness through the act of forgivness––and fuck the rest of us hateful sinners with our snide remarks.

Or put more succinctly by David Frum on National Review.

"If a religious leader has a personal inclination toward homosexuality - and nonetheless can look past his own inclination to defend the institution of marriage and to affirm its benefits for the raising of children - why should he likewise not be honored for his intellectual firmness and moral integrity.”

Did you get that… moral integrity. This, children, is cognitive dissonance in action.

Of course he’ll have to do some penance. There’ll be the obligatory Rehab-racadabra before it’s off on the talk show circuit, new book in hand. Testifying loudly about the dangerous seductions and pernicious evils that are homosexuality, and bearing witness to the miraculous salvation that is God’s grace and the love of a good woman.

*****

Can we carve this new law of the cosmos in stone alongside Newton's laws of motion; Relativity, and the one about "the odds of bread falling butter side down are directly proportional to the cost of the carpet":

The volume with which a person proclaims his or her fabulous piety while denouncing others for failing to meet his or her standards of virtue and holiness is directly proportional to the likelihood that he or she is a child-buggering, cash-stealing, graft-grabbing, meth-snorting hypocrite.