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Sunday, January 30, 2005

This Just In To Fox News: Liberals Die Off In Record Numbers!

I don't want to suggest that Republicans have gone a little overboard with their Iraq vote euphoria. I'd rather go into more detail and suggest that this election has become an overt act of political masturbation. And I say that with the utmost repect, of course.

I'm reading fox news and various political blogs and there is utter, absolute, across-the-board confusion on the part of Republicans, it's seriously a beautiful thing to see. "What?! There are STILL liberals in this country?! We thought exploiting the Iraq election for political gain would do away with those bastards!"

Yeah, well....hi. Just to sort of catch everyone up: none of the questions relating to the Iraq war magically vanished today. Sorry, I know that sucks, but when every single justification for a war falls through, it's a bit of a problem. But, like Bush on an aircraft carrier, if you guys want to strut around and do a little back-slapping, that's fine. It is fun, isn't it? When you're done...when the second, pre-mature "Mission Accomplished" sign is packed away, let us know.
Because we're still kind of curious: Why did Bush respond to 9-11 by turning our military into Iraq's hi-tech police force? Why have Pakistani forces taken their place in Afghanistan? Shouldn't we have, oh, I don't know, kept fighting the terrorists who actually attacked us? I know, this is all grown-up talk, which is a serious downer. But, despite the best efforts of war apologists like Coulter and Limbaugh, other nagging viewpoints still exist. Republicans, with their fake tantrums and phony outrage, haven't manipulated us into a single, national ideology quite yet.

Thanks!

posted by Samwick @ 1:33 PM  

7 Comments:

  • At 5:40 PM, Blogger Christopher said…

    To clutch at straws is human.

    And Republicans, despite that they are Republicans, are human.

     

  • At 6:04 PM, Blogger Tonto said…

    I hope no party is ever successful enough to get us all to believe in a national ideology...that would be scary stuff. Even though I do not want us to fail now that we are in Iraq.

    Liberals do claim there is a "backlash" coming and I am waiting...but when...by who...??

    What do you think?

     

  • At 1:14 AM, Blogger Samwick said…

    Hey there Christopher: that is well put, grasping at straws is exactly what is going on. These guys have really done everything in their power to turn this election into a political baseball bat, in an attempt to beat down the diversity of ideas on Iraq. It's a complicated situation, and Bush is determined to slap a smiley face on it so that he can move on to Iran. And I think he'll succeed ultimately, reality will end up taking a backseat to this overwhelming chorus of republican self-applause.


    Georgina! Hi!. I want Iraq to be a success also, and at this stage I think it is still possible. Basically I think its future hinges upon one thing: whether or not Iraqis themselves began to isolate the insurgents. We can oppose them all we want, but if the majority of citizens implicitly support them, or, in their actions, are neutral towards them, then it will become a no-win situation. Here are my real feelings about Iraq: democracy has to come from within. Period. This election was an important step but we set it up, we provided the parties for them to vote on and, more importantly, the entire structure of the government was put into place by theorists in Washington. This, in itself, is a recipe for disaster. The political situation in Iraq, for it to stabilize, has to be erected and sustained by Iraqis alone.

    This is why I'm disgusted with the Republican response to the election: they want an absolute uniformity of opinion in this country. Either you repeat, in Pavlovian fashion, every single assessment made by the president OR you are a cynic who opposes democracy. They can't seem to handle the fact that some people, like myself, simply want to observe the situation, hope for the best but hold off on over-simplified, pre-mature conclusions.

    To me, the blogs today confirmed what this election was all about: Looking at the posts I thought it was very interesting that no one...not one single republican...wrote solely about Iraq. Across the board, conseratives mentioned the election and then immediately began to talk about liberals "not getting it" or how liberals "oppose democracy." In other words, I felt like republicans went a little overboard and let their true motivations show today: this wasn't about the election at all, it was about politics. What I'm going do for the next few days is closely watch Brit Hume and Bill O'Reilly. I'll be very curious to see how much they talk about Iraq compared to how much they talk about "the left". The more these guys focus on partisan bickering, the more they'll show their real interest: not Iraq, but in the politics of hate. And this criticism also applies to many liberals...a lot of them think that we need to immediately pull out and bring the troops home. Like the republican response, this is over-simplified and based in a childish partisanship. This would only create a power vacuum in the country which would be a disaster. Anyway, I'm just getting sick of pinheads who are politicizing the situation. People who actually care about Iraq don't exploit it in order to score political points, and this goes for both sides.

    Actually, I have not heard the backlash theory you mention...are they saying there will be an insurgent backlash, or do they mean a political backlash here in the States? If they're talking about one in Iraq, I disagree with them. In the post below, The Vote, I basically laid out what I thought would happen on election day and after: nothing. For the next month it will be very quiet, bombings will decrease...then, they'll increase and this is the pattern we'll see for a very long time, just the predictable ups and downs in the violence we've seen all along.

