Friday, January 23, 2004

Let's see if this story has legs

The United States Comptroller General--also head of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office--has expressed alarm at the budget deficits that this administration is incurring and projecting. His report is a direct contradiction of the Bush/Cheney policy that "deficits don't matter," and he predicts an economic cataclysm if the tax cuts are made permanent, as Bush sought in his State of the Union message.

This isn't a political hack speaking. It's the man what holds the purse.

Worthy of a whisper in a major news outlet, this alarm? Let's see.

The ace in the hole: Dick Cheney

As I was out at the Dolphin Fountain in SB this afternoon with my protest sign, one side of which reads, "Anybody -- Absolutely Anybody -- But Bush!", I had a thought. Since the opponents are presenting a fear-based campaign, why not equalize it with our own?

The target wouldn't be Bush, scary as he is, because too many duped Americans think he's a nice, stupid guy. But Cheney. He's pretty much conceded to be the power behind the throne and he's not only scary, he's unlikeable as hell.

So, I think (in addition to a wealth of positive campaigning) the Democrats should tee off on Cheney with slogans like, "I'm scared of Dick Cheney. Aren't you?" and "Cheney runs this country. Four more years?" and "Cheney will give us four more wars." And "Cheney/Bush: Four more wars." I've just begun to spin slogans, but I think I'm onto something.

Finally, a syndicated writer understands

This article, by a British writer, is the first I've read that tries to get at the core purpose of bin Laden's activities. Step one, make the Muslim nations mad at us; step two, unite them in a holy war against us. With Bush in the White House, bin Laden has an administration that furthers his aims. He'll attack our soil again before the November election if he feels it will further Bush's re-election, and won't if he feels it won't. In that sense, Bush and bin Laden are allied. While we watch them destroy us.

Wednesday, January 21, 2004

Am I the only one

who's noticed Bush's hypocrisy in calling for numerous "faith-based initiatives," and for a constitutional amendment to disallow same-sex marriages in his State of the Union Address, while at the same time demanding that the "democracies" in Afghanistan and Iraq be entirely secular? Apparently, to the "religious right" religion in government is all right so long as it's the correct religion.

Tuesday, January 20, 2004

From the mouths of babes

My fellow AOL subscribers are hardly a sophisticated lot, and many of them are unabashed right-wingers. Thus, most "Members' Comments" aren't worthy of quoting. But tonight's is a beaut, a comment on Bush's State of the Union Address: "The best part of his speech was when he said that the Patriot Act would expire in a year."

Monday, January 19, 2004

World without end, amen

One cartoonist's take on Armageddon. (Takes a while to load.)

Somehow this Madness ...

Somehow this madness must cease. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam and the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home and death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. The great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop must be ours.

Declaration of Independence from the War in Vietnam
Delivered by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr
April 1967
At Manhattan's Riverside Church

Sunday, January 18, 2004

Partly Cloudy

Look, it's partly cloudy in Baghdad. The weather is very much like it is here in Santa Barbara . I guess the difference here is a must less chance of thunderous midmorning explosions. Which is good, because I just don't have the clothes for it.

Sen Biden of Delaware says that a lot of Iraqis are pissed at America because, while they were so amazed that we could blow away Saddams regime, we can't get the power on and the water flowing, etc. And we didn't stop the looting until it was moot. I'm not suggesting that these are the same Iraqis blowing stuff up, just that the Bush Administration was abjectly unprepared to follow through after the Shock and Awe was over.