Colbert’s “Man Root Essence”

Stephen Colbert has acknowledged that he may or may not have "donated" or "sold", er, contributed, to Mary Cheney’s impending motherhood:

Obama The Triangulator

Yes, The Triangulator. Obama has proven himself a rudderless politician, willing to sell out supporters as "part of a larger strategy":

Hispanic leaders say he has betrayed the trust of the people who always gave him their votes.

"He’s lost his vision; he’s lost his feet on the ground," said Hispanic leader Carmen Velasquez.

Obama is being criticized after siding with Republicans in the Senate to approve a 700-mile wall across the Mexican border. The vote happened almost two months ago.

But CBS 2 News has learned exclusively that Obama has met privately with Hispanic leaders in an effort to convince them that his vote is part of a larger strategy.

Hat tip to VivirLatino.com for the lead.

Bush “Has Given the Promotion of Democracy a Bad Name”

Reactions to the ISG report are still coming in:

If the report of the Iraq Study Group is nothing else, it is a devastating declaration that the administration’s approach is an abject failure and that the United States needs to scale back its goals. Grand dreams of Iraqi democracy and a transformed Middle East are out. The best we can hope for now is an Iraq that can "govern itself, sustain itself, and defend itself."

Cleverly, the report cited those words because they were spoken by Bush himself in one of his least expansive descriptions of the mission. The president is now stuck with a minimalist definition of what can be accomplished in Iraq, because everything he has done since 2003 has made broader achievement impossible.

[...]

The administration fought this war in a way guaranteed to make the road to democracy even more difficult.

[...]

The report is seen as the triumph of "realism" in the foreign policy debate, and it is that. After years of unrealistic administration claims that all was going well in Iraq, it is truly refreshing to read a report by a group of establishmentarians stating plainly and realistically what is actually going on.

Democrats have mostly welcomed the report, and for good reason: It makes clear that whatever happens in Iraq, the mess was created by Bush administration policies. It will be hard to blame the new Democratic Congress after the fact.

[...]

And with some of the nation’s leading Republican foreign policy specialists pronouncing Bush’s policies a failure, other Republicans will have a hard time accusing Democrats of stabbing our military in the back with their own calls for withdrawal. The commission states clearly that what has happened up to this point has left our nation with only bad choices.

A Progressive and Populist Democratic Party

Via David Sirota, I like what Senator-elect Sherrod Brown told Mother Jones magazine about Democratic presidential hopefuls:

The Democrats need to nominate somebody that will be an economic populist, that will stand up for the middle class, that doesn’t just want to increase the minimum wage but somebody that will work to put the government on the side of working families. And that means different trade policy, standing up to the drug industry, taking on the oil industry. It means showing that the Democratic Party is a progressive, populist party. ”

The Case for Impeachment

The new incoming Speaker of the House, Democrat Nancy Pelosi, has made it abundantly clear that Bush’s impeachment is off the table. Her reasoning and the reasoning of many close political observers is obvious: Democrats have only 2007 to solidify their electoral gains by demonstrating that they, in fact, have a practical agenda to solve the many problems catastrophes that Republicans have left behind. Moreover, establishment Washington and pary insiders have convinced elected Democrats that the American public would not tolerate impeachment at this time. Frankly, I’m sympathetic to the practical and "rational" reasons against impeachment: Democrats will have a lot on their plate over the next year and, of course, media pundits and establishment Washington would jump down their throats if they got wind that Democrats were seriously considering Bush’s impeachment.

And then… I come across items like this, and think, Damn it, he’s right:

Impeachment: you think the world is not watching?

So it’s not politically convenient to try to impeach?

So there will be no price paid for being the worst president ever, apart for the promise of the judgement of history?

So Democrats also think it’s okay to go invade another country, to get several hundred thousand of its inhabitants killed, to proudly practice and promote torture around the world, to tear up the Geneva Conventions and a whole load of international treaties, and to go grab random foreigners around the world to put them in Guantanamo and throw away the key?

So not only was Bush reelected with a real majority, but the opposition essentially says that what he did is not so profoundly illegal that it deserves to be duly sanctioned?

Way to go.

The world is watching. And it will not forget. Our current leaders may be cowards, but they won’t always be there. Haven’t you noticed how being anti-American makes you a popular politician and makes you win elections around the world?

Fear will not be enough when the whole world is convinced that America will not correct its current ways, and that the problem is not just the current administration.