Bottom Line On Spending Bills

The War Funding Bill

"However, President Bush has announced his opposition to any bill that contains veterans' benefits and unemployment insurance in addition to the war funds."

The Farm Bill

"House and Senate negotiators yesterday reached final agreement on a new farm bill that will spend close to $300 billion on nutrition, conservation, energy and farm subsidy programs over the next five years, but administration officials immediately announced that President Bush will veto it."

What perplexes me is not that the C+ Augustus in the White House hates anything rational or that helps anyone on a personal level -- like tuition in exchange for years spent in a combat zone or increasing nutritional programs for poor kids, or funding alternative fuel programs so someday we won't have to send our emaciated children to fight for oil.

No, what perplexes me is that our so-called representatives would go along with someone 71% of the nation can no longer stand and not laugh at his puny veto threats -- even those dastardly "Blue-Dogs" are still doing Bush's his bidding.

Ugh!

Easy Prediction, Democrats By A Mile

They're done, and there's nothing they really can do about it but whine and strategerize for 2012 and 2016.

Wall Street Journal/NBC Poll (pdf) on generic presidential preference [HT: Todd@MyDD]

	4/25-28	3/7-10	Nov. 07
Democrat (strongly)	45	44	41
Democrat (not strongly)	6	6	8
Republican (strongly)	25	29	31
Republican (not strongly)	8	8	8

I'll make it easy for you. President Record Breaker, with 69% of his fellow Americans just fucking hating his stupid guts has in 6 months turned a 10 point deficit in the generic ballot to a 20 point rout. Bush owns 3 of the lowest 5 highest disapproval rates since they started taking these polls, tying then eclipsing Nixon by early April, where he tied Truman. Then zipping by Give-em-Hell Harry by the end of last month, winning the prize for most loathed dunce-king to ever pardon a turkey.

John McSame and the rest of the GOP have got to be praying that when our C+ Augustus heads to the Olympics, the Chinese keep him. (They do know how to keep him occupied.)

While his approval rating, the one more generally reported, remains above Truman at 28%, those that haven't formed an opinion one way or the other on the approval/disapproval scale are far and few in between. (CNN has it even tighter, with only 1% on the fence and the disapprovers topping 71% as of this week.)

I doubt it's really about either loving or hating him. It's about barely tolerating him versus wishing he'd get so toasted at Jenna's wedding he does a header of the North Portico. I'd say half of the 28% aren't really paying attention any more that the deaf/dumb/blind fools who have no opinion, but are being charitable nonetheless -- good Christian folk that they are. (Mom always said if you can't say anything nice ...)

To think that he had 88% of us behind him a month or so after 9/11 with memories of him standing atop a mass grave in Midtown Manhattan boasting he'd get Bin Laden "Dead or Alive."

We're still waiting you petulant, pompous poser. I can't believe we sent in the Marines to redo a Mission that should have been Accomplished 6 years ago.

Shorter Bush White House:

OK, the dirty hippies were right about everything.

[Cross-posted at E Pluribus Unum]

Big Republican Lies On Iraq

by shep

No, I don’t mean Dick Cheney prostrate on the sand in Ramadi – however appealing the idea – I mean the monumentally deceitful propaganda being hurled at the American public by Republican leaders in both the White House and the Congress:

1) It’s about al Qaeda

This lie has been going on (and been debunked) since before the war. The truth is, Osama bin Laden was a foe of Saddam Hussein and his secular Baathist state. While the US invasion and occupation of Iraq opened a window for al Qaeda affiliates, they represent a small percentage of those fighting US troops and are currently despised by their erstwhile Iraqi Sunni partners. They are being killed and otherwise expelled from Anbar province to much public celebration by US officials. If the US leaves Iraq, neither Sunni nor Shiite nor Kurdish Iraqis will tolerate al Qaeda’s presence there.



2) If we leave Iraq, the terrorists will follow us here.

The truth is, if any of the Islamist terrorists (and not just al Qaeda) could strike us here, they would already have done so. Leaving Iraq won’t change their capacity to do that one bit, except that it would take away the radicals best recruiting tool and best excuse to attack us.



3) If we leave Iraq before we “win” the cost will be too great.

The truth is, no one has any idea what will happen if we leave Iraq except that we will no longer be bleeding troops by the hundreds and money by the tens of $billions per month. And Republicans have been consistently and insanely inaccurate on the cost-benefit calculation for Iraq policy from the beginning so there is absolutely no reason to assume that their guess is right this time.



4) Congress should let the generals decide how to run the war.

The truth is, as much as the President desires, the generals have run and will continue to run whatever policy is set forth by the civilian leadership of the government, just as the Founders intended and wrote into the US Constitution. Congress gets to write and fund war policy and the President, as Commander-in-Chief gets to execute that war policy, period.


In short, you can’t trust a word Republicans or the Bush Administration, including the Pentagon and the generals, tell you about Iraq or Iran.

[Cross-posted at E Pluribus Unum]

Blunt

I cannot be said more bluntly. Thank you Mr. Uhler:

Your stupidity and incompetence, Mr. Bush, are becoming the stuff of legend. Like Willy Loman's, your sales pitches no longer persuade and are now viewed to be acts of desperation. And, as a self-proclaimed "born again" Christian, who supposedly receives guidance from God; you possess all the "moral clarity" of a guttersnipe.

Granted, you've yet to be removed from office, so attention must still be paid. But, mainly to record your crimes for posterity and more definitively demonstrate that you and your irredeemable Vice President were always lying, warmongering frauds.

Bush Legacy? ...Bwahahahaha

The repudiation of absolutely every international policy position by the Bush administration is almost complete. A brief glance at the New York Times top stories tells the story.

The ISG insists that "Stay the Course" is not an option, and that in matters of war, the Rovian 50% +1 strategy of dividing and conquering our own nation isn't either.

Iraq's disfunctional government is out ahead of the ISG report, and bringing Iran and Syria into a regional effort to put Humpty Dumpty back together -- or at least clean up the mess -- despite the President's refusal to engage nations he considers evil.

More war crimes stories make the front page.

Speaking of Rummy's disaster -- his replacement gets unanimous support by simply being able to prove that he is not, and never has been, Donald Rumsfeld. Oh yeah, Gates spins the knife in Tony Snow's back, who has become even more incomprehensible (and you didn't think that it was possible).

And for the Hat Trick, we're horse trading with North Korea.

And that's just the stuff you get this morning in the first ten minutes of reading the news. It's going to be an interesting day around the blogosphere.