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1

He's on tv right now blaming congress for everything.

He's such a fucking asshat.

Posted by monkey | October 17, 2007 8:21 AM
2

Why has nobody a__________d Bush yet?

Posted by Mr. Poe | October 17, 2007 8:22 AM
3

Yes!!! I knew Nader's day would come. All it took was for EVERYONE else to suck.

Posted by heywhatsit | October 17, 2007 8:25 AM
4

Careful, Poe. Haven't you bagged an old daddy lately?

I think overwhelming customer dissatisfaction will work in favor of change. So to me a record low is pretty exciting.

Couldn't we grab a speck of FDR's DNA and clone us a New Deal?

Posted by It's Mark Mitchell | October 17, 2007 8:27 AM
5

Unfortunately this ultimately plays into the "Government can't solve the problem; government is the problem" Republican push to get Americans to support the continuous privatization and corporate domination of their lives. Yes, the Dems need to stand up, but when they do and get blocked at every turn by the GOP, the idiots out there in the US who havent taken a civics class in their life, and have no idea how Congress actually operates, blames the Democrats, who made the attempts, not the GOP, who blocked them, simply because they read "Democrat-controlled Congress" all the time.

It's filibuster time, Dems. It's the only card you have left. Pelosi is already making noise like the gloves may be coming off... Let us hope and pray.

Posted by andy niable | October 17, 2007 8:27 AM
6

day by day Pelosi is less impressive - sad

Posted by Karla | October 17, 2007 8:29 AM
7

Yes we need FDR - or - better yet, Eleanor as Speaker of the House

Posted by GUEST FAG | October 17, 2007 8:30 AM
8

@2: That would only make W a martyr, and unjustly also a hero. No thanx!

Posted by BillyBob | October 17, 2007 8:33 AM
9

The Dems in power are a bunch of yellow-bellied wimps when it comes to holding the Executive branch responsible for wiping their asses daily with the constitution.

Posted by seattle98104 | October 17, 2007 8:33 AM
10

I sack them, but I don't bag them. That would be pissin' in my own pool. I pwn the younger ones that come off as competition.

Motherfuckers.

Posted by Mr. Poe | October 17, 2007 8:34 AM
11

I still think Pelosi is HAWT! I'd do her...

Posted by BillyBob | October 17, 2007 8:34 AM
12

I keep telling Slog we have to stop thinking that the Dems have a lock on 2008. The voters will punish the Dems for not getting us out of Iraq next fall. Punishment is coming and it will be ugly...

I for one have stopped giving money to the Democrats until we are out of Iraq.

Posted by Just Me | October 17, 2007 8:48 AM
13

FDR in 2008!!! Let's face it, he would be a better President mostly decompossed than anyone who is running now. And I think he may be able to challenge the 22nd amendment as it was passed after he passed away.

The one thing I am jealous of my grandparents is this: They could look at a ballot and vote for FDR, FOUR Times! And guess what? He won FOUR times as a ....get this... LIBERAL!!!

Greatest Generation indeed and damn lucky....

Posted by Just Me | October 17, 2007 8:52 AM
14

Seriously, fuck Ralph Nader.

Posted by Greg | October 17, 2007 8:55 AM
15

Hey! Not to be too anal, but your Grandparents weren't part of the "Greatest Generation" i.e., Baby Boomers. That term refers to Americans born between 1940-1960.

Posted by BillyBob | October 17, 2007 8:56 AM
16

We don't have a lock. In fact, we have a pretty good chance of losing.

Meanwhile, everybody is obsessed over the idea of Gore running for President. Which is stupid, in more ways than one.

Our own party will send us to the grave.

Posted by Mr. Poe | October 17, 2007 8:57 AM
17

Rudy is going to be our next President...

UGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted by BillyBob | October 17, 2007 8:59 AM
18

@13 I've been thinking of FDR more and more lately. A REAL boon to the poor, (even though he came from a wealthy, powerful family --go figure). And the art created through the WPA is magnificent and truly American, in the best sense of the word. Take me back!

FDR and Eleanor in '08, even though they might be momentarily befuddled by the internet.

Posted by It's Mark Mitchell | October 17, 2007 9:05 AM
19

the same people who want bush & cheney impeached and in Den Haag are the ones disapproving of congress.

show some sack, dems. end the war while asshat is still in office. it's easy: DON'T ALLOW WAR FUNDING TO GET TO A FLOOR VOTE.

you have the majority. act like it.

