The Democratic Response to the ‘War Czar’

(Bust of the god Janus, Vatican museum, Rome: from Wikimedia Commons)

According to the Washington Post,

The White House wants to appoint a high-powered czar to oversee the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with authority to issue directions to the Pentagon, the State Department and other agencies….
 

[…]
 

The new czar would also have “tasking authority,” or the power to issue directions, over other agencies, they said.

The Democrats need to remind the American People of Bush’s admonition to let the generals run the war, and chide him for wanting to appoint some civilian to “micromanage” it.

Consequences

(A panel of the “Great Experiment” mural in the U.S. Capitol)

I’m sure Bush has been feeling smug about defying the will of the Senate — and violatiing the original intent of the writers of our Constitution — by making recess appointments of nominees that could not get Senate approval.

He forgot that this Congress knows it’s an equal branch of the government, and isn’t likely to roll over for insults.

Senate Democrats are discussing strategies to remind Bush that the presidency is not a dictatorship, including blocking judicial nominees and shortening recesses to make it difficult for Bush to make recess appointments.

I doubt that shortening the recesses will stop Bush from making recess appointments; his minions will just make sure the appointments are ready to announce the day after the recess begins. Blocking judicial nominees will be more of a hindrance to his agenda. Even if he uses recess appointments to seat them, they’ll be on the bench only until the end of the Congressional session instead of until they die or retire.

Bush Supports the Troops Again

(Vietnam Women’s Memorial on the National Mall)

Defense Secretary Gates is extending tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan from one year to 15 months.

Three more months for the soldiers to be at risk of death, maiming, and psychological trauma.

Three more months for the families of Reservists and the National Guard to subsist on an income much lower than their civilian wages.

Three more months for children to be without their parents.

All so George W. Bush doesn’t have to admit he was wrong.

“Crunchier versions are, however, easy to imagine”

 

(Click on thumbnail for full-size image) The graph above is from a Credit-Suisse report of 4 April, 2007 written by Wilmot, Sweeney, Klein, and Weingarden and based on data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. It shows the combined US government and current account (trade & services) deficits. What it shows is the degree to which we are living within our means. The quote (“Crunchier versions are, however, easy to imagine”) is from the report, and describes a sharp decline in both the dollar and the stock market.

With Democrats in Charge, Congress’ Approval Rating Is Up

Poll: Congress’s Approval Ratings Up

Public approval for Congress is at its highest level in a year as Democrats mark 100 days in power and step up their confrontation with President Bush over his handling of the Iraq War, the issue that overshadows all others.
 

[…]
 

Forty percent of those surveyed said they approve the job Congress is doing, up from 25 percent approval registered for the Republican majority in the weeks leading to last fall’s elections. Disapproval of Congress totals 57 percent.

So much for all the dire warnings that every time the Democrats do something, the American people will get the vapors.

It’s Not Just Imus, And It’s Not Just Racism

Earl Ofari Hutchinson has a few points to make regarding the Imus controversy:

…Imus, as a white man that spewed racial bile, is the softest of soft targets. The same can’t be said for the black rap shock jocks. They made Imus possible. They gave him the rappers bad housekeeping seal of approval to bash and trash black women.In many ways, their artistic degradation has had even more damaging consequences for young black women. Homicide now ranks as one of the leading causes of deaths of young black females. A black woman is far more likely to be raped than a white woman and slightly more likely to be the victim of domestic violence than a white woman.

Their assailants are not white racist cops or Klan nightriders but other black males. The media often magnifies and sensationalizes crimes by black men against white women, but ignores or downplays crimes against black women. The verbal demeaning of black women has made them the scapegoats for many of the crisis social problems in American society.

What’s even more galling is that some blacks cite a litany of excuses, such as poverty, broken homes, and abuse, to excuse the sexual abuse and violence of top black male artists. These explanations for the misdeeds of rappers and singers are phony and self-serving. The ones who have landed hard in a court docket are anything but hard-core, dysfunctional, poverty types. P. Diddy, who predated R. Kelly as the poster boy for music malevolence is college educated and hails from a middle-class home, typified the fraud that these artists are up-from-the-ghetto, self-made men.

Oh, and yes, Mr. Hutchinson is himself black, in case you were wondering.

Note To The Hyper-Rich Out There

Dictatorships never end well.  Especially for the rich.