Musing's musings

Cry me a river

It's Schadenfreude time!

Turning the Wayback Machine to June of 2004 we might find a story such as this one, from the Washington Post:

Pelosi Seeks House Minority 'Bill of Rights'
Hastert Dismisses Democrats' Complaint, Saying GOP Record Is Better Than Foes'

House Democrats' anger at heavy-handed Republican tactics reached a new level yesterday, with the chamber's top Democrat asking the House speaker to embrace a "Bill of Rights" for the minority, regardless which party it is.

In keeping with the general atmosphere of the House these days, aides to Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) said he will not respond to the two-page proposal from Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

Tempora mutantur, et nos mutamur in illis, as one of the Holy Roman Emperors (who were really neither holy, Roman, nor emperors in any meaningful sense of the word) used to say, "The times change, and we change along with them." Fast-forward to the present, where we find some interesting reading from Representatives Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.), Eric Cantor (R-Va.), and Tom Price (R-Ga.):

Roughly 140 million Americans will be represented in the House by a Republican during the 110th Congress. Our fundamental duty is to guarantee that they receive just and meaningful representation in Congress. This can only be accomplished with bipartisan administration of the House, respect for customary and regular order in considering legislation, and establishing that the right of the minority party will be respected.

[edit]

With that in mind, please join us in co-sponsoring the Minority Bill of Rights, which we plan to introduce next week. The Bill of Rights is identical – in both letter and spirit – to a 2004 proposal made by then-Minority Leader Pelosi ....

To quote from Peter Stone and Sherman Edwards' play 1776, "Ha! I wish you the same luck [we] had with it!"

Oh, to be a fly on the wall...

...at the Bush family Thanksgiving dinner. Something tells me that the conversation is going to be more than usually strained, in the wake of this:

Apparently the U.S. edition of Newsweakly this week will feature, God help us, Britney and K-Fed--as if anyone not either one of them cared that they're splitting up or why. But the above is what the rest of the world is slated to see, and I'd bet a considerable sum that there will be steam coming out of the Boy Who Would Be King's ears over that cover for a good long while. Just as I'd bet long odds that 41 would like nothing better than to take 43 out to the woodshed for a little bit of presidential ass-whuppin'.

And there was much rejoicing...

I guess Tom Toles had a change of heart. On the Sunday before Halloween, his cartoon drew on the image of the Democrats as the perennially optimistic Charlie Brown, lining up for one more try at kicking the football that Lucy (designated as "Voters") obligingly holds for him. It was quite a zing at the time, at least for me. Which makes today's cartoon all the sweeter:

All your Congress are belong to us

The House is Democratic. The Senate is Democratic. And Ronald Dumsfeld decides that the whole "stay the course" thing isn't so good for him personally and quits. I hereby second Markos' nomination of Joe Lieberman (Traitor-CT) to replace him.

Update: Now with pretty picture!

One more.... Just one more!

When I went to bed earlier this morning, Democrats had already taken control of the House of Representatives with a gain of nearly 20 seats. We were still waiting to learn the outcome in the Senate, having picked up three seats, but losing a predicted gain in Tennessee.

This morning, we're up 28 seats in the House, and four in the Senate without any doubt. Webb is leading in Virginia, but by a margin so narrow that there will have to be a mandatory recount. Tester was leading in Montana by 1200 votes or so when a recount was called in Yellowstone County (Billings and environs). Assuming that Webb's lead holds in Virginia, that leaves us just one seat shy of taking control (albeit narrowly) of the Senate as well.

Despite the spin that many Republicans (and not a few media talking heads) are putting on the election results, it is difficult to see this as anything but a repudiation of the Shrubbery and its policies. Nor am I buying this guff about how difficult it will be for the Democrats to govern, given a substantial increase in moderates in our ranks. Progressives and liberals will likely have to do a fair amount of arm-twisting and cajoling in the 110th Congress, to be sure--but that's precisely how the Framers envisioned our government working. And at least the Democratic caucus is going to be willing to listen when an opposing viewpoint is expressed. That's a trick the Republicans either never learned or quickly forgot as they grew intoxicated with the possibilities of power.

Those possibilities went very quickly to Republican heads. It took them a mere 12 years to become as corrupt, venal, and blasé as those Democrats they campaigned against in the last "wave" election in 1994. The Republicans' record of governance since taking control of the legislative branch is not what any objective observer could call stellar. They offered far more heat than substance, allowing ideology to trump common sense and respect for the institutions of our government. That's a mistake I doubt the Democrats are going to make, or at least not make as quickly, when we pick up the reins next January.