Posted by maxsolomon | October 17, 2007 9:07 AM
20

BillyBob, "Greatest Generation" refers to the WWII generation. The Boomers are post-war so not until 1945, with the end date varying (though 1960 isn't a bad choice, I've seen the end date defined as late as 1965).

Posted by Cascadian | October 17, 2007 9:11 AM
21

@20: Thank you for the clarification on my clarification! :)

Posted by BillyBob | October 17, 2007 9:14 AM
22

Stop the Madness!

Posted by The Hoff | October 17, 2007 9:14 AM
23

@15 and 20 Yeah, Boomers are SO not the Greatest Generation. The loudest? Yes. The most spoiled? Perhaps. The original Me Generation? Definitely.

I consider myself a pretty politically-involved person, but my involvement has become more locally focused. The elected office holders in the federal government are jokes.

Posted by Michigan Matt | October 17, 2007 9:15 AM
24

It astounds me that Congress has an 11% approval rating. They could do a hell of a lot more, but at least half their inaction is because Bush and the GOP minority in the Senate can and will block them at every turn. People need to place the blame more squarely on the Republicans.

That said, I'm not too worried about the overall Congressional approval numbers because Democrats still come out in head-to-head polls (by double digits), and Democratic top-tier candidates beat the Republicans in most head-to-head polling to date.

That doesn't mean it can't fall apart, just that if the election were held today the Democrats would win handily.

Posted by Cascadian | October 17, 2007 9:16 AM
25

I was momentarilly confusing "Boomers" with "Greatest," because Tom Brokaw wrote that book. And because it was called "The Greatest Generation." Obviously I didn't read it,I just assumed it must be about his generation. Talk about Asshat!

Off Topic: Hey! I'm a-listening to Sadhappy right now. Anyone remember them?????????

Posted by BillyBob | October 17, 2007 9:21 AM
26

@25 That's cool. I just have this unhealthy dislike of the Boomers. Individually Boomers're fine. As a group, though. . .

Posted by Michigan Matt | October 17, 2007 9:25 AM
27

Yeah, that's a good point Cascadian; the overall approval rating for Congress is depressingly low, but the breakouts also indicate most of the people being polled do in fact understand that Democrats, with only slim majorities in both houses, can't override vetoes or block fillibusters without the support of a significant number on the GOP side.

Posted by COMTE | October 17, 2007 9:26 AM
28

I love these arguments: First the Democrats are out of power so it is the Republicans fault then they are in power and it is the Republicans fault.... You know it sounds like people blowing smoke up our asses hoping we do not notice.

Just sayin'......

Posted by Hello? | October 17, 2007 9:28 AM
29

Amen Brother! Demo or Repub, they all suck!

Posted by BillyBob | October 17, 2007 9:31 AM
30

Definition from Wikipedia on Greatest Generation : "The Greatest Generation is a term derived from the title of a best-selling book by Tom Brokaw: the generation that fought during World War II and many again in the Korean War, and went on to rebuild the world's industries in the following years.

In the theory of Howe and Strauss, they mean those born in the United States from about 1911 through 1924, and form the second half of what that theory's G.I. Generation"

They are not the boomers. They are the Boomers parents. WORD!

Posted by Just Me | October 17, 2007 9:31 AM
31


The Democrats have no one but themselves to blame for this pathetic state of affairs. Even though they’ve accomplished four of their “6 for ’06” goals, they’re condemned as failures because of their refusal to stand up to Bush and their continuing strategy of Bush Appeasement due to the fact that:


A) They’re grotesque, spineless sycophants.

OR

B) They actually have no disagreements with the Republicans, and both parties support the disastrous wars, illegal domestic spying and Bushonomics.


The only solution is publicly financed elections and removal of the current regime from office. And please don't give me the so-called "Innocent Bystander" theory that the Dems can't do any more -that's total bollocks.

Posted by Original Andrew | October 17, 2007 9:32 AM
32

Boomers' Parents! Now I know who to blame!

Posted by BillyBob | October 17, 2007 9:33 AM
33

I think we should all just pass the heroin.

Posted by Mr. Poe | October 17, 2007 9:35 AM
34

@31: Are you from England. Jus' curious...

Posted by BillyBob | October 17, 2007 9:37 AM
35
Posted by Mr. Poe | October 17, 2007 9:39 AM
36

@33: Speaking of heroin, it will interesting to see if a lot of G.I.'s from Afghanistan come back junkies, jus' like Viet Nam. Interesting in a sad way way, you know?

Posted by BillyBob | October 17, 2007 9:40 AM
37

@35: WoW! Scary! I don't know what to say...

