I get so fed up with the Dems and their poll-tested and focus-grouped Beltway-insider spinelessness. While I’m glad to see Harry Reid sticking it to the Rethugs tonight on the Senate floor - and forcing virtually all of the Upper House to earn its collective salary, for a change - if the Dems had had any balls in the first place, there’d be no need for tonight’s display.
On the other hand, it’s hardly worth hiking my blood pressure over the Rethugs: They sold their collective soul for 30 pieces of fundy silver years ago, and their constant pimping for Bush and his minions simply underscores their essential and toxic combination of fascism and cowardice.
That said, every once in a while, a member of that party occasionally shows both spine and honesty.
I’ve been watching the Senate debate on C-SPAN since it began earlier today. Most of it has been relatively unremarkable, except for the predictable Rethug pettiness and the equally predictable chickenhawk whoring of Traitor Joe Lieberman. But now, at 2:50AM EDT, Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME), has just wrapped up some of the most pointed - and thereby courageous - remarks of the debate thus far. Unlike her GOP colleagues, like the timid Susan Collins or erstwhile sellout John Warner, Snowe has just stuck it to Bush and the Rethugs, twisted the knife, and openly endorsed the Reed-Levin Amendment. And she bluntly put the lie to her own party’s favorite canards, including the tired old tropes that Iraq is somehow not currently mired in a civil war, that "more time" is all the surge needs to work, and that somehow Reed-Levin = "precipitous withdrawal."
[And equally predictably, Mad John McCain has popped up like a demented jack-in-the-box to come unglued once again. Once of the reasons I’m determined to watch this all night is that I want to witness the moment when his campaign finally implodes into toxic dust as he loses it on the floor of the Senate and either assaults a Dem or causees his own head to explode.]
I wonder how long references to Snowe in the media will continue to sport the "R" tag. Considering the maladministration’s insistence on complete fealty, my guess is not long.
Oh, and Dems? More like this from you, mmmkay?
It’s really good to see you back here, Lilith. I’m sorry you’ve been beset by so many troubles, but at least the Senate slumber party, followed by Reid’s withdrawal of the bill from consideration, is cause for legitimate hope. The R’s are trying to spin this as a Dem loss, but anyone who thinks that really isn’t paying attention.
Next on my wish list: I want Pelosi to put impeachment back on the table. I understand why she said what she did, but IMHO she has a constitutional duty here, and no right to set aside the one best tool available to her for checking a rampant executive branch.
Write when you can, Lilith. We need you!
Comment by Steve Bates — July 20, IST @ 14:2035 PM
Thank you, Steve. You don’t know how good it made me feel to see that “We need you!”
I’m with you on the impeachment thing, too. I’ve been so outraged by Pelosi’s & Reid’s “off the table” bullshit: first, because it’s not solely their decision - it’s OURS; and second, because I honestly don’t believe that this country can (or deserves) to regain its status on the world stage until it demonstrates that it takes such criminality seriously and deals with it accordingly. And since our Constitution has provided explicitly for such circumstances via impeachment, nI regard a blanket refusal to consider it also to be criminal. Particularly when the same fuckwits now screaming “Partisanship!” are the same ones who couldn’t wait to use it to impeach Teh Clenis for encountering Monica’s lips (another exercise in criminality, if you ask me - the impeachment, I mean, not the hummer).
Comment by Administrator — July 23, IST @ 18:2352 PM