Author Topic: An Overseas Perspective  (Read 2676 times)

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_JS

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An Overseas Perspective
« on: November 08, 2006, 12:48:22 PM »
Two articles from the Guardian:

Americans should be proud
Simon Jenkins
November 8, 2006 02:43 PM

Link

The ugly American mark two is dead. Overnight six years of glib European identification of "American" with right-wing fundamentalism is over. The gun-toting, pre-Darwinian Bushite, the Tomahawk-wielding, Halliburton-loving, Beltway neo-con, damning abortion as murder and torturing Islamo-fascists has been lain to rest, and by a decision of the American people. Americans should be proud and the world should take note.

Yesterday's result could hardly have been more emphatic. George Bush's election wizard, Karl Rove, said he would make America's midterm elections "a choice not a referendum". He would ask them to choose a congress not vote on his boss. The electorate did both. In a high turnout the majority rejected the tenets of the religious right and of "big government" neo-conservativism. They expressed concern over the corruption and warmongering of Washington and the state of their economy in Bush's hands. For the Republicans there were no consolations.

The new congress is mandated to press ahead with a higher minimum wage, an end to pork-barrel budgeting, immigrant amnesty, energy conservation, stem cell research and radical changes to the drugs bill and welfare generally.

Most of these may fall by the wayside, but they have behind them the winds of a mandate. Congress must find a way of curbing Bush's uncontrolled federal expenditure if a new Democrat president after 2008 is not to endure agonies of retrenchment. Whether Bush will decide to cooperate with such change in the hope of rescuing his floundering presidency is up to him. Certainly the only Republican of any stature, the war sceptic Senator John McCain, seems disinclined to help him.

A CNN exit poll of swing issues put Iraq, terrorism, the economy and corruption of equal concern to voters, with the Republicans scoring badly on them all. The politics of fear has now lost its post-9/11 traction. Republicans mouthing dire threats of "islamo-fascists" under every bed are scorned. The most ferocious ad I saw had a solitary figure on any empty set telling Americans that they had become less popular round the world, that terrorism had become worse, that Americans were less safe, that gasoline was more expensive and Osama bin laden was still free - all because of one thing, "the war in Iraq".

Over 60 per cent of electors want American troops withdrawn now or soon. The White House ran on a "pro-victory" ticket and lost. Yesterday's reports from Baghdad indicated widespread expectation and relief that American policy in that country is about to change. The American military is known to want to leave and Iraqis, whether those in power welcome it or not, sense the occupation is de facto over. At such a moment insurgency knows it has won, however long it takes the occupying power to go. Retreat becomes the only option. A wretched era of American interventionism has come to an end. A new day has dawned.

America has spoken
Martin Kettle
November 8, 2006 05:18 AM

Link

America has spoken, George Bush told the nation this morning two years ago, and it had given him its trust and his confidence. He would continue his policies at home and abroad, buoyed by the public's endorsement. Now, two years further on, America has spoken again - but this time in a very different tone and with the opposite conclusion, issuing a direct warning to the leader it re-elected 24 months ago to change his policy in Iraq. The cheering can be heard not just in America itself but around the planet.

So the big question this morning and over the coming weeks and months is this: which George Bush will respond to the American voters' verdict in the 2006 midterms? Will it be the same apparently humble and responsive president who said he heard the popular verdict in 2004 and would act on it? Or will it be a defiant president, who opts to spend his final two years in office in conflict with the new legislature that Americans have chosen to represent them?

If Vice-President Dick Cheney is any guide, these will be two years of defiance. Speaking in Colorado Springs last Saturday, Cheney announced that the administration would continue "full steam ahead" with its policy in Iraq, irrespective of the results of yesterday's elections. "It may not be popular with the public," he told ABC News. "It doesn't matter, in the sense that we have to continue what he think is right. That's exactly what we're doing. We're not running for office. We're doing what we think is right."

Not a good start. But the Bush administration has never had to practice either humility or compromise before. For the past six years, it has had a Republican Congress on its side. But not any longer. Now it has to adapt or die. Last night, largely because of Iraq, the Democrats finally brought an end to the most partisan period of Republican legislative rule in modern American history. The tide of the Gingrich revolution which swept in in 1994 was swept back out yesterday, 12 years later. It is far too early to say whether this represents the final eclipse of the moral, fiscal and ideological conservatism of the last dozen years. But that often brutal conservatism has at last been pushed back at the federal level. This is therefore a historic moment in American domestic politics.

The loss of the House of Representatives was a decisive one, towards the upper end of Democratic expectations signalled by recent polls. The Republican House seats tumbled as predicted in many states - Indiana, Kentucky, Connecticut, New York, Florida and Colorado among them. The likely failure, at the time of writing, to recapture the Senate was of a piece with that result. The Democrats did very well there nevertheless, capturing Senate seats in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, edging close to victory in Montana and Virginia, and fighting off serious challenges in Maryland and New Jersey. But with Republicans battling hard to hold on in Missouri and Tennessee, the distant prospect of a Democratic double victory looked to be just out of reach.

Many conservatives will be in denial about these results this morning. They will be as angry in defeat as they have so often been angry in victory. They will try to dismiss them as a poor performance, falling short of Democratic expectations and thus in some bizarre way a vindication of the administration. But these elections have been a decisive rebuff not just to the president but also to the arrogance that has increasingly been the hallmark of both the Bush administration and the Republican congressional leadership.

