E&P: NYT Sunday preview: Even if Democrats win, they can't change Bush

[DeepModem Mom]

Editor&Publisher: 'NYT' Sunday Preview: Even If Democrats Win in November, They're Out of Luck
By E&P Staff
Published: October 20, 2006

NEW YORK - An article in this coming Sunday's edition of The New York Times Sunday Magazine advises Democrats not to get their hopes up: Even if they win a sweeping victory in the November elections it is doubtful that this "will significantly alter the Bush administration's way of thinking."

Thus, the headline for the story, by Noah Feldman, reads: "The Mere Midterms." The deck: "Even if voters send President Bush a strong message, he is not likely to listen."

Feldman notes that Bush is "a president who has been doggedly consistent in staying the course, come what may....the president is no flip-flopper. That means he is particularly unlikley to change his policies as a result of a midterm message that the American people aren't satisfied with the job he's doing."

In addition: "true-red conservatives have nowhere else to go." And: "Even if the Democrats win big, they will not be able to effect substantial changes in either Bush's war policy or his ability to govern better." So troops will remain in Iraq for two years or more, and need to be financed.

"Nor," he points out, "can a Democratic Congress do much to make the Bush administration more competent," or block "hack" appointees to lower positions....

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003286106

[Kerry fan]

1. They can stop funding the Iraq war, tho, can't they? n/t

[woodsprite]

3. That's when *co funds it themselves with the billions of dollars stolen.nt

[kenny blankenship]

5. depends on their courage.

if they're ready to face the accusation of "losing" the war because they opposed it and defunded it they can stop Bush. I mean they oppose it in absolute terms and present a brick wall cutoff to funding. Otherwise, they'll be rolled into letting him have his way. Worst case scenario: they try to tell Bush he must set a timetable to withdraw and make further funding contingent on that schedule. Iraq continues to explode into hell on earth (which is probably the safest bet in the world right now). Bush eventually withdraws, claiming he was forced to--citing the "timetable", not the inferno going on in Iraq--and then blames Democrats for "losing the war". So the Dems will have, on the one hand, endorsed the war by funding it, (thus compromising their claim to the moral high ground and their claim to understand foreign policy better than the Bushler Republicans) and then on the other hand, they will also get blamed for the inevitable loss. The Rape-oh refrain will be "Democrats==Surrender to Terrorism!"

Knowing my party, I have every confidence they will manage to put BOTH feet into this trap.

They may decide, however, to play possum instead of confronting Bush or making him compromise. With the war going as badly as it is, and with Bush so locked into his never retreat mindset by numerous recent statements and his consistent absolutism regarding Iraq over his 2 terms, the Democrats may see an advantage in just giving him everything he asks for for the continuation of the war. Little anecdote: sometime during the long invasion of Russia, the gerbil powering Adolf Hitler's mind died of malnutrition or broke a leg or something. As the German Army's advances inside the USSR ground to a halt and found themselves no longer on offense, Hitler began to give his Generals insane orders not to give up "one inch of ground". Because they were unable to withdraw and regroup effectively those Armies (plural) were annihilated in places like Stalingrad. The spirit of Hitler now seems to possess George W. Bush as he reacts to an impossible military and political situation in Iraq only with increased devotion to his lost cause. Hitler's Werhrmacht was broken in Russia--the vast majority of all its WWII casualties occurred there. The Western allies had only to wait until the moment Germany was on the point of collapse in the east to spring their invasion of France. In a similar way Democrats may benefit by simply waiting George Bush out and doing nothing to get in his way as he destroys himself and the Republicans with him. As Iraq spirals down, they (the Dems) express their disapproval of the whole concept of invading Iraq, they investigate the lies that started the war, they expose the utter lack of planning for the aftermath of the invasion, the massive corruption and incompetence of the "Reconstruction" period--but they never demand any timetable or progress "landmarks", nor make funding contingent on anything. The situation is terminal already, so why give the Republicans any excuse to shift blame onto the Democrats, however dishonest or flimsy that excuse would be? Unfortunately, this would be playing politics with the lives of soldiers--more soldiers will die this way than if Bush was given an ultimatum to withdraw them immediately or a timetable to get out of Iraq.

[vademocrat]

2. I-M-P-E-A-C-H-M-E-N-T

With subpoeana power and the House Judiciary committee chaired by John Conyers, the Dems may not be able to "change" Bush, but maybe they can "exchange" him - maybe we can have a 2 for 1 - impeach Cheney at the same time and have President Pelosi!

[annabanana]

4. I don't give a rat's ass what bush "thinks". . .

I just want some brakes applied to what he does!!

[whatelseisnew]

6. *..." is no flip-flopper" : More 'fact' based reporting from NYT?

I couldn't even read past that line.

[n2doc]

9. The guy has flipped more times than and IHOP pankake n/t

[jwirr]

18. Really, how many different reasons were we given for why we

were in Iraq?

[Downtown Hound]

7. Maybe not, but they can make his life a living hell

And I'm all for that.

[TahitiNut]

8. It is a fundamental error to assume these people can be "convinced."

What we're dealing with, for all intents and purposes, is a personified cabal with an Axis-II mental disorder (per DSM-IV). Part of what distinguishes Axis-I from Axis-II is the fact that an Axis-II disorder is effectively untreatable. It is regarded as a congenital/structural defect. What's meant by "effectively untreatable" in psychological terms is that no therapy, either cognitive or pharmacological, can correct the flawed mechanism. For example, someone with Narcissistic Personality Disorder will engage in counseling sessions sheerly to obtain a narcissistic supply. In other words, the therapeutic approach itself is perverted in service to the disorder rather than its amelioration.

