The politic of Destruction

    The way political punditry has been going in the past few years it is very easy to get tired of all the political postiioning from both parties.  They don’t seem to want to really do anything, but yell and scream at each other.  And who is getting in the middle of all this crap is our President.  He has done a great job for waht he has to work with.  He has had the hostility of the Democrats, and now it seems that a lot of republicans are mad at him, mainly because of the Inmmigration stance he has. Yes, I am one that is not in agreement with him on giving the Illegal Immigrants a pass and give them immunity or waht ever you want to call it.  But am I going to just get all mad and think that he is doing a bad job, just because he doesnt agree with me on this.  NO. 
    He has tried to get a Social Security bill passed, but the Republicans left him hanging and passed the buck down, like all good polititioners do.  And now with energy prices rising, everyone is blaming Bush, because you know he is in cahouts with all the Oil Barrons and Haliburton.  But he tried to pass a comprehensive Energy Bill, but was left hanging, and it was passing the buck time again.  With the Republicans in control of both The House and The Senate, he should have easily gotten these passed, but no they were just passed down the line for the next generation.  He has tried to work with a hostile Congress and House his whole presidency.  He tried to get changes, but they keep on passing the buck. 
    I wil admit, I don’t agree with everything that Bush has done, but what are the alternatives.  Let the Democrats gain control and get shafted in taxes and bail out of th War on terror.  No I will try and get the Republican to get back to their core values of less governmnet, tax cuts, and less spending. Would it have better to have Kerry in office.  No, we would be the paper tiger the world thinks we are and  we would be up to necks in taxes. 

    The Anchoress has a good post about the frustration with blogging about politics in this time. 

May 12, 2006

I’m off on politics for a while

Filed under: Bush Bad?, Blogs and Blogging, The Fourth Estate, America

 

I’ve decided that if I’m going to keep blogging, I’m going to have to leave off writing or reading about politics for a little while, because it’s all making me sick.

But as I put the subject away, I just have to ask all of you people – on every side – who have decided that immigration is one man’s burden,
and that every good thing President Bush has done is to be negated
because he hasn’t snapped his fingers and done what YOU think is the
solution to the immigration problem…what did Clinton do about
immigration, what did Bush 41 do? What did St. Reagan do? What did
Carter do? What has any president, congressperson or senator done about
immigration for the last 30 years, except kick the issue down the road
for someone else to deal with?

Reagan, if you remember, was the amnesty president.  Clinton was the “borders? What’s borders, everyone is our pal” president.

Lots
of bills that were ignored by past presidents, particularly during our
“vacation from history” have come due on Dubya’s watch. The whole world
seems to be coming due on his watch, and damn him for not handling everything perfectly.  What a loser, eh?  And it’s easy to kick a guy when he’s down, isn’t it?   AJ is getting weary of it, too. 

Energy.
We were promised back in the 1970’s by President Carter that we would
cease to be dependant on Middle East for our energy. How’s that been
working out, all these years, all these presidents, later? Oh…Bush DID
try to get a comprehensive energy bill passed in congress. No go.
Congress kicked it down the road for someone else to deal with.
Whatever happened to expanding and strengthening the grid? What will we
say this summer when the blackouts and brownouts occur? That bastard Bush…he didn’t fix this.  No mention that congress kicked and kicked that ball away.

Social Security.
We’ve been told it’s the “most important issue” – or at least we hear
it every election year…but everyone knows it’s going to hell. Oh…Bush
DID try to get a comprehensive reform of Social Security passed in
congress. No go. Congress kicked it down the road for someone else to
deal with. Social Security is a joke, but it’s a joke with a lockbox,
and the key’s long throw-away.

Terrorism.
We’ve essentially been at war with Islamofascism since our countrymen
were held hostage for 444 days, since our soldiers were slaughtered in
their barracks. Since Saddam tried to kill a former president. “This
will not stand,” yeah, yeah, yeah…we heard it all. What did Carter do
about it? What did Reagan? What did Bush 41? What did Clinton do -
particularly when AlQ began to attack American interests, holdings and
naval vessels on an average of every 20 months? What? Are those crickets I hear chirping?

