take a moment and read the article
January 4, 2008 by Betmo
from larry johnson’s ‘no quarter’
our nation’s “lonely eyes” seek a savior
“What’s behind the astonishing successes of Mike Huckabee’s and Barack Obama’s campaigns last night in Iowa? BBC correspondent Katty Kay knows. People are “fed up,” she said tonight on BBCAmerica’s exceptional hour-long news program, BBC World News America. Ms. Kay continued:
It’s the wonderful age-old mantra of “I can fix it for you by being an outsider. I am on your side.”
We are “fed up” alright. We, the people of this nation, are so desperate to get past the Bush administration that we’ve been obsessing since last year about the race for a president who won’t take office until late January 2009. In the last of his series of columns for The Guardian – which The New Yorker’s Hendrik Hertzberg says is “an unparalleled running history of the ideological and moral squalor of the George W. Bush Administration” – Sidney Blumenthal summed up how far America has fallen:
Every aspect of George Bush’s foreign policy has now collapsed. Every dream of neoconservatism has become a nightmare. Every doctrine has turned to dust. The influence of the United States has reached a nadir, its lowest point since before the second world war, when the country was encased in isolationism. [...]
The quest for absolute power has not forged an “empire” but provoked ever-widening chaos. … Squandering the immense influence of the US in such a short period has required monumental effort. [...]
But this is not rock-bottom. There is further to fall.
About the “neoconservatives” who wrought this catastrophe, Blumenthal notes that, for them, “Self-examination is too painful and in any case unfamiliar.” So too is “self-examination” too painful and unfamiliar to most Americans, especially how they got themselves in this horrific mess with Mr. Bush. Indomitable and hegemonic as Americans been for so very long, we, as a people, are not given to the sobering habits of self-questioning or self-doubting. So, instead of self-examination, the American people have rushed heart-long into paroxysmal love affairs with saviors who promise them a “new morning” in America – like a dying patient who is willing to try any quick-fix treatment, undeterred by sober warnings about quackery.”
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[...] The Sirens Chronicles added an interesting post on take a moment and read the articleHere’s a small excerpt [...]
Good post.
The neocons have one of their own in Huckabee whether he is their first choice or not, and I’m not sure what Obama is but at least he isn’t Hillary.
[...] The Sirens Chronicles added an interesting post on take a moment and read the articleHere’s a small excerpt [...]
What gets me is the fact that all these candidates seem to have all the answers and will right all the wrongs as you hear the Democrats talk about being elected. The think is, if they know how to do all these things, health care, education, end the war, boost the economy, why don’t they do it. They are in office for chrissake. I don’t see hillary proposing bills of fillibustering for principles. Obama either. Neither Clinton nor Obama voted for the omnibus spending bill that gave bush his millions for the war without any troop withdrawal. they were absent and on the campaign trail. They all need gunny sacks and a pile of rocks and take a trip down by the river.
Thank you for the link. This is a fascinating blog. I’ve bookmarked you.
Did anyone watch 20/20 last night? I saw it only once, so I may not have all the details correct.
20/20 showed a segment on political “dirty tricks”-how each candidate has their own research organization to uncover items that would be damaging to other candidates. The last part of the segment dealt with push-polling in Iowa’s 2007 causcus and an Iowa woman who said she had been called and recorded the call. The caller/pollster asked about Obama and Edwards with questions suggesting possible unethical practices on their part, but no questions were asked about Clinton. The host of 20/20 pointed that out the push/poll may have been conducted by the the Clinton campaign as no smear questions regarding Clinton were asked. I plan to attend an open house at a new campaign office for Senator Clinton in Phoenix this afternoon. Perhaps someone there will have a comment. What do you guys think about the segment and a network program airing it less that a week before the NH primary?
Obama is quite well liked in Illinois. He has a record there of being a coalition builder. When he ran for Senate, he carried all districts, even traditionally Republican districts, in the state. He’s honest, he’s quite politic (in the true sense of the word) and he’s smart. But he’s also quite in the center. However, Huckabee scares the living daylights out of me. All the Republican candidates do, actually.
Re: my above post. Perhaps I wasn’t clear. My concern is that 20/20 could smear Senator Clinton by suggesting she was engaged in push-polling. This is network news, not Chris Matthews. And it was done less than a week before the NH primary.