If you’ve noticed an absence of substantive posting from me over the past couple days, it’s not from a lack of writing. In fact, I’ve written a couple of rants, several thousand words total, responding to the editorial endorsements of Dave Reichert by the both the Seattle Times, and even more disappointingly, the Seattle P-I.
It was cathartic. It felt good. But, well, sometimes one can be too honest, and at this point, really, what’s the point? So I’ll just keep my least constructive comments to myself.
But I’m sitting here watching the debate between Darcy Burner and Reichert on KCTS-9, a debate in which Darcy is clearly kicking the incumbent’s ass, and so I just can’t let this all pass by without at least one blunt critique, and that is that both paper’s editorial boards appear to have knowingly endorsed the least intelligent, least knowledgeable, and least capable candidate. As my 11-year-old daughter just aptly observed, Reichert “sounds like a little kid giving a report that he didn’t practice on, and knows nothing about.”
Or perhaps I give the editorial boards too much credit?
You see, I have always started from the basic assumption that the vast majority of voters would prefer elected leaders who are at least as smart and capable as they are. These are our leaders after all, and we entrust in them huge responsibilities. I accept that there are multiple intelligences, and that being book-smart is not a qualification on its own, but generally, it seems like a good idea to populate Congress with our best and our brightest.
And the fact is, Dave Reichert is, well, average. There’s no getting around that. He’s not well educated, he’s not well informed, and he has few if any accomplishments to show for his four years in the House. Indeed, neither the Times nor the P-I argue that Reichert is exceptional in any way, instead, they argue, he is, well, good enough.
So if Reichert is good enough for our two dailies, what does that say about the editorial writers themselves?
Unlike me, do these editorialists simply not mind being represented by somebody who is less capable than they are? Or does my assumption hold true, and are these editorialists simply as mediocre as Reichert? Do they accept Reichert as good enough because they really do find him to be an intellectual equal?
I know I may come off as sounding a little elitist, but Congress is a very elite organization, and it just seems that our region would be best served by selecting the very best representatives we can find. And Reichert simply is not that.
He is, however, the incumbent, and what we have seen from both papers is little more than a defense of incumbency, a circular logic that argues that Reichert’s experience in Congress, however unremarkable, is the singular qualification that makes him a better choice than Darcy. And if that is the curious logic by which our region’s opinion leaders determine their endorsements, then my original assumption is left unchallenged.
Hey, in the worst economic times since the great depression and after the worst policy blunders in history by a US president (unnecessary war in Iraq) we need more sheep in congress – vote for Reichert as the leading sheep candidate!
As an added bonus, the Iranian prsident is claiming that the financial crisis proves he is right about the US. Guess all those republican deregulators were really out to prove the Iranians were right….
Reichert will vote for whatever he is told will put him in a position to be re elected — without the encumbrances of intelligence, information, and personal principles.
He is a tabula rasa for the influential to write upon — whereas, Burner has ideas of her own.
Goldy,
Based on your quote “least intelligent, least knowledgeable, and least capable candidate.”, does that mean that you will probably not supporting Senator Murray in the next election? Based on numerous reports, DC polls, and my own personal dealings with her, she wouldn’t qualify for your statement. She is a long way intellectually from any of our other states representatives.
Have a nice day,
Farmer Fred
I don’t see how those newspapers can endorse someone who hasn’t hugged a rabbit. Darcy is the only candidate in the 8th CD race who hugs rabbits! Believe me, if you haven’t been hugged by Darcy, you don’t know what you’re missing! But I digress … if newspapers can’t do any better than this, no wonder they’re failing. It took Reichert 20 years to catch Ridgway. Is it gonna take him 20 years to hug a rabbit, too? That’s longer than the average rabbit’s lifespan! That means no rabbit living today will ever be hugged by Reichert! If it takes him that long to hug a rabbit don’t hold your breath waiting for him to save the economy.
Reichert caught the Green River Killer for gods sake. If Darcy is so smart why didnt
she catch him? God, her whole family looks
like somebody somewhere screwed someones
sister, just sayin.
We have the same thing in the 6th. Paul Richmond, a real progressive, running against Dicks didn’t have a chance. The News Tribune endorsed the incumbent “just because”.