Finally
after 3,000 of our countrymen died action was taken, and the action
continues…and Bush has worked very hard to keep us safe and to destroy
the infrastructure, funding and communications of Al Qaeda and their
ilk, but…you know…it’s a bad thing for us to monitor the calling habits of AlQ and their co-horts.
That would be an awful abuse of power, wouldn’t it? Right up there with
accessing FBI files on political opponants and other Nixonian tactics,
right? Better to completely mischaracterize what he’s doing and call a hero a tyrant and a traitor a hero…because…because…well, because the truth is Bush is doing the job on terrorism too damn well, and we can’t bring ourselves to report that.

And
now, immigration…one man is to blame, one man is at fault, one man must
find the Solomonic solution. And if he doesn’t, he’s a bum no matter
what else he’s done. Meanwhile, the press can’t get over
the president who smiled and cried his way through two terms, and they
still work on his legacy. Can you ever recall a time in history where 6
years after an administration ends, the ex-president is still
breathlessly being polled-on, still being given (on most days) as much
press as the current president? I can’t.

When Clinton was being waylaid, his party closed ranks.  Now Bush – a good man despite his flaws, (and what president is not
flawed) is being attacked on all sides, and his party just jumps in
with both feet and kicks away. It just doesn’t seem right to me. And I
know, I KNOW…he’s been a job to defend for all these years against
unprecedented attacks – I’m tired, too. But I cannot go along with the
“get Bush” mentality from the right. The question I keep asking myself
is…right now, at this moment in time, who is BETTER than him? Giuliani?
The religious right will never go for him. Allen? Mush-mouthed bore,
the religious right will love him, and the rest will turn the page, and
neither of them will be elected in this atmosphere – and if they could
be, it won’t be for two more years. Bush is what we’ve got, the best
we’ve got…but you know, maybe he’s too punch drunk, after 6 years of
abuse, and a feckless party that squanders its majority again and
again…one year ago, on May 10, he was dancing with free Georgians…but none of that counts, anymore, right?  We forget the good stuff pretty easily, it seems to me.

It’s
not just about the president, though. There is a terrible toxicity to
our political and social exchanges – there is little real thought and
lots of shrieking going on, lots of noise, little real discourse and precious little honesty.
There is no way to debate because – no matter which side tries to get
serious – a well-thought-out discourse is immediately shot down by the
other side with a one-line-sneer, usually a specious one, that distorts
or misdirects and never allows a thought to go forward. The disrespect
between “sides” is staggering, and completely unproductive. But
non-productivity seems to be what people like. It’s “safe.” If you
don’t do anything, you can’t get blamed, right? More kicking things
down the road. Let the guy who actually wants to take some action bear
the brunt of your fear, your insecurity, your anger, your scorn, your
impotence. If he doesn’t do it all perfectly, he’s a bum.  Prof. Bainbridge and Ed Morrissey report that “conservatives are abandoning Bush.” 

Ah, well…I never did think of myself as a conservative, anyway…more like a classical liberal without a home…

I
wonder who all those principled conservatives are going to vote for in
‘08. We did this “he’s not conservative enough for me, I’ll vote
principles or stay home” thing once before, in 1992, didn’t we? How’d
that work out for you?

There are games within games,
and strategies within strategies, and in the end, I wonder if anyone -
anyone at all – is really looking out for America beyond their own
interests. I think the president is. I think certain exceptional blogs
and a few – very few – professional folks in the press are. But there
is a great deal of stuff out there that is all about taking the easy
route – cynicism is easy, sneering is easy, rabble-rousing is easy – in
order to promote oneself or one’s cause…and it’s beginning to drown out
the rest.

The roiling hate that is the driving force behind the MSM
and some parts of the blogosphere and so much more cannot produce
anything good. All of these negatives cannot create a positive. I can’t
be the only one who is feeling increasingly ill – not ill-at-ease, but
physically ill – when looking at it. I have to think that there are
folks on both sides, GOP and Dem, Liberal and Conservative who are
looking at all of this and thinking…I’m not walking into that insanity.
I wonder how many GOOD people, on either side of political spectrum,
are NOT considering running for office because of the atmosphere.

Seems
to me both sides are completely infected with a blood-poisoning that
could take down the nation. And I have no help to offer, because when I
try to read about politics, lately – any story, be it a Kennedy car
crash, or an imploding CIA, I want to puke. I physically want to vomit.

And so, for a while, I’m off the subject.  We’ll talk sex, religion, baseball, opera and even – Lord help us – television.  But to stay in the middle of the deleterious snakepit of politics…no…there be monsters. 

I think for the summer, my little boat will sail in the other direction.

You will be missed.  Hopefully at soon you will get back into the fray and blog about politics again. 

Stix