With enemies like these...

I hardly count myself a conservative, but this editorial by The American Con-servative caught my attention:

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.
It should surprise few readers that we think a vote that is seen—in America and the world at large—as a decisive “No” vote on the Bush presidency is the best outcome. We need not dwell on George W. Bush’s failed effort to jam a poorly disguised amnesty for illegal aliens through Congress or the assaults on the Constitution carried out under the pretext of fighting terrorism or his administration’s endorsement of torture. Faced on Sept. 11, 2001 with a great challenge, President Bush made little effort to understand who had attacked us and why—thus ignoring the prerequisite for crafting an effective response. He seemingly did not want to find out, and he had staffed his national-security team with people who either did not want to know or were committed to a prefabricated answer.
As a consequence, he rushed America into a war against Iraq, a war we are now losing and cannot win, one that has done far more to strengthen Islamist terrorists than anything they could possibly have done for themselves. Bush’s decision to seize Iraq will almost surely leave behind a broken state divided into warring ethnic enclaves, with hundreds of thousands killed and maimed and thousands more thirsting for revenge against the country that crossed the ocean to attack them. The invasion failed at every level: if securing Israel was part of the administration’s calculation—as the record suggests it was for several of his top aides—the result is also clear: the strengthening of Iran’s hand in the Persian Gulf, with a reach up to Israel’s northern border, and the elimination of the most powerful Arab state that might stem Iranian regional hegemony.
There's more! Read it at http://www.amconmag.com/2006/2006_11_20/feature.html

Yes, Red America, God does answer prayers

One evening in the West Wing, the mood was especially glum. The President's poll numbers were in the tank. In Iraq, his pet war was out of control, and re-cord numbers of troops were dying.

Across town in Congress, many allies he'd counted as reliable votes were leaving in disgrace and scandal. His domestic policy, stalled. His international agenda, botched.

The president's ears drooped. His eyes cast downward. Laura, sensing the enormous burden on her husband's shoulders, touched his arm, closed her eyes, and whispered a prayer.

The same scene replayed itself in the homes of Republican members all over Red America. A precocious six-year-old girl clutches her teddy bear, dismisses her servant for the evening, and squints her eyes as tight as they would shut. Her lips move but no words can be heard as she makes her wishes known only to the Creator. In unison, congressmen and their children, the president and politicians, all petition the Almighty for a miracle.

God looked down at his children, so supplicant and earnest, and God was moved. Then, in a majestic display of mercy and love, God answered their prayers...and sent John Kerry.....
...a microphone.

Rummy for life

Ex Louisiana Governor Edwin Edwards used to joke that the only way he could be convicted in Louisiana was if he were caught in bed with a dead girl or a live boy. It seems that Don Rumsfeld might have the same deal.

Bush said he wanted Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, the top architect of the war, and Vice President Dick Cheney to remain with him until the end of his presidency.

"Both those men are doing fantastic jobs and I strongly support them," Bush said.

Because of his stellar performance at the helm of the Pentagon, President Bush has promised that Rumsfeld will serve out the rest of the term with him. He's on the record pledging Rumsfeld's job security. Now, no matter what Don Rumsfeld does, he stays. Not that he could do any worse at this point. After all, the generals in the field are really the ones in charge, right?

So...the dead girl, which felled Gary Condit, or the live boy, which downed Mark Foley, will be no match for Rumsfeld.

By the way, Edwin Edwards eventually got convicted and is serving out the rest of his life in prison. Hmmm.

WWAD

Because the line between real life and fiction isn't blurred enough, CNN had to run this piece:

What would Alex P. Keaton do?
POSTED: 6:13 p.m. EST, November 1, 2006

By Thom Patterson
CNN

(CNN) -- After a nearly 20-year absence, Nixon-loving, Reagan-worshipping Alex P. Keaton is again slinging his political views on television.

Michael J. Fox, who played the conservative teen on the 1980s sitcom "Family Ties," says that if the right-wing, tie-wearing Keaton were a real person, Alex would disagree with the Republican stance against increased embryonic stem cell research.

"I was recently asked what my character, Alex P. Keaton would think of me campaigning for stem cell research," Fox said Monday during a speech in Kea-ton's TV hometown of Columbus, Ohio.

Up next, What would President Bartlett of the West Wing do about Don Rumsfeld? Let's get Martin Sheen to channel him. And later in the newscast, traffic..and what would KITT of the Knight Rider do about your commute home? Maybe CNN could do a series.