Tune in to KUOW’s Weekday with Steve Scher this morning at 10AM, when I’ll be joining Eric Earling of (u)SP, Tom Forbes of Palousitics, and Liz Burlingame of SeattlePoliticore for a political blogger roundup. Topics of discussion will surely include how goddamn depressing it must be to be a Republican these days.
UPDATE (9:55AM):
I’m sitting in the green room at KUOW, with Eric Earling, and he seems normal. KUOW is still $25,000 short of their pledge week target, so if folks call in now and put $25K on their credit card you’ll get an extra 20 minutes of me and Eric!
UPDATE (10:01AM):
$19,000 to go. They’d like us to live blog during the interview, which shows you how much they know about blogging. Not likely to happen.
UPDATE (10:20AM):
Apparently, according to Tom, Democrats are the party of the wealthy elite. Who knew?
UPDATE (10:38AM):
Wow… Dino Rossi is about “change.” I should talk to Republicans more often. If this is the best they have in defense of Dino, it’s not gonna be much of a campaign.
Only in the minds of the Demo’s
If Eric Earling is there, I’m guessing Snohomish County may come up.
Goldy:
Listen to how the Republicans are favored to win the dogcatcher spot over in Douglas County and how the candidate has already raised $17.39 and things are looking up.
Jim
(no bagpipe assemblies, please)
And hopefully they’ll be done with their fundraising.
Wow, Goldy, I’m starting to like this more as I see more of what’s here. Thanks for all the hard work.
Of course in the minds of republicans it must just be fine to nationally:
1. Be in charge of an unnecessary war
2. Be in charge of an economy in free-fall due to lax regulation of the banking industry (while trying to claim that less regulation is needed)
3. Be in charge of America being the land of the free and home of torture
4. Be in charge of the unprecedented politicization of the justice department.
5. Be in charge of amnesty for telecom corporations
6. Be in charge of rampant corruption in the the FDA, EPA, Dept. of Agriculture, the FCC – allowing, retaliation, tainted drugs and tainted food and toys into the US.
Of course locally – republicans are pretty much out of Puget sound politics except for Dave Reichert who is going to lose in November. Dino (the whiner) Rossi turns out to be a huge hypocrite and all his accusations of voter fraud have no basis in fact.
Yeah – republicans have how many state-wide offices? And stand to lose more. They are also a big minority in the state house and state senate – but I guess al that is only in the minds of democrats. In the minds of republicans are the primary that wasn’t even run corrctly, the political in-ifghting with Pam Roach and the corruption at the national republican congressional committee. guess the republicans really know how to put their house in order. The only republican that would have a viable chance at state office is John McCay – who was illegally fired by Gonzalez at eh request of Doc Hastins (the unethical former House ethics chair).
Goldy as gunslinger? Heh.
Yes it would suck to be a republican if there were a republican who had a conscience. But they don’t. They see no shame in sending thousands of Americans to die in a war for oil or creating the largest deficit in our history or having more members arrested for or convicted of sex offenses than any other party and at any time in history. Since they see nothing wrong with cheating, lying, raping, stealing and warmongering – they aren’t smart enough to know they suck.
And when we beat them like a drum AGAIN in November, they’ll focus on some lie they tell themselves to convince themselves it doesn’t suck to looooooose.
The HA guy just shat himself.
I seem to remember dozens of “proof” type HA blog entries that the globe was not warming.
Pfffbhhhhhht.
Huh, is Steve Scher reading Blatherwatch or is Blatherwatch listening to too much conservative AM?
http://blatherwatch.blogs.com/.....-cult.html
“How’s that goin’ for ya?”
ZING!
Did I hear that right? Did Earling just call Steve Scher ‘Michael’?
I love the way the R’s (and Clinton camp) try to paint Obama as “elitist” and “out-of-touch.”
Considering that the Clintons have made over $100M since 2000, considering that she has lived very comfortably for the last 30 years…considering that McCain grew up the son of an Admiral and lived the elitist life both before and since Vietnam, for them to try to slag Obama as elitist is ludicrous.
Both campaigns are trying to exploit this “story” for obviously self-serving purposes and the media is doing the same in order to stir up a fight. It’s a bunch of bull.
To say that a 72-year-old shouldn’t be president is to invite accusations of ageism (president is the hardest job on earth, but it doesn’t require heavy lifting).
It’s not necessary to go there anyway. McCain is nuts. He’s not just out of touch with low to middle income whites, he’s out of touch with reality. I think the points about endless war in Iraq, the threat of a new war with Iran, his “laissez-faire” approach to the economic crisis–those are much more compelling reasons not to vote for McCain.
No need to raise questions about what someone in their 70s can or can’t do. The question is about what McCain can and can’t do.
Both campaigns are trying to exploit this “story” for obviously self-serving purposes and the media is doing the same in order to stir up a fight. It’s a bunch of bull.
And meanwhile, the Friday news dump has Bush admitting to violation of international and U.S. laws by approving torture, and the sound from the ‘legacy media’ is that of crickets chirping. What Chris Floyd said, eh?
Apparantly Rove did another survey, and found that being a “liberal” isn’t considered a negative any more. They did find that people reacted negatively to “Elitist”, so they are trying to slap that label on every Democrat they can find, even though it is a thoroughly meaningless label.
Of course, it is nothing more than an attempt to deflect attention from the incredible mis-management of government under Republican leadership.
Shall we issue a grade card to the Republicans for their performance over the past seven + years? This is not comprehensive – just a few of the ares which come quickly to mind.
Foreign Policy: F. Makes strategic decisions from the pelvis area, instead of the brain. Alianates just about every nation in the world, wastes goodwill which we received post 9/11.
