"The Citizens of the United States Are Humans With a Conscience"

[SteppingRazor]

http://blogs.southflorida.com/citylink_dansweeney/2006/11/the_citizens_of_the_united_sta.html


Leftist Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez said that yesterday, echoing the general approbation of world opinion.

Here, inside the bubble, we do not have the eyes of those outside, looking in. While this country shouldn't rely on world opinion to define its policies, it is instructive that, despite the debate here at home, the rest of the world is almost entirely united in its praise of the midterm election's outcome.

I had actually begun writing a post about this yesterday, but it wallowed so deeply in schadenfreude that I decided to give it a day before looking at the election. I'm glad I did. Because while the 100 Hours Plan of Nancy Pelosi will almost certainly come to fruition, the jabbering stooge in the White House be damned, the hopes that the world pins on the newly minted Democratic Congress — an end to the Iraq War and the beginning of a more multilateral foreign policy — will likely take years to develop.

On a more personal level, all I can say is, I'm glad I was wrong.

I called the Senate to go 50/50 back in April, but that was before George Allen opened his foul, racist piehole. The rest of the Senate panned out as I thought it would — apart from the unforseen independent candidacy of Joe Lieberman, but that didn't change the outcome. But Allen's stupidity was the country's saving grace. Were it not for his bullheaded macaca comment, and the N-word allegations that followed, along with his demand that a reporter stop "making aspersions" when she asked about his Jewish ancestry, the GOP would still control the Senate. Virginia may be the South, but blatant racism and self-loathing anti-Semtism doesn't play, I don't care what part of the country you're in. In the end, Allen cost the Republicans the Senate. He also ruined my 50/50 prediction, but hey, I can't be too upset.

The House was, of course a "thumpin' " as President Bush graciously admitted the next day, looking very pale and concilliatory at a press conference in which he announced that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld would be thrown under a bus.

My own prediction for the House turned out to be woefully pessimistic — guess that's why they pay guys like Stu Rothenberg and Charlie Cook the big bucks. Although, to be fair to me, they allowed themselves more than a dozen tossups, while I made a firm prediction of 227 Dems to 208 GOP — a firm, but terribly wrong prediction. I was off by about 9 seats (a few, like FL-13, are stil being contested), which may not seem like much in a 435-seat House, but it's actually quite a lot when you narrow down the amount of seats that were possible pickups.

Anyway, the Dems definitely picked up: AZ-05, AZ-08, CA-11, CO-07, CT-05, FL-16, FL-22, GA-08, IA-01, IA-02, IN-02, IN-08, IN-09, KS-02, KY-03, LA-01, MN-01, NC-11, NH-01, NH-02, NY-20, NY-24, OH-18, PA-04, PA-07, PA-08, PA-10, PA-16, TX-22 and WI-08

I'm happy to see my own dictrict, FL-22, unseated Clay Shaw. As far as I'm concerned, if you've been in the House for more than 20 years -- 10 elections, in other words -- you're corrupt by definition. In 1994, the Republicans swept into power with the Contract With America, a main plank of which was term limits, the idea of which was abandoned as soon as the GOP gained power. That should have been a clear sign of the new majority's malicious intent.

The Republican Congress didn't have a Contract With America — it put out a contract on America. Tuesday's election was certainly a reprisal against Bush, and against the war, but it was also a reprisal against corruption, which is primarily a congressional, not an executive, problem. The election, then, was not anti-Bush, per se. It was anti-Republican. Anti-Bush, yes, but also anti-Congress, anti-everything that has transpired under these hypocritical, corrupt greedheads in the 12 years that they have oozed through the halls of power.

And that means that, yes, this was a vote for oversight. The Republican talking heads are all screaming now about how there better not be investigations, there better not be indictments. But, au contraire, Mr. O'Reilly, that's what this election was all about. Oversight. A rubber-stamp Congress might as well be no Congress at all. Any further depredations on the part of the White House will be greeted with a raking through the coals, and Bush will have to throw out more red meat to keep the wolves at bay, just as he did with Rumsfeld yesterday. I don't know that we'll see major investigations over the lies that led us into Iraq, but invented reasons, fabricated rationales and the other endemic symptoms of the White House's truthiness campaign end January 3, 2007. A lot of damage has already been done. But, at the very least, this Congress can halt any further erosion of the America we all know and love.

Speaking of O'Reilly, he was very adamant in his interview with Senator Chuck Schumer yesterday that if this Congress spent all its time investigating, he would pound them. In fact, talking about Nancy Pelosi, he said he would "be on her butt." Bill's so manly when he threatens little old Italian grandmothers. Hell, between that and the disgusting sexual harassment suit he settled out of court, it's pretty clear where Bill O'Reilly stands.

But more important than Bill O'Reilly's hatred of women is the fact that he is so terribly wrong on this issue; as is usually the case with Mr. Bill, he insists on being the vox populi while actually supporting ideas diametrically opposed to the will of the people. The people voted for oversight Tuesday. They voted for checks and balances. The outrage will not come if this Congress investigates the various lies, distortions and corruption that keep the Bush administration running. The outrage will come if the Democratic Congress rubber-stamps Bush's agenda just as much as its predecessor did. If we see a Congress that, despite Democratic majorities, is still afraid to call Bush on his depravedly indifferent, horseshit policies, we will see a Democratic Congress only until the 2008 election.

But for now, here's to morning in America. Yesterday was one of the happiest of my life. The birds sang a little louder, the air was a little crisper and, in the pitch-black darkness of Bush's America, a small, shining light flickered on in the distance.

[WatchWhatISay]

1. Well, most of us, anyway

But thanks for noticing

[swimboy]

2. Such a relief for optimism to feel realistic

My vote made a difference and we can start to extract ourselves from Bush's thundering clusterfuck.

Our allies have been scratching their heads wondering what on earth was going on, especially after the 2004 election. They are ready for our recovery and I think they will welcome a healthy U.S. back into the world community.

[SteppingRazor]

3. It is sort of unbalancing isn't it?

realism has equated with pessimism for so long now that a positive realistic outlook just feels weird.