So, now ExxonMobil, et al, are even picking on President Bush.
They say his call for more biofuels puts too much uncertainty in the future for them to be keen about investing in new refineries. This coming after the last, Republican-led Congress, at the pushing of “Smokey Joe” Barton, cut them new breaks, both tax and regulatory, on building new refineries in the first place.
We’re already importing about 20 percent of our refined gasoline. When, besides dealing with Iraq and the Department of Justice, will the current, Democratic-controlled Congress, start hauling Big Oil execs up for sworn-in hearings on this latest round of excuse-making vs. price-gouging?
Or, let’s create a governmental strategic gasoline reserve to accompany the strategic petroleum reserve. That would require a federal refinery or two, and kneecap Big Oil right there.
May 24, 2007
Democrats: Quivering in fear of “Big Bad Bush”
Congressional Democrats are pushing an Iraq funding bill with no timetable teeth because they’re afraid of Big Bad Bush huffing and puffing:
Ooh, ooh, quiver in fear. Geez, if you haven’t realized now that, especially against this administration, the best defense is a good offense, you probably NEVER will.
Meanwhile, we have bullshit coming from the mouthpiece of the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi:
No, Mr. Daly, she’s showing how much of a squish she is. If she doesn’t get a Democratic primary opponent in 2008, I will personally send money to a Green opponent in the general election, if I can.
Meanwhile, right now, the bottom-line question in the other chamber is if any Senate Democrat, Feingold if not Dodd, will stand up on the floor and do an old-fashioned filibuster, as Keith Olbermann has already starting clamoring for.
Democrats said they did not relish the prospect of leaving Washington for a Memorial Day break — the second recess since the financing fight began — and leaving themselves vulnerable to White House attacks that they were again on vacation while the troops were wanting. That criticism seemed more politically threatening to them than the anger Democrats knew they would draw from the left by bowing to Mr. Bush.
Ooh, ooh, quiver in fear. Geez, if you haven’t realized now that, especially against this administration, the best defense is a good offense, you probably NEVER will.
Meanwhile, we have bullshit coming from the mouthpiece of the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi:
But scores of other Democrats, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California, say they have no intention of voting for the more than $100 billion sought by the White House for combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan because Mr. Bush refused to accede to timelines, readiness standards and other conditions. They have said repeatedly since taking control in January that they will not turn over more money for the war without some movement toward a withdrawal.
In allowing the war money measure to reach the floor with indifferent backing from her own party, Ms. Pelosi is breaking one of the cardinal rules of her predecessor, J. Dennis Hastert of Illinois, whose mantra was to legislate with the majority of the majority party.
“She is showing she is the speaker of the whole House,” said Brendan Daly, a spokesman for Ms. Pelosi. “Even though she does not personally support it, she said the money will go to the troops and she is following through on that.”
No, Mr. Daly, she’s showing how much of a squish she is. If she doesn’t get a Democratic primary opponent in 2008, I will personally send money to a Green opponent in the general election, if I can.
Meanwhile, right now, the bottom-line question in the other chamber is if any Senate Democrat, Feingold if not Dodd, will stand up on the floor and do an old-fashioned filibuster, as Keith Olbermann has already starting clamoring for.
“Support the troops” a no-win proposition
Over at Washington Monthly, there’s a package of stories from recent war veterans on how Democratic presidential candidates might get their vote.
There’s also an in-depth analysis by Spencer Ackerman as to why those candidates shouldn’t be looking to the troops to guide their decisions, ultimately.
Spencer Ackerman's article is more important than any of the soldiers' stories in the package. He explains why “support the troops” short of “bring ’em home” is a no-win, for one thing:
Ackerman indicates from enlisteds through noncoms into the corps of officers, a clear majority of boots on the ground still feel this way.
He touches on some of the reasons, which I’ll go into more.
First, too many soldiers have, to put it bluntly, some degree of ADDICTION to fighting after multiple tours in Iraq. (Note Ackerman quoting a soldier about having a “hard-on” about the possibility of killing alleged terrorists.
And yes, I do believe it’s a psychological addiction. In many cases, there’s at least the beginnings of post-traumatic stress disorder behind the development.
Plus, as Ackerman also notes, and as I agree, the “boots on the ground” have a narrow, sector-localized understanding of what is “successful.” Throw in the bar of “success” continually being lowered, and to take the addiction metaphor further, Democrats risk becoming “enablers.”