@5 You have a strange definition of “catching.” Letting him get away is more like it. If Reichert had any brains and had done his job, he could have saved 4 dozen lives and saved the taxpayers $10 million. I mean, he had the guy at his fingertips after about the 3rd or 4th killing, but Reichert had no brains …
Seattle Times anoints Reichert as the Stuart Smalley of candidates.
The Real Meaning Of ‘Troopergate’
Nathan Thornburgh writes in Time magazine:
” … [T]he Branchflower report … answers a question nobody had even thought to ask: Is the Palin administration shockingly amateurish? Yes, it is. Disturbingly so.
“The 263 pages of the report show a co-ordinated application of pressure on Monegan so transparent and ham-handed that it was almost certain to end in public embarrassment for the governor. …
“Not only did people at almost every level of the Palin administration engage in repeated inappropriate contact with Walt Monegan and other high-ranking officials at the Department of Public Safety, but Monegan and his peers constantly warned these Palin disciples that the contact was inappropriate and probably unlawful. Still, the emails and calls continued — in at least one instance on recorded state trooper phone lines.
“The state’s head of personnel, Annette Kreitzer, called Monegan and had to be warned that personnel issues were confidential. The state’s attorney general, Talis Colberg, called Monegan and had to be reminded that the call was putting both men in legal jeopardy, should Wooten decide to sue. The governor’s chief of staff met with Monegan and had to be reminded by Monegan that, ‘This conversation is discoverable … You don’t want Wooten to own your house, do you?’
“Monegan consistently emerges as the adult in these conversations, while the Palin camp displays a childish impetuousness and sense of entitlement.”
(Quoted under fair use.)
Roger Rabbit Commentary: Shockingly amateurish. Childish impetuousness. Sense of entitlement. That not only sums up Palin’s behavior as a mayor and governor, but also perfectly captures her persona on the presidential campaign trail. Palin comes across as possessing the self-assured smugness and certitude of an ignoramus who doesn’t know what she’s talking about but thinks she can fake it without anyone noticing. Imagine what she’d be like if she got ahold of actual power. Uh — we don’t need to imagine, we already know.
Why didn’t they just say “vote for the middle age white guy, who’s more like us”? Would have saved some trees.
@6
We need to put pressure on Dicks and the party to make this his last term in congress. I think overall Dicks has done a good job for the district, but his ways of thinking are outdated and he wont be able to lead us forward.
Sadly, I think Reichert was endorsed by both newspapers because their perception of both the Eastside and South King County has little basis in today’s reality.
It’s as though the Editorial Board of both newspapers decided that watching a year or two’s worth of old episodes of Almost Live would tell them all they needed to know.
Darcy is part of today’s Eastside, and for some reason, that appears to frighten them.
Is Goldy suggesting that we do away with voting altogether? I think he is. I think he is making a case for having public officials being chosen on the basis of their grades, University attended, and I.Q.
I think Goldy is saying that in the course of human history, the greatest leaders have always had the highest I.Q.s. I’m not sure if Goldy is right about that, though.
@13 “Is Goldy suggesting that we do away with voting altogether? I think he is.”
No, that’s a Republican idea. Only the Permanent Minority feels threatened by elections. That’s why Repugs work so hard to keep American citizens from voting in their own country.
Sad to say,
Goldy, we must have seen different debates. BRS and I watched as Burner supporters and both gave the debate, ears and tail, to the sheriff.
Darcy may be brighter but she came across like a fresh faced kid dressed up to play aqn adult on Halloween. Costume aside .. and that is always an issue for women, who the fuck is interested in her college major? Dods she really think Harvard (my alma matter as well) is worth some votes in this election?
On most issues, the sheriff was well spoken and focused while she meandered on in a manner that seemed pedantic and w/o reason. Now, two days later, if you asked me to cute any substantive issue on which they disagreed I could not do so.
darcy’s supporters are all on the internets not reading the pi and seatimes. gotta sell newspapers and try to keep the dumb guy in to vote for permanent repeal of estate tax. seattle newspaper editorialists=epic fail.
seattle jew=namestealer?
