Barackface: Can't Take Back Congress Without Strong On Defense

The Dems are within striking distance of taking back both the House and the Senate. The momenutm is there. It is definite. But 2006 will be yet another lost opportunity if foreign policy is neglected.

(1) Recognize that this War On Terror is genuine, it exists. Think of it as the Long War.
(2) The only way to win it is by spreading democracy into every country in the Arab world.
(3) Spread democracy the progressive way. Come up with a Hexagon (Pentagon, Hexagon). Come up with a concrete $10 billion program to spread democracy through a war with communications technology. Yes, that is 10 billion dollars in spending, but then it is $190 billion saved.
(4) Counter the insurgency, not like they were a traditional, standing army, but like the guerrillas they are.

So far this vision has not entered the Democratic mainstream. The Dems have been like Labor in Britain during the Cold War, for unilateral disarmament, and constantly losing elections.

Rahm Emanuel: Big Ideas For America
Long War
Iraq Intel: The Spy Who Failed Me
The Larger WMD Question And Iran
Complicated Iraq
Nepal Message To Top Democrats

Bush Shows Strategy for Keeping Hill Majorities: Democrats Assailed On National Security, As Well as the Economy Washington Post ...... his two-front strategy for protecting the Republican congressional majority ...... hammer Democrats on national security and the economy, and raise millions of dollars for embattled GOP candidates ......... this is a nation at war" against terrorists intent on striking America again ...... Democrats will raise taxes and harm the economy ...... Republicans paid $1,000 for the buffet lunch and presidential speech; $10,000 if they wanted a picture snapped at a private reception afterward....... fundraiser that was expected to net half a million dollars for Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) ....... president dogged by sagging poll numbers and an unpopular war ....... Republicans could lose seats, if not their House and Senate majorities ....... "The Democrats' plan for 2006? Take the House and Senate, and impeach the president," Ken Mehlman ....... Bush remains popular with the Republican base ........ Cheney portrayed the entire Democratic leadership as wobbly in the fight against terrorism .... If they're competent to fight this war, then I ought to be singing on 'American Idol.' ........

Attacks On Hillary

There are sexists among us. Will Hillary run in 2008? I don't know. But the prospect of her running exposes sexists among us. And several of them are people who call themselves liberals, Dems, progressives. This is obscene.

Loving To Hate Hillary Richard Cohen Washington Post In order to understand what's going on with Hillary Clinton, it helps to recall a woman who lost her head and therefore her life in 1793: Marie Antoinette........ More than 30 books have been written about Clinton ...... They have questioned Hillary's honesty, sexuality, parenting, wifing and just about everything else....... Hillary has come to personify all that is wrong with Bill, the Democrats, liberals, working women, independent women and women of a certain kind -- which is any kind you don't happen to like....... Since we do not know our own marriages, we cannot know anyone else's. This engenders endless speculation about the distribution of power and the importance of pillow talk......... now that she is a public official in her own right, even more mystery attaches to her. Who is she? ...... In the last month alone, though, The New York Times has mentioned her about 60 times compared to 45 for her more senior colleague, Sen. Charles Schumer ....... Some of the Times' stories are merely about her existence ... and in this they are similar to those in other papers....... for one person to be so loved, so hated, and of such compelling interest -- so much more a celebrity than, say, John McCain -- suggests that more than politics is involved ........ Hillary has emerged as the repository of so many fears, so much dread, such aspirations -- so much good and bad ..... something deeply Freudian is at work....... "What do women want?" Now -- some fear, others hope -- we may finally have the answer. The White House.

This Post article touches upon some elements to do with how Hillary gets treated.

If you dislike the idea of a Hillary 2008, then disagree with her on policy, analyze and criticize her leadership style. Try to show she has been a failure in the Senate, if you can. Bring up when she tried to reform health care, and the whole effort bombed because Newt said of the president, "His wife should not be making policy."