The idea of “support the troops” in any way short of supporting getting them home ASAP, because “the troops” still want to fight, is a losing proposition.
Democrats, already labeled as “out of touch with the military,” may be uncomfortable with what would appear to be a patronizing position, that “the troops don’t always know best.” But, that’s the bottom line. The key, though, as Ackerman notes, is to support the troops psychologically when they get back to America. Beyond adequate funding of Veterans Administration psychological treatment, this includes stressing that they never failed in their mission, but that the mission itself was a failure of design.
There’s also an in-depth analysis by Spencer Ackerman as to why those candidates shouldn’t be looking to the troops to guide their decisions, ultimately.
Spencer Ackerman's article is more important than any of the soldiers' stories in the package. He explains why “support the troops” short of “bring ’em home” is a no-win, for one thing:
Democrats have made the decision — rightly, I think — that withdrawing from Iraq is the least bad of many bad options. But they shouldn’t kid themselves into thinking that a majority of the troops doing the fighting agree with them. For soldiers like Lieutenant Wellman, this will be hard to accept. As he told me of war doubters back home, “I don’t want them to just support the troops. I want them to support the mission.”
Ackerman indicates from enlisteds through noncoms into the corps of officers, a clear majority of boots on the ground still feel this way.
He touches on some of the reasons, which I’ll go into more.
First, too many soldiers have, to put it bluntly, some degree of ADDICTION to fighting after multiple tours in Iraq. (Note Ackerman quoting a soldier about having a “hard-on” about the possibility of killing alleged terrorists.
And yes, I do believe it’s a psychological addiction. In many cases, there’s at least the beginnings of post-traumatic stress disorder behind the development.
Plus, as Ackerman also notes, and as I agree, the “boots on the ground” have a narrow, sector-localized understanding of what is “successful.” Throw in the bar of “success” continually being lowered, and to take the addiction metaphor further, Democrats risk becoming “enablers.”
The idea of “support the troops” in any way short of supporting getting them home ASAP, because “the troops” still want to fight, is a losing proposition.
Democrats, already labeled as “out of touch with the military,” may be uncomfortable with what would appear to be a patronizing position, that “the troops don’t always know best.” But, that’s the bottom line. The key, though, as Ackerman notes, is to support the troops psychologically when they get back to America. Beyond adequate funding of Veterans Administration psychological treatment, this includes stressing that they never failed in their mission, but that the mission itself was a failure of design.
Novak: This “surrender” is it for Congressional Dems on Iraq
And, forget about next year, he says:
Agreed that the bottom line is another showdown. So, fine, let’s have it. More than once, if necessary.
Novak goes on to say that if Democrats won’t do more this year, they certainly won’t next year:
I totally agree. We need real action, not noise-making and posturing. However, I’m not optimistic about what we will actually get, versus what we need.
President Bush has won a rare showdown victory over Congress simply because Democrats felt they could not afford the risk of letting a war in progress run out of money. The Democrats' problem is that this demonstrates conclusively that they are all talk on the Iraq War — a fact that their base will quickly realize. There is no way for Congress to end the war short of cutting off funds, and to cut off funds without the consent of the President is to invite a repeat of exactly the same showdown the Democrats have now already lost.
Agreed that the bottom line is another showdown. So, fine, let’s have it. More than once, if necessary.
Novak goes on to say that if Democrats won’t do more this year, they certainly won’t next year:
The bottom line is that Democrats have passed on their best chance to end the Iraq War. If they are not willing to take a risk here in a non-election year in order to force Bush to end the war, then they certainly do not have what it takes to cut off war funds in the coming presidential election year.
I totally agree. We need real action, not noise-making and posturing. However, I’m not optimistic about what we will actually get, versus what we need.
May 23, 2007
Impeachment vs. American “violent self-righteousness”
Gary Kamiya at Salon gets right to the point, in my opinion, about why impeachment hasn’t gained Democratic party traction yet:
To impeach Bush would force us to directly confront our national core of violent self-righteousness — come to terms with it, understand it and reject it. And we're not ready to do that.
To paraphrase, Democrats still want “imperialism lite.” (That was my biggest complaint about Andrew Bacevich’s “The New American Militarism,” is that it left the idea of “imperialism lite” on the table. The second complaint was that it never touched Peak Oil, which of course ties directly to Iraq. But, I digress.)
