Impeachment, etc.

* An Open Letter to the GOP. I agree with most of that. The GOP deserved to have its head handed to it, and that's exactly what happened; a combination of residual Katrina anger, the corruption scandals, and poorly communicating to the voters the reasons why Iraq is important.

* Two conservative takes on the election

* Despite Speaker Pelosi's insistence that impeachment isn't an option, it'll be interesting to see how long she can keep that stance up, especially after Bush starts vetoing their legislation. I suspect the temptation to pander to the True Believers will get to be too great around this time next year, especially if, as is likely, things don't improve in Iraq under their watch and they need a distraction from voters noticing their 'new approach' really isn't different from the current status quo.

* Both sides always talk a good talk about working together in bipartisanship right after elections. Rarely does it amount to anything. If compromise and bipartisanship was that easy, things would never have gotten as polarized as they have on Capital Hill. The GOP had their shot at leading and blew it. Lets see how the Democrats do with the ball in their hands.

* Rumsfeld had become too serious a public relations liability to continue, but I agreed with a lot of what he was doing as far as military transformation went. Unfortunately, I think he believed in transformation to the point of hoping the military was farther along in it than it was, and wasn't able to adapt to the fact that we are still using forces structured to win a war with the USSR, rather than fight small-scale engagements.

* The election will probably turn out to be a disaster for Jon Stewart and Bill Maher. With the baton passed, can they really bring themselves to criticize the Democrats as harshly as they have the Republicans, assuming everything doesn't go swimmingly? After going so far against Bush, can't see it. They're not Jay Leno.

(no subject)

My response to ceej's saying that "It's a pity so many human beings had to, you know, die real non-metaphorical deaths in Iraq before the US voters clued in.":

I think the electorate really doesn't give a d**n about how many human beings/Iraqis die, any more than we care about how many of "them" are dying in Darfur, or in Lebanon, or in or the Congo (or, heck, that were dying in Iraq under the sanctions). Its the American body count ("us") that makes a difference.

That doesn't say much for our collective morality as a people, nor for the underlying racism behind that attitude, but there it is.


* I say racism, because the one place we made an exception? Bosnia. With those white, European faces being shown on TV, unlike like those darker-skinned people in Darfur, or Iraq.

* We also didn't lose a whole lot of sleep as a nation over selling out the Shi'ites and the Kurds to Saddam when we allowed him to crush their uprisings after the first Gulf War. No Americans being killed + not on TV = didn't happen, to the average American voter.