Thursday, January 29, 2009
All in a week's work
Rosa Brooks:
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The solid Repug House vote against the stimulus package is a rebuke to Obama's bipartisan efforts, which look more like starry-eyed idealism than pragmatism. If the Repugs had been objecting on the basis of padding & insufficient oversight, or the sheer size of the animal, they'd have an argument to make. But it was once again all about tax cuts. But this Repug unity may not hold; I imagine that some reps were strong-armed into voting Nay. Because if Obama's popularity stays strong among moderate voters, there's a few Repugs in New York, New Jersey, PA, Ohio, Virginia, etc. gonna get increasingly anxious as they struggle even now to raise campaign money for 2010, & find themselves targeted for bludgeon-&-pummel treatment by the DNCC. The party in power automatically siphons off a lot of the big donor bucks - especially with the Democrats funneling billions to the private sector. You need inside pull, who you gonna call? Your Repug district rep? After Boehner took away all the rep's chips & no Democrat owes your rep diddlysquat? Boehner's from a rural district in western Ohio, & a case could be made that he hardly understood what happened in his own state in November. He had predicted the Repugs would gain seats in the House. I don't know if he abandoned that fantasy before or after Palin was nominated.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
Barack Obama ended four wars during his first week as president. With just a few words and strokes of his pen, the president ended the war on terror, the war on Islam, the war on science and the war on women.Terrorism is a tactic, not an ideology, system, government, nation, or army. World War II wasn't a "War on Blitzkrieg." & we are not in a War on Islamic Fundamentalism. Islamic fundamentalists control Saudi Arabia & most of Iraq (Protestant fundamentalists - who have a lot in common with the Islamic varieties - control much of the American South & Midwest).
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Obama's job is just beginning. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq will be far harder to end.
Still, not bad for a week's work.
***
The solid Repug House vote against the stimulus package is a rebuke to Obama's bipartisan efforts, which look more like starry-eyed idealism than pragmatism. If the Repugs had been objecting on the basis of padding & insufficient oversight, or the sheer size of the animal, they'd have an argument to make. But it was once again all about tax cuts. But this Repug unity may not hold; I imagine that some reps were strong-armed into voting Nay. Because if Obama's popularity stays strong among moderate voters, there's a few Repugs in New York, New Jersey, PA, Ohio, Virginia, etc. gonna get increasingly anxious as they struggle even now to raise campaign money for 2010, & find themselves targeted for bludgeon-&-pummel treatment by the DNCC. The party in power automatically siphons off a lot of the big donor bucks - especially with the Democrats funneling billions to the private sector. You need inside pull, who you gonna call? Your Repug district rep? After Boehner took away all the rep's chips & no Democrat owes your rep diddlysquat? Boehner's from a rural district in western Ohio, & a case could be made that he hardly understood what happened in his own state in November. He had predicted the Repugs would gain seats in the House. I don't know if he abandoned that fantasy before or after Palin was nominated.
