Let's get back to politics

[Peter_Puget]

Linky

 

The parallel is especially intriguing because it was a combination of security concerns and economic woes that did the damage then. There had been a severe recession in the winter of 1957-58. But it was foreign policy that was on many people's minds. The previous year, the Soviets had successfully launched their Sputnik satellite, causing consternation among Americans, who had assumed their country had a built-in technological advantage in both the Cold War and the space race. Civil war was raging in Cuba; Fidel Castro was just a few months from victory. And in July, a coup d'etat had overthrown King Faisal II of — guess where? — Iraq, the prelude to the Baathist takeover of power in that country in 1963. American troops had been dispatched to Lebanon in response.

Ring any bells?

What's more, as happened in 1958, the combination of foreign policy setbacks and economic disappointments could set the stage not merely for Democratic gains at the midterms but for a Democratic victory in the presidential election two years down the line. Intriguingly, there is already a John F. Kennedy figure on the scene who, he recently admitted, has "thought about the possibility" of a bid for the White House. Youthful, charismatic and the personification of the American dream, Barack Obama, the junior senator from Illinois, has been this autumn's media sensation, his face on every talk show, his name in every column, his book rivaling Woodward's in the charts.

You think the U.S. is not ready for a black president? Well, back in 1958 you'd probably have said the same about an Irish Catholic.

[catbirdseat]

Well, well. Dr. Linky returns.

[chucK]

linky

 

Was there any more mind-boggling bit of historic bad luck than what happened after Election Day 2000, when those 537 votes in Florida wobbled, then stayed in George W. Bush's column? Never mind what kind of president Al Gore would have been--he would have been adequate, I suppose, but so would have most Republicans--it is hard now to avoid the conclusion that Bush was precisely the wrong man at the wrong time. Perhaps Bush would have been OK fighting another kind of war, a Jacksonian Battle of New Orleans-type war. But at a moment in history when we faced the most subtle sort of global threat, when we needed not just a willingness to use military force but a leader of real brilliance--someone who would carefully study a little-understood enemy--we got a man who actually took pride in his lack of studiousness. No surprise: Bush never once presided over a grand-strategy session to divine the nature of Al Qaeda, and he ended up lumping Saddam and every Islamist insurgent and terrorist group with Osama bin Laden. He ensured that a tiny fringe group that had been hounded into Afghanistan with no place left to go--one that could have been wiped out had we focused on the task at hand--would spread worldwide and become a generational Islamist threat.

 

"And at a time when we needed a world leader who understood the nuances of burden-sharing in the international system, we got a president who so badly wanted to be a cowboy and not his father (offending even some Texans: 'all hat and no cattle' is the term they use down there) that he proudly declared he doesn't 'do nuance.' Bush stomped around huffily in his first term, talking loudly and carrying a big stick, in the process all but trashing a half century of carefully nurtured American prestige. No surprise: he alienated a world we desperately needed on our side, thus leaving America alone with all the burden and generations' worth of bills to pay. Now we face two serious rising threats, North Korea and Iran. And having squandered our attention, resources and prestige on a trumped-up threat, Iraq, we are simply too weak and friendless to confront them as they should be. That's what I call bad luck.

[BillA]

Woooohooo politics! Iraq, Iraq, Iraq, Iraq, Iraq, Iraq, Iraq, clusterfuck, Mark Foley, Ted Haggard, Hypocrites, Iraq, Iraq, Iraq, Iraq, Iraq, Iraq, etc.

[Peter_Puget]

I haven't been anywhere else..

[Peter_Puget]

blah blah blah...

 

Just whining..boring

[Peter_Puget]

Woooohooo politics! Iraq, Iraq, Iraq, Iraq, Iraq, Iraq, Iraq, clusterfuck, Mark Foley, Ted Haggard, Hypocrites, Iraq, Iraq, Iraq, Iraq, Iraq, Iraq, etc.

 

[catbirdseat]

Damn, Chuck, that was well-put. I can summarize for the literacy challenged. We're f***ed because of Bush.

[BillA]

This election is totally gonna rule, btw.

[Dechristo]

Never mind what kind of president Al Gore would have been--he would have been adequate, I suppose...

 

Quite a supposition; Of course, if he'd had his nervous breakdown in office, we could've had a spot view of Lieberman as President.

 

I'm of the opinion that, these days, and with perhaps rare exception, anyone that'd make a great President wouldn't have the job.

[cj001f]

Just whining..boring

 

GOP Must Go

 

Next week Americans will vote for candidates who have spent much of their campaigns addressing state and local issues. But no future historian will linger over the ideas put forth for improving schools or directing funds to highway projects.

 

The meaning of this election will be interpreted in one of two ways: the American people endorsed the Bush presidency or they did what they could to repudiate it. Such an interpretation will be simplistic, even unfairly so. Nevertheless, the fact that will matter is the raw number of Republicans and Democrats elected to the House and Senate.

 

Totally a bunch of whiners

[lI1|1!]

some nice hitorical whining

 

what thompson says about nixon is exactly how i feel about bushie. funny parallel.

[tvashtarkatena]

Get off your cyber-asses and volunteer to canvas for the Darcy Burner campaign this weekend if you give a shit about throwing the bastards out. It's a tight race and they need the help. This election ain't gonna win itself.

[cj001f]

some nice hitorical whining

 

what thompson says about nixon is exactly how i feel about bushie. funny parallel.

 

My favorite HST quote is "Ronald Reagan - a smiling whore who will someday become president"

[ScottP]

My favorite HST quote comes from his Nixon eulogy:

"If the right people had been in charge of Nixon's funeral, his casket would have been launched into one of those open-sewage canals that empty into the ocean just south of Los Angeles. He was a swine of a man and a jabbering dupe of a president. Nixon was so crooked that he needed servants to help him screw his pants on every morning. Even his funeral was illegal. He was queer in the deepest way. His body should have been burned in a trash bin."

[Dechristo]

He was a funny guy, but pusillanimous.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

My favorite HST quote comes from his Nixon eulogy:

"If the right people had been in charge of Nixon's funeral, his casket would have been launched into one of those open-sewage canals that empty into the ocean just south of Los Angeles. He was a swine of a man and a jabbering dupe of a president. Nixon was so crooked that he needed servants to help him screw his pants on every morning. Even his funeral was illegal. He was queer in the deepest way. His body should have been burned in a trash bin."

 

how ironic, that's how HST's body should have been suitably "disposed of"

[ScottP]

He was a funny guy, but pusillanimous.

 

Who, Thompson or Nixon?

 

how ironic, that's how HST's body should have been suitably "disposed of"

 

Uh...basically it was.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

He was a funny guy, but pusillanimous.

 

Who, Thompson or Nixon?

 

how ironic, that's how HST's body should have been suitably "disposed of"

 

Uh...basically it was.

 

he was dunked in raw sewage? cool