But instead people make overtly sexist comments. Like Karl Rove claiming Hillary is brittle. But then Rove is on the other side. It sucks big when people from our own camp start sounding like Rove.

Karl Rove, Hands Off Hillary
Hillary In Person
Primitive Liberals Need To Stop Attacking Hillary
Race, Gender, Progressive, Conservative Divides
The Spectrum On Gender

One thing is for sure, if Hillary runs, she can not talk about the weather and expect to make progress on gender relations, and there is no avoiding gender relations, and one great way would be to beat the boys on the substance, on style, and of sheer execution.

Impeach Bush

Impeachment Whispers Getting Louder Washington Post Three of this state's 10 House members have called for the investigation and possible impeachment of President Bush. ..... residents in four Vermont villages voted earlier this month at annual town meetings to buy more rock salt, approve school budgets, and impeach the president for lying about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction and for sanctioning torture..... "I was really upset about 9/11 -- so don't lie to me." ...... there are just 33 House co-sponsors of a motion .. to investigate and perhaps impeach Bush, and a large majority of elected Democrats think it is a bad idea . ...... "The value of a powerful idea, like impeachment of the president for criminal acts, is that it has a long shelf life and opens a debate" .... A Zogby International poll showed that 51 percent of respondents agreed that Bush should be impeached if he lied about Iraq, a far greater percentage than believed President Bill Clinton should be impeached during the Monica S. Lewinsky scandal...... if he lied to get America into a war, I can't imagine anything more impeachable ...... ..... .....Bush's approval ratings in polls are lower than for any president in recent history. With midterm elections in the offing, Republican leaders view impeachment as kerosene poured on the bonfires of their party base...... The argument for an impeachment inquiry -- which draws support from prominent constitutional scholars such as Harvard's Laurence H. Tribe and former Reagan deputy attorney general Bruce Fein -- centers on Bush's conduct before and after the invasion of Iraq in 2003...... "Downing Street memo" that Bush officials were intent on fixing "the intelligence and the facts . . . around the policy.""Bush is saying 'I'm the president' and, on a range of issues -- from war to torture to illegal surveillance -- 'I can do as I like' " ....... "The Clinton impeachment was plainly unconstitutional, and a Bush impeachment would be nearly as bad""He picks and chooses his information and can't admit it's erroneous, and he annoys me" .... This is far more serious than Clinton and Monica. This is about life and death.

Taking back the House and the Senate and then the White House is a better idea, perhaps. On the other hand, the country does need to know if Bush deliberately lied about WMDs. I know Cheney did.

The "I" Word: Monica And Saddam

Another "I" Word: Immigration

Immigration Debate Is Shaped By 2008 Election Washington Post Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), whom Bush helped elect as party leader, is threatening to bring a new immigration bill ..... would tighten control of the nation's borders without creating the guest-worker program ....... John McCain ... is promoting Bush's call for tougher border security and the guest-worker program ....... Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) is garnering support for a long-shot presidential bid with his fierce anti-immigration rhetoric ...... Hillary Rodham Clinton ..jumped into the immigration debate Wednesday ...... For Republican presidential candidates, immigration offers up a difficult choice: Appeal to conservatives eager to clamp down on illegal immigration who could buoy your position in the primaries, or take a moderate stand to win independents and the growing Latino vote, which could be vital to winning the general election. ........ 12 million illegal immigrants living in the United States........ Harry M. Reid .. promised this week to filibuster Frist's enforcement-only bill........ In recent months, under pressure from GOP lawmakers, Bush has retreated from focusing mostly on the guest-worker program to giving equal billing to border security........ a bill co-sponsored by McCain and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy... breaks with Specter's proposal by offering an easier road to citizenship for illegal immigrants already in the country.......

Immigration is about slowly moving towards citizenship. What is this guest worker program? If the immigrants are working and paying taxes, they should logically move on to be able to vote. No taxation without representation.

"I've Been To Europe Once, And That's Enough"

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23 March