    Georgina: what are your thoughts on this? I like that you frequently disagree with me and NOT because Rush Limbaugh told you to. There are too many folks out there who just repeat what they heard Rush or Hannity (or Moore) say that day, so your viewpoint is always refreshing.

     

  • At 3:26 AM, Blogger Samwick said…

    To follow up my point, I did just watch O'Reilly. Guess who he feels is the big loser with the election? Not the former dictatorship, not the insurgency, but...democrats. My theory has been that this election was designed to give conservatives a PR boost. Now, with these predictable reactions by idealogues like O'Reilly, I'm convinced that this was the case. I can't wait to see Brit Hume tomorrow, he won't make it through a single sentence without turning partisan. In fact, I'll time it: Once the program begins, how many seconds will it take before he mentions "confused democrats" or the disarray of "those on the left". Republicans may become the focus on a new drinking game.

     

  • At 10:33 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    I don't know about a drinking game but the thought did cross my mind that you could do a whole load of Bush-related druggie merchandise, such as special cards for chopping lines featuring Dubya's grinning face or t-shirts saying 'I looked under the sofa for my stash but found JEEEEESUS there instead!' The would go well with the NRA Magic Bullet for discreet snorting on the move.

    You could also do a nice line in Condoleeza 'Please don't question my integrity' crop tops for hookers. She is, after all, capitalism's number one whore setting her face against anything that smacks of truth and proving herself a disgrace to both her own skin and gender by being a Republican in the first place and secondly, by doing what she does and doing it so well with a straight lying and hypocritical face.

    In the area of education, Republicans can't miss merchandising opportunities such as the Bush globe for geography (a big blue ball with a huge US of A that lights up surrounded by lots of small blobs marked 'foreign places', with a few marked 'bomb here' and one marked 'Tony's place'). There would also be an evangelical version available in flat, as opposed to spherical, format.

    Last but not least, we have the idea of Condoleeza bags in hot pink emblazoned with the slogan 'Don't piss me off or I'll put you on my shit list'. I think they'd sell well in Texas but get you shot in Cuba, Zimbabwe and Iran among other places.

     

  • At 2:13 PM, Blogger Tonto said…

    Hey Matt..I have had a work week from hell and have been away from all the blogs even Ric's lately. So nice to get back to you.

    I don't disagree with you that the news has turned this into a PR boost for the Repub's. But John Kerry has said some similar partisan comments against the elections like "when an entire area cannot vote how can it be considered successful?" just to have said something negative...which is fine but it detracts from what is important. It is so annoying on both sides.

    I was talking about a backlash against the repub party. What do you think? Other blogs say a backlash is coming against all the Bush damage to this country. I just wonder how they are going to regroup and become a party I really listen to.

    You are right on the ups and downs in Iraq but these elections are an extraodinary thing whoever made it happen and from friends who have friends there say they do not want the US to leave.

    Insurgents can't get too far anymore if the government keeps going ahead and the sunnis and shi'ites seem to be doing better together than expected. Everything is a good sign so far, the insurgents will always make news but I wonder if anyone will even look to them anymore if the government can manage to stick it out.

    In Afghanistan insurgents are leaving the mountains and going to get jobs whether in drugs or not and the economy is improving because of it. They are putting down their insurgent ways slightly so maybe that is also where Iraq is headed. I don't care if Bush got the ball rolling or France..it's a good thing.

     

  • At 8:45 AM, Blogger Samwick said…

    Hi Georgina! It's not that I disagree with you, many of these things are good. The problem is that so many republicans are losing their ability to perceive how complicated these situations are. Two things can simultaneously be true: 1. an election can be good, and 2. an insurgency can at the same time be strong and growing. I think if we're going to succeed in Iraq, we have got to wake up to the reality there and stop trying to hide everything behind this big, smiley happy face. Insurgencies tend to a brutal disruption in the fabric of a society, especially one as fractured as Iraq. It can easily go on for a very long time, and Bush doesn't seem to get this. What is happening now is: as the new government forms, it increasingly becomes the target of insurgents. In the past six months alone more than 1400 Iraqi troops have been killed. This is the seed of the civil war; as the fight intensifies the long-standing divisions in Iraq grow, the groups become increasingly antogonistic towards one another. Anti-Bush people aren't the ones saying this, by the way. The National Security Council, the CIA, Pentagon experts and others are the ones warning about a civil war. It's not a given, things can actually improve, but I don't see how when Bush is so obsessed with claiming a pre-mature victory there. He's just not up to the actual task of nation building.

    As for the backlash, I don't see it happening. There's no unity outside of the republican party and it will be a very long time before non-republicans can pose any serious threat to republicans, Democrats just aren't organized enough to put up a decent fight. In other words, my brilliant political analyis is that Democrats suck.

     

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