National Defense: F. Gives terrorists their biggest recruiting tool they ever had when they invaded and continued to occupy Iraq.
Economy/Financial Markets: D-. Complete lack of oversight of burgening problems in the sub-prime loan markets. The only reason this isn’t an F is that I need room on the scale for even greater failures by the Bush administration.
Crime/Justice Dept: F. Warrentless wiretaps, discarding Habeous Corpus (sp?), giving Justice Dept. staffer’s opinion letters more weight than the Constitution, politically-motivated prosecutions, dismissing federal attorneys for prosecuting Republicans, etc.
Government Ethics: – F. Do I really need to go into detail? K-Street project, Abromohoff, DeLay, Cunningham, etc., etc., etc.
Fiscal Responsibility: F. In seven years they went from a balanced budget to the largest deficits in history, and the largest addition to the national debt in history.
“Palousitics?” Really?
Calling the Democrats the party of wealthy elites because we include a few dozen Hollywood celebrities and George Soros is like calling the GOP the party of Blacks because of Alan Keyes, Condi Rice and Colin Powell.
Dino’s call for “change” is probably another one of Rove’s ideas. He really likes to find “hot button labels” in his polling, and everyone agrees that voters are reacting favorably to “change”. You might even see yard signs with “Vote Dino for Change”.
Of course, it only works for Dino as long as he isn’t specific about his platform, other than “change”. He’s really hoping that by saying he’s for change, uninformed voters might think he’s a Democrat.
I’m going to be surprised if Dino even puts “Rupublican” on his yard signs anywhere in the Puget Sound Area. I noticed that in 2006, Mike McGavick’s signs bounced back and forth between being blue or red, depending upon the neighborhood, and the blue signs omitted any reference to him being a Republican. Dino might do the same.
It must be pretty sad to pin your hopes on getting elected to hoping that the electorate is too ill-informed to know which party they are voting for.
Since the Rethug’s need to be programmed to think, the Nazional Republican Party (Nrzi) has to promulgate, each morning via email to the partybots, talk show hosts, bloggers, etc., ad naseum/infinitum, the meme of the day/week. This cycle’s is “elitist”.
Elitism:
Smirky McFlightsuit got into Andover and both Ivy League schools on “affirmative action for sons of rich white guys.” Didn’t have the grades or scores for any of the 3.
Smirky’s Dad was the son of a Senator who set up George 41 with a little grub stake of $500,000 to get started in the oil bidness.
But they’re not elitist.
“I’m sitting in the green room at KUOW, with Eric Earling, and he seems normal.”
They always do. Many serial killers seem like normal everyday folks, too. That’s what makes it so hard to root them out.
“Wow… Dino Rossi is about “change.””
He’s for a state income tax?
By the way, yesterday’s Seattle Times had an article saying that the national foreclosure rate should be double the published rate. It seems that banks are delaying foreclosing upon properties because they know they won’t find buyers for them, so they might as well avoid paying the legal fees and having to manage vacant properties by just putting it off for a while. Eventually these houses will have to be put on the market, which will probably result in another huge bump in the excess housing inventory, further depressing the market. But Bush & Co. are hoping that won’t happen until at least the first quarter of a Democratic administration.
Kidnapped Journalist Freed In Iraq
An Associated Press journalist held hostage by a hostile faction has been liberated:
“BAGHDAD (AP) – The U.S. military says it will release Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein after more than two years in custody. …
“Hussein … was detained by U.S. Marines for alleged links to insurgents. The AP and Hussein … say he was only doing his job as a journalist.
“AP President Tom Curley expressed relief … on Monday. ‘… [We] celebrate Bilal’s release … we want him safe and united with his family.'”
http://news.aol.com/story/_a/u.....2209990035
I heard some discussion/speculation/rumor yesterday that the Republicans have effectively written off the Congressional elections this year. The incumbents are on their own to raise enough money to keep their seats, and the Republicans are just hoping to maintain at least 40 seats in the Senate in order to keep filibuster priviledges.
Instead, the national Republican party will be pouring all of their natiresources into the 2008 Presidential election. This allows them to maintain the veto power over a Democratic Congress, control the federal beuracracy by refusing to enforce legislation in which they don’t agree, and maintain the power to issue contracts. They also maintain executive priviledge and the pardon power, which they may need over the next couple of years.
But most importantly, the Republicans are hoping that by controlling the Presidency for another four years, they can appoint a couple of more justices to the Supreme Court as vacancies develop.
Remember that the current make-up of the court includes only one of the nine justices who were appointed by Democrats: Ginsberg. The other eight were all appointed by Republicans, from Ford to George W. Bush. Ginsberg is currently 75 years old, she would be 80 before the end of the next administration. John Paul Stevens, appointed by Ford is already 82 years old, and would be 86 before the end of the next Presidential term. It is likely that both would be replaced during the next President’s term, either due to death or retirement.
In addition, anothe five justices (Souter, Thomas, Breyer, Kennedy, Scalia) would be between the ages of 72 and 76 by the end of the next President’s term. It is quite possible that two or three of them would retire before the end of the term – effectively giving control of the court by a five-vote majority to whomever the next President appoints to the court.
Of course, if a Democrat is elected, it is possible that some reliable Republican-leaning justices might retire before the end of Bush’s term of office in order to allow him to elect replacements before a Democrat comes into office. But such appointments would be subject to confirmation by the Senate, and I don’t see that happening.
David, I thoroughly enjoyed being on the air with you today. Hope we get a chance to do it again sometime.
Jim@20: Smirky as you call him still had better college grades the the French Candidate – John Effffin Kerry.