A study of student cheating conducted by Rutgers University found that business students are most likely to cheat on exams and written assignments. The study involved 54 universities.
If you’re going to be a politician, no matter how smart you are, you either need to have the common touch or be inspiring. Obama is inspiring. Burner has neither. She’s just smart. But one thing she does have going for her is she’s a Democrat. If anything is going to help her this election, that will.
The Truth About ACORN And ‘Voting Fraud’
Josh Marshall wrote in Talking Points Memo:
“The Republican party is grasping on to the ACORN story as a way to delegitimize what now looks like the probable outcome of the November election.
“It is also a way to stoke the paranoia of their base, lay the groundwork for legal challenges … and promote new legal restrictions on legitimate voting by lower income voters and minorities.
“The big picture is that these claims of ‘voter fraud’ are themselves a fraud, a tool to aid in suppressing Democratic voter turnout.
“But I want give readers a bit more detail to understand what is going because the right-wing freak out about ACORN happens pretty much on schedule every two years. …
“ACORN registers lots of lower income and/or minority voters. … By and large they do not rely on volunteers to register voters. They hire people — often people with low incomes or even the unemployed. This has the dual effect of not only registering people but also providing some work and income for people who are out of work. But because a lot of these people are doing it for the money, inevitably, a few of them cut corners or even cheat. … (It’s important to note that in many of the recent ACORN cases that have gotten the most attention it’s ACORN itself that has turned the people in who did the fake registrations.)
“These reports start buzzing through the right-wing media every two years and every time the anecdotal reports of ‘thousands’ of fraudulent registrations turns out, on closer inspection, to be either totally bogus themselves or wildly exaggerated. So thousands of phony registrations ends up being, like, twelve.
“I’ve always had questions about whether this is a good way to do voter registration. And Democratic campaigns usually keep their distance. But here’s the key. This is fraud against ACORN. They end up paying people for registering more people then they actually signed up. …
” …[N]umerous studies and investigations have shown no evidence of anything more than a handful of isolated cases of actual instances of vote fraud. …
” … [T]he idea of massive polling-place fraud … is inherently incredible. Suppose I want to swing the Missouri election for my preferred presidential candidate. I would have to figure out who the fake, dead or missing people on the registration rolls are, then pay a lot of other individuals to go to the polling place and claim to be that person, without any return guarantee – thanks to the secret ballot – that any of them will cast a vote for my preferred candidate. Those who do show up at the polls run the risk of being detected and charged with a felony. And for what – $10? Polling-place fraud, in short, makes no sense.
“The Justice Department devoted unprecedented resources to ferreting out fraud over five years and appears to have found not a single prosecutable case across the country. …
” … [T]here have been numerous investigations of this. Often by people with at least a mild political interest in finding wrongdoing. But they never find it. It always ends up being right-wing hype and lies. …
“Vote registration fraud is a limited and relatively minor problem in the US today. But it is principally an administrative and efficiency issue. It is has little or nothing to do with people casting illegitimate votes to affect an actual election. That’s the key.
“What you’re hearing right now from Fox News, the New York Post, John Fund and the rest of the right-wing bamboozlement chorus is a just another effort to exploit, confuse and lie in an effort to put more severe restrictions on legitimate voting and lay the groundwork to steal elections. It’s that simple. …
“McCain’s going to lose, and he knows it. … But he’s setting up … the GOP base to believe that scary blacks stole the election for Barack Obama. … The essence of McCain’s campaign now appears to amount to prepping McCain’s base to believe they didn’t really lose the election. The election was stolen from them by Barack and his army of gangsters and black street hustlers.”
(Quoted under fair use.)
@19 I think we need politicians who know have a sufficient knowledge base to make sound decisions, who know what they’re talking about instead of just memorizing talking points, and who have the integrity to do what’s best for their constituents and the country instead of what’s best of their party or special interests.
@17 notaboomer
NOPE .. tis me.
I am NOT a dem or a rep. If I lived in the eighth I wold vote for Darcy but am concerned with what I see as a bad campaign, overly focused on orthodox liberal ideas. Reichert is not a member of the radical republicans, but he needs to seperate himself dramatically from them if he wants my support.
@21
I agree, but first they have to get elected.