No more Speaker Hastert

The Tribune is calling Hastert the winner in IL-14, though with barely half the votes counted that seems a little presumptuous. However, CNN is already projecting a Democratic takeover in the House, with the Republicans losing 16 seats as of this writing. So even if J. Dennis "I see nothing! I hear nothing! I know nothing!" Hastert does manage to drag his fat ass back to Washington for the 110th Congress, he's not going to be banging the gavel after January 3.

The Tribune also seems to have added a fourth Senate seat to the Democrats' column, though damned if I can find out whose it is. Two more, and then we can thumb our noses at the Shrubbery for the next two years until we get a Democrat back in the White House.

Oh, and Karl? About that map you were so adamant you had down cold, the one showing that Republicans were going to hold on to both houses of Congress? (a) As big a fantasy as the one about the Iraqis greeting our troops with flowers and chocolates, and (b) Take that map, fold it until it's all sharp corners, and shove it as far up your ass as you can reach. Somewhere in the vicinity of your head would be good.

Me, I'm cracking an adult beverage and gloating. And reading. Sorta.

Winning some, losing some

Between a hockey game, the book I'm supposed to have read for seminar tomorrow night, and trying to look at election results trickling in, I'm a busy boy tonight. But thus far, things are looking reasonably good for the Democrats. It's early days yet, but we appear to be up three seats in the Senate (assuming that Nomentum will indeed caucus with the Democrats, and that they'll have him) while losing none, and up four in the House as of this writing. Cruella de Harris is out. So is soon-to-be-ex-Senator Man-on-Dog, soon-to-be-ex-Senator Mike DeWine, and soon-to-be-ex-Senator Lincoln Chaffee.

Locally, with 14 percent of the precincts reporting in the 14th district, Hastert is ahead by 10 points, 55-45. This was exactly the lead he enjoyed in the one and only poll taken this cycle in the district, and all the canvassing reports I heard showed that lead shrinking as the election drew near. This one is going to be a squeaker, I think. But I'm looking forward to hoisting an adult beverage when John wins.

I'll try to update throughout the night.

Center. Calm. Breathe.

Enjoy the pretty picture of the sunset tonight over one of our "lakes" here. Breathe deeply, get as calm as you can. Then get to bed and get a good night's sleep. Tomorrow's gonna be a busy day, and chances are good we're going to be up very late before all the good news is in.

First thing on your agenda tomorrow should be the same thing as on mine: Vote! And make sure everybody else you know gets to the polls, too.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

That's the message the Shrubbery would like voters to take with them into the voting booths next Tuesday. And to a certain extent, they're right. There really is a party that voters should be quaking in their boots at the thought of their hands on the levers of power.

But it's the Republicans we should be afraid of, not their Democratic opponents. We already know how the Republicans have raped, pillaged, and otherwise violated the Constitution, international treaty obligations, human rights, the environment, and truth, justice, and the American Way. We're not facing a defeat in Iraq when the Democrats win next Tuesday, nor even when we retake Congress next January. As everyone except Bush and the happy-freaks who seem to surround him and keep from him every scrap of news that could blight his beautiful mind knows, defeat in Iraq has already happened. What we're seeing now is the decapitated chicken (that's us, by the by) flopping around reflexively until the body finally wakes up to the fact that there's no longer a head attached to it.

And who's to blame for that sorry state of affairs? Sure as hell isn't the Democrats--we've been shut out of control of Congress and the Executive Branch for the last six years. We have a hard time getting a meeting room on Capitol Hill, much less getting any part of our legislative agenda on the calendar.

So I'm offering this graphic reminder of whom we should fear--and why. It's adapted from a 1918 military propaganda poster. The caption reads "What is the effect of Bushevism on the people?"

Uh, George, we've changed that meme. Remember?

There's been quite the splash in the media recently about how the White House has denied ever using finally abandoned the catchphrase "Stay the course" with respect to its Iraq policy (or, more properly, lack of anything even remotely resembling an Iraq policy). As seems so often to be the case with the Shrubbery, however, it appears that the foreign lack-of-a- policy folks haven't been talking to the domestic lack-of-a- policy folks, and vice versa.

As proof, here's one of the things I saw on my New York Times feed this morning:

• With Election Driven by Iraq, Voters Want New Approach
• Bush Works to Solidify Base With a Defense of Rumsfeld

Those two stories were posted four hours apart. This morning on "Morning Edition," NPR had a segment about Bush's last-minute campaign slogging. They, too, mentioned the fact that the Boy Who Would Be King is likely to keep "dancin' with them that brung him" (the NPR reporter actually used that phrase)--despite the fact that Darth Cheney and Ronald Dumsfeld are perhaps the only two Republican Cabinet-level politicians with approval ratings worse than Bush's own--right up until the moment when the Democrats cut off the music.

We'll be announcing last call in five days, boys. Better get ready.