Ugly triumphalism has been a central feature of the past dozen years. Too many Republicans have too often spoken and behaved as though their earlier electoral victories entitled them to ride roughshod over the very idea that large numbers of Americans passionately disagreed with their approach. The redistricting on which these elections have been fought was a case in point - a blatant gerrymander designed to prevent ethnic minorities and liberals from being properly represented in Washington. Rightly or wrongly, the new Democratic masters on Congress will be looking for some payback here.

As the results of the 2006 midterms begin to settle in, American politics will seamlessly move on to the next contest. The 2008 presidential stakes will get under way before Christmas, with John McCain announcing his bid for the Republican nomination and a clutch of other Republicans - Mitt Romney, Chuck Hagel, Bill Frist and Rudi Giuliani among them - all preparing to challenge him. On the Democratic side the big questions concern Hillary Clinton's real determination to stand (her husband has been telling friends that a run is by no means certain) and whether Barack Obama will try to translate his current wave of popularity into a White House run which many believe would be premature. This is not a revolutionary moment. Many of the Democrats who ousted Republicans in the House yesterday are strong moderates. Do not expect any important Democrat to stray very far from the centre-ground for the next two years.

In the final analysis this was, by common consent, an electoral defeat for George Bush and for his Iraq war. Nothing matters more to the world than for America to find and follow a new path in its relations with the nations with which it shares the planet. A planned withdrawal from Iraq is central to that necessary project and has been made likelier by these elections. Yet no one should delude themselves into imagining that the change of direction will be sudden, decisive or easy. Bush is a lame-duck president presiding over an unpopular war - yet it remains to be seen whether he will either wish or be forced into a reversal of the Iraq policy. Perhaps Donald Rumsfeld will ask to step down -- as the gossip in Washington has it that he will. America has indeed spoken. A new direction, the Democrats' cliche du jour, is the clear message. Bush would be mad not to listen. But the Iraq agony is not going to end any time soon.

I smell something burning, hope it's just my brains.
They're only dropping peppermints and daisy-chains
   So stuff my nose with garlic
   Coat my eyes with butter
   Fill my ears with silver
   Stick my legs in plaster
   Tell me lies about Vietnam.

Plane

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Re: An Overseas Perspective
« Reply #1 on: November 08, 2006, 07:57:21 PM »
Oh wonderfull ....

Europe approves.

sirs

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Re: An Overseas Perspective
« Reply #2 on: November 08, 2006, 07:59:21 PM »
Oh wonderfull ....Europe approves.

 :D
"The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal." -- Aristotle

Michael Tee

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Re: An Overseas Perspective
« Reply #3 on: November 08, 2006, 09:05:49 PM »
<<Oh wonderfull ....

<<Europe approves.>>

What's wonderful is that the people YOU approve of are on the way out.

larry

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Re: An Overseas Perspective
« Reply #4 on: November 08, 2006, 09:16:54 PM »
Good evening Sirs. I think it is important to remember that many of the Democrats who won races, ran as conservative democrats, right of moderate. Lieberman's campaign was also funded heavily by republicans. The democratic party we have now is much closer to the center than it is to the left. What we have is 31 new congress reps., 6 new senate reps., and 20 new dem. governors. That is not a big shift. The big difference is of course, who gets to control the floor of the Congress and the senate. The U.S. Supreme Court and the White house are still controlled by conservatives. The change in course might not be as dramatic as many are anticipating. I am happy that the circumstance have placed the dems in a possession to where they must now put up or shut up. They have two years and the election of 2008 will be decided on the actions of the now in control Democratic Party.

Plane

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Re: An Overseas Perspective
« Reply #5 on: November 09, 2006, 01:41:14 AM »
 "They have two years and the election of 2008 will be decided on the actions of the now in control Democratic Party."

[][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][]


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_JS

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Re: An Overseas Perspective
« Reply #6 on: November 09, 2006, 02:10:36 PM »
Quote
Oh wonderfull ....

Europe approves.

Yes. Apparently the American people now agree with them too. Funny that.

I guess "I told you so" would have made for too short of a column ;)
I smell something burning, hope it's just my brains.
They're only dropping peppermints and daisy-chains
   So stuff my nose with garlic
   Coat my eyes with butter
   Fill my ears with silver
   Stick my legs in plaster
   Tell me lies about Vietnam.

Plane

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Re: An Overseas Perspective
« Reply #7 on: November 10, 2006, 02:11:13 AM »
Good evening Sirs. I think it is important to remember that many of the Democrats who won races, ran as conservative democrats, right of moderate. Lieberman's campaign was also funded heavily by republicans. The democratic party we have now is much closer to the center than it is to the left. What we have is 31 new congress reps., 6 new senate reps., and 20 new dem. governors. That is not a big shift. The big difference is of course, who gets to control the floor of the Congress and the senate. The U.S. Supreme Court and the White house are still controlled by conservatives. The change in course might not be as dramatic as many are anticipating. I am happy that the circumstance have placed the dems in a possession to where they must now put up or shut up. They have two years and the election of 2008 will be decided on the actions of the now in control Democratic Party.



Should we be sanguine?

Is the move to the right on the part of the Democrats so significant that they have crossed the center and now enclose the main mass of the country?