@22 What’s wrong with orthodox liberal ideas? Other than the fact most people take them for granted — and don’t know where they came from? Frankly, I think it’s time to post “Joe Republican” again:
“Day in the Life of Joe Middle-Class Republican
“By John Gray Cincinnati, Ohio
“Joe gets up at 6:00am to prepare his morning coffee. He fills his pot full of good clean drinking water because some liberal fought for minimum water quality standards. He takes his daily medication with his first swallow of coffee. His medications are safe to take because some liberal fought to insure their safety and work as advertised.
“All but $10.00 of his medications are paid for by his employers medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance, now Joe gets it too. He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs this day. Joe’s bacon is safe to eat because some liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.
“Joe takes his morning shower reaching for his shampoo; His bottle is properly labeled with every ingredient and the amount of its contents because some liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained. Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some tree hugging liberal fought for laws to stop industries from polluting our air. He walks to the subway station for his government subsidized ride to work; it saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees. You see, some liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.
“Joe begins his work day; he has a good job with excellent pay, medicals benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some liberal union members fought and died for these working standards. Joe’s employer pays these standards because Joe’s employer doesn’t want his employees to call the union. If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed he’ll get a worker compensation or unemployment check because some liberal didn’t think he should loose his home because of his temporary misfortune.
“Its noon time, Joe needs to make a bank deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe’s deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC because some liberal wanted to protect Joe’s money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the depression.
“Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae underwritten Mortgage and his below market federal student loan because some stupid liberal decided that Joe and the government would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his life-time.
“Joe is home from work, he plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive to dads; his car is among the safest in the world because some liberal fought for car safety standards. He arrives at his boyhood home. He was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers Home Administration because bankers didn’t want to make rural loans. The house didn’t have electric until some big government liberal stuck his nose where it didn’t belong and demanded rural electrification. (Those rural Republican’s would still be sitting in the dark)
“He is happy to see his dad who is now retired. His dad lives on Social Security and his union pension because some liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Joe wouldn’t have to. After his visit with dad he gets back in his car for the ride home.
“He turns on a radio talk show, the host’s keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. (He doesn’t tell Joe that his beloved Republicans have fought against every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day) Joe agrees, ‘We don’t need those big government liberals ruining our lives; after all, I’m a self made man who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have’.”
@22 (continued) I like liberal ideas! Better than conservative ideas, anyway. Such as:
Peace
Democracy
Freedom of speech and press
Freedom of association
Freedom of religion
Rule of law
Due process
Right to trial by a jury of peers
No unreasonable searches
No quartering of troops in private homes
Right of labor to organize and bargain collectively
Minimum wage
Child labor laws
Workplace safety regulations
Injured worker’s benefits
Unemployment insurnace
Social security and Medicare
Public health regulations
Clean Air and Clean Water acts
Environmental protection
Consumer protection laws
Civil rights protections
Voting Rights Act
Free universal public education
Government-insured bank deposits
Bank and insurance company regulation
Public highways
G.I. Bill and veterans benefits
There’s lots more, but that’ll get you started.
@22 Why I do not like orthodoxy in politics
There is no consistency in either orthodox liberalism or conservatism, why side with either?
On the liberal side, here are ten things that bug me:
1. Integration This rapidly became a phony issue. In the real world, disparate people do separate themselves. More to the point, there is nothing good or bad about skin color as a criterion for who should be in a class room. Bottom line, kids belong to parents.
2. Equal Opportunity. I support this but you can not measure opportuniyt by achievement.
3. Gender equality. This has been a very mixed can. Women have LOST many rights they had and should have so that a few women can be construction workers, coporate bosses and fighter pilots. Men and women are different and equity should recognize this.
4. Gay “Marriage.” There is nothing equitable about dissing the tradional male-female partnering in order to be fair to other pairings.
5. PC I hate terms like “people of color” ” I see no reason NOT to worry about religious bigotry in the name of tolerance.
6. American Exceptionalism is, in my opinion, a very real thing and something to be proud of.
7. Gregoire, McDermitt,Edwards supporting marginally qualified candidates because they are liberals is dumb.
8. Peace. Too many liberals are willing to believe that peace can be had cheaply. I do not trust Islamic fundies, Chinese totalitarians, or Palinites.