Kamiya goes on to talk about impeachment as an emotional, not a legal, maneuver. I agree, with the idea that the emotional fragility beneath Bush’s smirky shell can and should be “pushed.”
Read below the fold for more of Kamiya’s article and my comments:
Going beyond the Democratic Party, Kamiya says that Bush’s war crimes cut too close to the American quick for the public to really be ready for impeachment.
He adds that much of the public just isn’t ready to change its minds that much:
The unpleasant truth is that Bush did what a lot of Americans wanted him to. And when it became clear after the fact that Bush had lied about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein, it made no sense for those Americans to turn on him. Truth was never their major concern anyway — revenge was. And if we took revenge on the wrong person, well, better a misplaced revenge than none at all.
For those who did not completely succumb to the desire for primitive vengeance but were convinced by Bush's fraudulent arguments about the threat posed by Saddam, the situation is more ambiguous. Now that his arguments have been exposed and the war has become a disaster, they feel let down, even betrayed — but not enough to motivate them to call for Bush's impeachment.
Kamiya says he thinks this is also why other items, such as the fired district attorneys/vote fraud scandal, have failed to build more steam.
Kamiya goes on to point out that the public’s original carte blanche for Bush’s Iraq invasion means that impeachment as a legal measure will never gain traction, and that it may not, as an emotional issue, gain much more traction.
Because of that, he says this is part of why Bush continues to play the war card. It keeps at least a few emotional props braced in place.
That, in turn, means that “retreat” on war funding bills is not just the wrong option, it’s the wrong option in spades. Why? It fails to further dial up the emotional thermostat. Given the emotional fragility that seems to lurk beneath this president’s smirky shell, as any halfway astute observer knows, the Democratic Congressional leadership’s failure to push harder becomes more incomprehensible all the time.
Impeachment vs. American “violent self-righteousness”
Gary Kamiya at Salon gets right to the point, in my opinion, about why impeachment hasn’t gained Democratic party traction yet:
To impeach Bush would force us to directly confront our national core of violent self-righteousness — come to terms with it, understand it and reject it. And we're not ready to do that.
To paraphrase, Democrats still want “imperialism lite.” (That was my biggest complaint about Andrew Bacevich’s “The New American Militarism,” is that it left the idea of “imperialism lite” on the table. The second complaint was that it never touched Peak Oil, which of course ties directly to Iraq. But, I digress.)
Kamiya goes on to talk about impeachment as an emotional, not a legal, maneuver. I agree, with the idea that the emotional fragility beneath Bush’s smirky shell can and should be “pushed.”
Read below the fold for more of Kamiya’s article and my comments:
Going beyond the Democratic Party, Kamiya says that Bush’s war crimes cut too close to the American quick for the public to really be ready for impeachment.
He adds that much of the public just isn’t ready to change its minds that much:
The unpleasant truth is that Bush did what a lot of Americans wanted him to. And when it became clear after the fact that Bush had lied about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein, it made no sense for those Americans to turn on him. Truth was never their major concern anyway — revenge was. And if we took revenge on the wrong person, well, better a misplaced revenge than none at all.
For those who did not completely succumb to the desire for primitive vengeance but were convinced by Bush's fraudulent arguments about the threat posed by Saddam, the situation is more ambiguous. Now that his arguments have been exposed and the war has become a disaster, they feel let down, even betrayed — but not enough to motivate them to call for Bush's impeachment.
Kamiya says he thinks this is also why other items, such as the fired district attorneys/vote fraud scandal, have failed to build more steam.
Kamiya goes on to point out that the public’s original carte blanche for Bush’s Iraq invasion means that impeachment as a legal measure will never gain traction, and that it may not, as an emotional issue, gain much more traction.
Because of that, he says this is part of why Bush continues to play the war card. It keeps at least a few emotional props braced in place.
That, in turn, means that “retreat” on war funding bills is not just the wrong option, it’s the wrong option in spades. Why? It fails to further dial up the emotional thermostat. Given the emotional fragility that seems to lurk beneath this president’s smirky shell, as any halfway astute observer knows, the Democratic Congressional leadership’s failure to push harder becomes more incomprehensible all the time.
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