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kodalaihttp://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&e=1&u=/nm/20031215/ts_nm/iraq_dc
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Okay, I'm a little annoyed -- Yahoo has this habit of keeping their story URLs the same, but changing the contents entirely.
Just so nobody thinks I'm cheering about people being killed by car bombs. >_
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no subject
Date: 2003-12-14 08:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-14 08:48 pm (UTC)Whatever else my political views on the administration are, I'm glad he's caught. The depressing part of it, though, is that this will probably allow Bush to be elected and to continue wreaking his disasters on domestic and foreign situations alike.
no subject
Date: 2003-12-15 05:39 am (UTC)That and the fact that the economy is starting to look up. Most voters (read idiots) will be thinking, "Hey, I've got a few more bucks in my pocket. Why should I give a shit about anything else?"
no subject
Date: 2003-12-15 10:32 am (UTC)I think the Saddam capture is a mixed bag for the Bush admin -- it'll probably do him more good than harm, but American casualties will continue to rise, Saddam will insist that there were never any WMDs or connection to Osama, and there's also this: "Saddam Arrest Cheer Fades Into Iraqi Ire at U.S. (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&e=7&u=/nm/20031215/ts_nm/iraq_mood_dc)" (assuming that the contents are still the same when you go to look at it)...
On the other hand, it doesn't do to underestimate the power of the Bush spin machine. I'm apprehensive. But it's better that this should happen now than November 1st.
Hmm, he's probably planning the capture of Osama for that date.
heh
Date: 2003-12-15 10:33 am (UTC)Re: heh
Date: 2003-12-15 01:06 pm (UTC)Even though I don't get particularly worked up about the whole "fake election!" thing any more, well... there's still this sense that in the upcoming election, we know what Bush is like. We didn't before. If we elect him in 2004, then we'll be choosing to walk this path of ruin.
Re: heh
Date: 2003-12-15 03:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-16 06:56 am (UTC)(1) Foreign wars do not lose elections for sitting presidents or parties. The 1968 election (which in liberal mythology was the one where they drove Johnson out because of his unpopular war) was lost because of a massive backlash against the Civil Rights Revolution and the extent to which the Democratic Administration was perceived to be "pandering" to it. Consider that the big third party campaign was not by Gene McCarthy but George Wallace. Nixon expanded the war, but eliminated the need for the draft (which instantly ended the anti-war movement) by changing it to a bombing war & was re-elected by a landslide. Casualties escalated drastically without changing in the least the certainty of eventual American defeat, but foreign casualties are a zero in the American political calculus.
(2) Successful foreign wars don't necessarily win elections either. The uselessness of a great victory (with wide international support) in Persian Gulf War I in the 1992 campaign of Bush the Elected points this out; an even more spectacular example was in Britain in 1946, when the heroically victorious nation showed its gratitude to Churchill by creating a landslide victory for the Labour Party.
(3) All of this is not to say that Democratic candidates should not be speaking out against the evil imperialism of the people in charge of Bush the Appointed (and their agenda of endless wars of conquest, in the Middle East and elsewhere). But what is necessary to win and have the victory mean something is to offer a vision of the future in which the middle class is not destroyed and the great chasm between haves & have-nots does not solidify into the permanent caste structure of Third World economies. As a previous Democrat said: it's the economy, stupid (too bad he didn't govern with as much vision as he ran for office).
Daddy