9. Education is not the same thing as union jobs for teachers.
10. Protectionism is both dumb and immoral.
As for the conservatives, I have lost the ability see what the F they DO stand for.
So, I am a Jeffersonian Opportunist!
Darcy’s today’s 8th district? Not if you look at her tv ads.
What the editorials seemed to be saying to me were two things:
Burner might support changing NAFTA type agreements, which the Times is always against.
Both papers want to have a ‘balance’ in the state delegation.
@26: Seattle Jew – you choose the false dichotomy sometimes.
The issue is not integration of the schools – it is equal schools. I have gone to inner city schools and I know what a disgrace they are. In order to succeed there, a student needs a lot more than many poor students have – like a quiet place to study or a room without 5 other people in it – or even access to the internet or a computer.
Until all the schools are equal in their resources – and the way we fund schools they certainly are NOT – then integration is the only way to be somewhat fair. Every child should get a qualtiy education – on the other hand – some children will be left behind because they can’t keep up. We need to give as much emphasis on educating the top as we do the bottom. Also, we need a math curriculum that actually promotes the “doing” of math – not the writing about it.
Set high standards, make sure there is equal access to quality schools and level the playing field – then talk about integration and it won’t be needed – especially after we allow neighborhoods to be integrated.
@28 correctnotright
In Boston, where I grew up, integrat5ion meant putting poor blacks and poor Irish in the same schools. Who did that help? Racial segregation was replaced with poverty segregation.
The first principle of any education in this country has to be respect for the parents’ rights. When you tell affluent parents they need to send their kids to tough schools, you violate this principle and inevitably you end up with another form of segregation.
In contrast, if you allow like minded parents .. eg those that want a strict discipline school or gender segregation or an emphasis on one or another culture, parents will work their effin butts off to make this thing work. It is not hard to let such schools grow without allowing racist or religious bigotry into the mix.
When we moved to Capital Hill, Seattle had an ethnic Chinese middle scholl. This excited us and we had hoped to have our kids go there for cultural enrichment. Instead, we got bussing and a bizar effort to pretend that cultural differences do not exist in this City.
Back at “racial” deseg, Seattle never took this seriously because “race” became black and white. Other ethnic groups, Jews, Chinese, Vietnamese apparently had no culture. Still, one good thing did happen .. I think the B-W barriers in Seattle have been lowered. That is a good thing but it oculd have been done without destroying so much else that was good.
During “our” time, I have listened to District officials lecture Laurelhurst parents on why they should NOT raise funds for computers! Stupid!
26. SeattleJew spews:
1. Bottom line, kids don’t ‘belong’ to anyone necessarily. Parents don’t have the right to send their kids to work in factories or as prostitutes.
2. What are you talking about? If all of society doesn’t have access to the same quality of education, clean water, safe streets, job opportunities then you have an unjust society. That’s wrong.
3. What rights have women lost that you are pining for?
4. How is broadening the notion of marriage to include any mix of people who are in love any different than changing the definition of marriage as between two white people? If your church doesn’t want to recognize gay marriages, good on you; but don’t enforce your rules on the rest of us.
5. PC I hate people complaining about what folks what to call themselves. What’s so hard about using a term that a particular group would prefer? Or would you like to go back to the ‘good old days’ of white folks labeling everyone else with the slander du jour?
6. American exceptionalism is one of the most dangerous and egotistical diseases ever fostered on the planet. The Romans probably thought they were exceptional too, and contributed a lot to civilization. They also wiped out 1/3 of the population of Gaul, and enslaved another 1/3 and did the same to most every other group of people they came in contact with.
7. Outside of Kucinich, Feingold and a few others I’m not sure there are any liberals left in power.
8. Peace. We spend as much on war as the rest of the world combined. We have spent the last 60 plus years invading, over throwing, and bombing nearly every other country on Earth. As soon as we have eliminated one ‘enemy’ like say Middle Eastern nationalists allied with the old Soviet Union, another group fanatical Islamic terrorists ‘suddenly’ rises up to take their place. The desire of the US to control the world and tell everyone else how to organize their countries must end. It probably will end now because the Chinese will stop lending us money to finance these adventures, but the desire to violently control the world is wrong.
