Sunday, December 04, 2005




Sandbagging

Oh great - he's doing his Pope thing again.











I'm going to present a quote in a few lines. The cynical among you will say I'm just showing off my discovery of the block quote. I'm cynical too, so I'll give you that. But no matter how I present the quote, it's the content of said quote that requires attention. This is from an AP story that ran this afternoon.



House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., say they are "deeply committed to restraining spending" and hope to finish the cuts before Christmas.


I'm going to run that again because it bears repeating.



House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., say they are "deeply committed to restraining spending" and hope to finish the cuts before Christmas.


My my, Congressmen, that sounds like an awfully, I don't know, conservative thing to say.

We're almost eleven months away from the 2006 elections, which may very well prove to be the end of the neocons brief rule in the District. The GOP in Congress has finally realized that Dubya has no more coattails to ride on - he's always been a jeans and Oxford kind of guy anyway. So now they must retreat to what I thought were true conservative values or face a very ugly result in '06.

I'm not buying it.

First of all, I'm still not so sure the Democrats aren't too inept to let this opportunity get away. In a purely political sense the back and forth on Iraq withdrawal is sending the same muddled message that no one wanted to hear from Kerry (in a principles sense, I very excited to see open political discourse making a faint but still a tangible comeback). I know it feels great to sit back and watch the follies, but it's no longer enough to just point out the mistakes. The mistakes are more apparent than ever, so a unified alternative is the only thing that can guarantee the landslide everyone is taking for granted.

And that's precisely why I'm not buying this commitment to spending. The Democrats themselves are proof that you can't exchange a political platform like so much cheap socks from Wal-Mart. Despite overwhelming proof that nothing was/is working, the Dems have continued to fail. Do you really think the leaders of the GOP are going to change that quickly?

This is still the same GOP that prattles on about less government while forcibly insinuating the government on our lives. Want proof? Take a look at the rest of the agenda for the fall legislative session that ends soon, also included in the story. And yes I'm using more block quotes.


the Patriot Act. The anti-terrorism law probably will be extended.

a $453 billion defense spending bill. Lawmakers probably will send to the president the measure, which contains a $50 billion infusion for the war in Iraq. (because money's the problem over there)

...the president's $7.1 billion request to combat a potential bird flu pandemic... At a GOP retreat last week, Frist, a medical doctor, made a plea on behalf of the money.


There's your commitment to restrained spending. Oh, that's right - we're at war. It's only throwing money away if it helps people here.

And Frist is a medical doctor. When that man makes a medical statement, we must listen.


Posted by Joel at 12/04/2005 01:57:00 PM