It's the same thing with 'negotiation' and 'cooperation' and 'bipartisanship' with respect to the Bushoilini Regime - such interactions are merely used to serve the insatiable appetites for power and wealth for the Reich. Any pretense of 'compromise' is mere kabuki. Take "No Child Left Behind" and the "Prescription Assistance" legislation - both are perversions have the same relationship, respectively, to education and health as rape has to love. It's questionable, imho, whether those "Dems" who persist in exercising the dialectic approach are, in fact, truly advocates of liberalism or, more likely, are just as disordered and are instead playing the foil to an honest opposition. Clearly, in any event, they totally fail to comprehend the true nature of this regime and what it represents - just as those who misdirect their ire to Nader fail to comprehend the inescapable path we must follow in order to exorcise this corruption from our body politic.

It's very interesting to me that this regime steadfastly rejects the notion of diplomatic negotiations with their "enemies" (opposing global political forces). It has been aptly observed that one cannot make 'peace' with one's allies - they're already at peace with us - and one can only 'make peace' with one's opponents. Given the fact that this regime, both domestically and globally, steadfastly refuses honest negotiations and equates 'cooperation' to submission, it's abundantly clear that we're dealing with as implacable an enemy as the Fascist regimes of the 1930s - regimes who also exploited the opposition's willingness to negotiate as buying time for conquest.


Fool me once, shame on you, Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times, and that'd make me a DLC "Democrat."

[Nite Owl]

10. The President proposes

the Congress disposes.

In other words they got the purse strings. And of course there are the investigations. The majority of people don't know all that we know, they just know that the War isn't going well at all and that the economy isn't good for them. If they do a good job investigating and subpoenaing people the people might just get mad enough to start demanding that they be removed. The dems in Congress didn't really start opposing the war (except for a few) until the polls said it was safe to do so and maybe the polls will push them out too. Then we won't have this administration to stop us.

[Trajan]

11. There is no 'changing' these idiots ....

I am not here to make them better people : They have already lost the possibility of being rational ...

The Money Pipe can be shut down on them .... and George marginalized, along with whomever of the RW Nazis are left in office ....

It's like my RW brothers .... No matter how much I love them, I am never gonna change them, and so I dont bother ....

Give'm the hand, and go do something productive ....

[TahitiNut]

12. Yep. See ...

... Post #8.

[Trajan]

14. Tah ? ....

That is a BRILLIANT post .... and it explains perfectly, and sadly, the psycholigical state of affairs for so many ....

Thanks .....

[TahitiNut]

15. Thank you. It seems abundantly clear to me. I wish ...

... I could say it even more clearly ... since it seems that so many, even on DU, don't fully comprehend what we're dealing with. This is NOT your father's Republican Party. It is a party that became a home to insatiable appetites ... in large part as a result of being out of power for so long that they were willing, if not eager, to accept ANYONE calling themselves a "Republican" but who shared absolutely nothing with the Party of Lincoln and far too much with the Party of Mussolini.

Too many partisan Democrats, in a far shorter time, have shown themselves ALSO willing to make the same fundamental error - willingly jettisoning core principles and values and supporting (with votes and funding) those who've supported torture, who've supported corporate welfare, who've supported eradication of habeas corpus and other civil liberties (privacy anyone?), who've supported eradication of labor unions, and who've supported abandonment of protections for human beings but expanded bankruptcy corruption in corporations where pensions are obliterated but Golden Parachutes are converted from 18K to 24K ... all in order to obtain power. The reason the ends cannot justify the means is because the means BECOME the ends.

[trof]

13. No, but we can muzzle him.

I'll settle for that for the next two years.
If we can't impeach.

[enough already]

16. Impeach his ass on Day 1

Fuck trying to change him.

[applegrove]

17. But they can get to the truth.

[pat_k]

19. Madam Pelosi, what is your magic solution to rule by signing statement?

What do you think you can accomplish if you do not challenge the Un-Constitutional and Un-American assertion that we must submit to Bush's edicts as "unitary authoritarian executive"?

You are handing Bush, Cheney, and Co an argument that cannot be logically challenged: "If we were destroying the Constitution, those who are sworn to protect it would be trying to rescue it by removing us. By their failure to act we are exonerated."

Do you really want to give these people cover?

Do you really want to be an "Accessory After the Fact" War Criminal?

And what is your rationalization? You spokeswoman has told us that you "Don't want to give "them" anything to grab onto."

Surely you have stronger reasons for such a grievous betrayal of the nation.

Our common contract, the Constitution, is in breach. It has been nullified by Bush and Cheney, the Un-American authoritarians who have occupied the executive branch and are destroying the fabric of our nation to amass Unconstitutional power and wield it in the service of their tiny faction.

Members of Congress are sworn to protect the Constitution from such destruction from within. Impeachment is the weapon we gave you to fulfill your oath.

The oath is an individual oath. Each member who fails to take up the fight for impeachment (even if they think it will be a charge of the light brigade) is betraying their oath. They are betraying the nation.

And you, who may take up the role of "Madam Speaker" have gone one further. When you deny the moral imperative of impeachment, you are effectively saying "I solomly swear to be derelict in my duty to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic"

You are failing to give the incredible and growing alarm and outrage within the citizenry a voice.

Until you, and the other the men and women we elected to SERVE as Our Voice speak the truth, accuse Bush and Cheney of their crimes, and take up the fight for impeachment and removal, a vast majority of the outraged within the electorate will seethe in frustration and silence believing they are alone in a world gone mad.

ACCESSORY AFTER THE FACT - Whoever, knowing that an offense has been committed, receives, relieves, comforts or assists the offender in order to hinder or prevent his apprehension, trial or punishment, is an accessory after the fact; one who knowing a felony to have been committed by another, receives, relieves, comforts, or assists the felon in order to hinder the felon's apprehension, trial, or punishment. U.S.C. 18