9. Education is what happens when you stop listening to teachers in a classroom.
10. What’s the point of a society if it doesn’t protect the ability of it’s citizens to work at jobs that pay a decent wage? How strong is any society that produces nothing? Any society that allows itself to be flooded with cheap and unsafe goods produced overseas and that encourages itself to be de-industrialized to the point that the only jobs available are serf, waiters, and jesters for the wealthy is fast on the way to violent revolution. In other words, it’d ‘dumb and immoral’.
So I’m a non-racist populist…I guess, I don’t know about labels.
PC is just an extension of the “Golden Rule”. Sure some people take it to ridiculous extremes; I doubt that fish care whether we refer to them as “our water-breathing brethren” or “dinner”. Ditto for oysters
Basically though it’s about people trying not to be racist, sexist or ageist. Maybe if we thought about it more as “Good Manners” or “the golden rule” people would be more prone to understand it.
It’s 2008 and only 35 states have ratified the equal rights amendment For proof that it is needed, all you have to do is look at the Supreme Court’s Ledbetter decision. Equal pay for equal work still isn’t happening. It’s sad that the USA hasn’t passed the amendment, it shows that there is also misogyny in the “fear everyone different” mindset so much of the country has succumbed to.
31–exactly.
Jeez, both the P-I and the Times endorsed Reichert. That sow, Darcy Burner, couldn’t even get the local nutroot P-I to plug her.
Not even lipstick will help that pig.
reply to kirk91
Of course, nor do they “belong” to the state. Too many education types assume they have rights over the kids and then drive the parents to take the kids out of the schools.
reread my post. You and I agree. I do not agree that one measures equality of opportunity by the proportion of female fire fighters.
Many, including the right to postpone other work until after child bearing. The ERA is dumbass, men and women need equivalent not identical rights. Out society today hurts women’s traditional rights
Turn your question around. What does a gay couple or any other non traditional pair (eg brother -sister) loose if we separate the cultural issues around marriage from the legal issues?
From my POV, it seems obvious even from basic biology that heterosexual pairing has its own properties and it certainly has a long tradition. Why not recognize something that means so much to so many?
In Europe, where pairing laws are now normal, marriage and pairing seem to co-exist fine.
I also try hard to ab=void terms that offend othersm BUT I so not think that should be a legal matter. Worse, we have a lot of made up terms that are themselves prejudicial in a new way. E.g. as a Jew, I do not want to be called white. On other hand, by some arcane magic we have now made Hispanic a race.
I would do away with all this crap and let people be what they want to be. Dissing people is wrong but when we have laws that make what I call you in as private conversation a crime, that is nutty.
America is not Rome. We are not even a people in the Roman sense.
And, yes, much of the good we hope for in this world is American in origin.
Accepting our guilt for what we have done wrong is one of the best traits of this country. What other empire has been able to do that?
You and I define liberal differently. My point is that I have no desire to support a clown just because he is a liberal. Amongst our local underachioevers there are McD, Owen and Gregoire.
I think you are making my point about why I am not a “liberal.” Yes, the US has done bad things BUT we also overthrew four great imeprialist/fascist regimes and ofr two of them did that in a peaceful way (China. USSR). We also cured polio, gave the world its genome, green rice,the internet, etc.
I have no idea what your point here is.
Gee .. next you will tell me that we need to make better use perpetual motion?
There areal laws of economics .. protectionism did not work for the Sviets, the Brits, and will not for us.
So I’m a non-racist populist…I guess, I don’t know about labels.
Bill Buckley once said he’d rather be governed by the first thousand names in the Boston phone book than the Harvard faculty. This WA-08 voter would rather be governed by a brave, accomplihed public servant and incumbent congressman with unquestionable character than by a mere Harvard graduate Microsoft middle manager with MoveOn.org values and no concept of how to spell public service.
Well goldy, considering you were honest yet didn’t post anything there is only one point to be made…
Yeah, why be honest now before the election. Wait until after, then you can use it as an excuse for your elected democrat of choice screwing up. Do you have any “honest” words about the democrat led congress doing everything bush wanted?