..........what would Forrest Gump say?
I must not be nearly as sharp politically as I thought I was. I never saw the Rumsfeld resignation coming! I'll have to say, it made me feel pretty stupid when I heard about it yesterday. Then the President openly admitted that the policy for winning in Iraq was not on the right track and needed some change. The news commentators were all over that before the sound of his (the President) voice dissapated. The questions as to "why" and so on and so forth went on all night long. The speculations are numerous. The President did a smart thing by preparing for this well ahead of time. Great attention would be given to the "Architect of Operation Iraqi Freedom" if the House and/or Senate would be controlled by the Democrats. The decision to make the change now and get someone else who was approved by the current White House is a smart move. There is no doubt that the President is a loyal man to his friends and appointees. I'm sure it was a difficult decision for him to make, but the right decision. Maybe there is a different route we could take in Iraq to win stabalization and still retain democracy - I hope so. Too many American lives have been given to the cause to give up completely.
Now, on to something else. Many of the Democrats are in celebration with the win in the House and probably a win in the Senate. I really would have liked to have seen a Democratic House and a Republican Senate. My hope here is that more bipartisan dialogue would have been possible, and a move closer to the center of things could have been achieved.
I must say, I am very dissapointed with our media - ha, ha, ha. I'm sure that sounds like a broken record. Presently, the Democrats are viewed by the Republicans as these left wing liberal nut jobs that want to abandon all moral and ethical standards in America. I heard a very well educated person yesterday ranting (literally ranting) that "we're going to have all our guns taken away and the gays are going to control our standards! Who made the Republican voters think that way? The media, of course. The media reports the actions/thoughts of Ted Kennedy and Nancy Pelosi as being the Democratic standard. I don't think that is nearly the true representation of a real Democrat. Reporting the far left side of the party is better news than those Democrats who are closer to the center on things. Rush Limbaugh has done more to hurt this nation by polarizing the Republicans from the Democrats than anyone alive! Who could really trust what this guy has to say? On the other side of the coin, the Democrats have done the same to the Republicans. The far right wing of the party is reported on so much that Democrat voters think the same about the Republicans. Many Democrats feel that the Republicans don't care about anyone with less than a yearly earning of $500,000 per household, and huge stock investments in oil companies. I know that's not true either. Moderate talk is not very interesting, so, it's not headline worthy. I hope our leaders can get closer to the middle and work for all Americans. We need social programs when assistance is needed. We need limits as to how social programs can be used. I feel that is an example of how well these parties could work together to better things. Maybe I live in a fairytale way of thinking, but I still have some hope that America won't let the far right and the far left be our standards of interpretation. Everything should be taken in moderation. Too much sugar is not healthy. Too much loud music is not healthy. Being to far to the left or right throws us off balance as well. Moderation is healthy. Being anything else is arrogant and wasteful. ........"and that's all I have to say about that!"
posted by Scott @ 5:14 AM
1 comments
1 Comments:
i've never thought that the media makes people think the democrats are liberal nut jobs. i always thought they make people think republicans are racist, rich white people. i remember something ari fleischer said when he resigned as white house press secretary. a reporter asked him if thought there was a liberal bias in the media and he said "there's a bias toward controversy." i think that's in line with what you're saying and probably closer to the truth.
also, it's interesting to note that rush limbaugh said he was "relieved" by the election results. he (like me and many other conservative) thought the current congress was inept. they had become power hungry and more and more were at odds with the president (who isn't really that conservative, but more of a pragmatist, and as you implied, a pretty good politician). now we'll probably see several bills come through the congress on issues like immigration reform, a new iraq policy, a minimum wage hike, and maybe stem cell research. bush has wanted many of these bills for awhile and now he finally has a congress who will give it to him. his neo-conservative advisors (like rumsfeld) have made people forget that bush, while slightly more conservative than his father, is no ronald reagan (in more ways than one). remember "compassionate conservatism"? maybe i'm naive, but that idea appeals to me. remember no child left behind? bush gets blamed for it, but i believe it was ted kennedy and several democratic governors that wrote the darn thing. bush is a liberal spender on domestic programs, and a liberal spender on defense. but, his foreign policy stinks. he nearly admitted that during the 2000 campaign. he campaigned on NCLB, compassionate conservatism, faith-based initiatives, social security reform, and bringing "civility" to washington. all of those are domestic issues. (further, remember that he couldn't remember certain foreign leaders' names?) anyway, the republican congress has only given him one or two off that list. they (republican congress) sure didn't bring civility to washington. and as rush said on wednesday, the election wasn't a rebuke against conservatism, which won frequently when it ran as a democrat, it was a rebuke against republicanism.
sorry to go off on a tangent.
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