Posted by BillyBob | October 17, 2007 9:41 AM
38

The story here isn't that politicians aren't succeeding at their jobs. No, the story here is that 24% of the population is completely fucking retarded.

Posted by T | October 17, 2007 9:49 AM
39

By a freakish act of nature when an egg and sperm hooked up in 1950, I am a boomer. And I take exception to being left holding the bag of shit attributed to the rest of my generation. GenXers, GenYers, Slackers, and postneomodernistsocialisttechnogeekophilenerdlips, your turn as history's scapegoat is coming soon enough. Get politically active and put your money where your mouths are.

Posted by DaiBando | October 17, 2007 9:56 AM
40

I LOVE Ralph Nader. If only I could legally vote...

Posted by Amelia | October 17, 2007 9:58 AM
41

@40, you just answered any question as to why you are not allowed to vote...

Posted by Just Me | October 17, 2007 10:01 AM
42

All kidding aside, Ralph Nader is a fucking idiot. I would vote for a box of diarrhea before I'd vote for that fuckhead.

Posted by Mr. Poe | October 17, 2007 10:03 AM
43

There is one thing that I blame FDR for: preserving the goddamn Dust Bowl. If it hadn't been for him, that region would be completely empty. And for those not in the know, the Dust Bowl encompassed the Oklahoma and Texas panhandles and the western half of Kansas. So, basically, many of the assholes responsible for this mess owe everything to FDR. Talk about gratitude.

Posted by keshmeshi | October 17, 2007 10:07 AM
44

I must agree with T@38. Who are these people? And can we possibly take away their voting rights? Like we do with Felons?

Posted by Dianna | October 17, 2007 10:10 AM
45

Blah, blah, blah about Congress. Congress always has low approval ratings. That's a given, unchanging, fixed feature of the political landscape. What's variable and different is this historically low rating for the president.

Posted by Gitai | October 17, 2007 10:18 AM
46

OA, I share your frustration, but seriously, without the leverage of being able to override a presidential veto, the Democrats in Congress really do have their hands tied. And admittedly, there are enough southern state "Blue Dog Dems" to make even the slim majority they currently hold literally worthless.

The only way that Congress can exercise its Constitutionally enabled check against Executive power is by having a large enough majority in both houses to override vetoes; otherwise, they either keep sending bills they know won't get presidential approval, or, they end up compromising on deeply flawed bills they know the Executive WILL sign. In the former instance the GOP scores points by calling the Dems out as "obstructionist", and in the latter the Far Left calls them out as "spineless".

It's lose-lose no matter how they slice it. It might make some people feel good to see Dems standing up to the president, but in the end it's essentially a meaningless gesture on their part, since nothing gets accomplished by doing so.

On the other hand, sending bills to the president with progressive adjustments too small to justify his veto at least gets a little movement going in the proper direction; as miniscule as it might seem from the perspective of all the BS legislation that's been forced down our throats by a Republican-controlled Congress for the previous six years.

Posted by COMTE | October 17, 2007 10:29 AM
47

@ 45. No, Gitai, what is remarkable is that congress has not impeached a president with this low of a rating. They are not doing their fucking job. Americans are politically retarded for the most part, but they finally see. America is tanking, everybody knows it, and the dems are a liability. Fuck em, I hope they follow the republican party onto the shit heap of history. Pigs.

Posted by libzilla | October 17, 2007 10:52 AM
48

I'm with Cascadian and COMTE. The *only* thing Republicans have been successful at lately is tricking Americans (especially anti-war progressives like the people on this blog) into believing REPUBLICAN obstructionism is actually DEMOCRATIC spinelessness.

The Rs hand out filibusters like candy nowadays. Remember when Ds were in the minority, and they threatened to filibuster a supreme court candidate or two? Ooooooo! "The nuclear option" (which sadly has a different connotation now that President Fuckhead is gearing up for war with Iran. But I digress) It was going to be a rumble! Now it's like, "filibuster. next. filibuster. next..."

It's really, really simple:

* Republicans, even nice old Eisenhower style ones from Vermont: bad.

* Democrats, even gun-nut ones from Virginia or anti-choice ones from Pennsylvania: good.

...because for every Democrat, 80+% of what they believe is right, and for every Republican, 80+% of what they believe is wrong.

Posted by Big Sven | October 17, 2007 10:53 AM
49

COMTE @ 46,


The Dems seriously need to force the Republicans' hand and call their bluff. A good offense is a good defense, right? It's outrageous that they can't push through bills like Iraq withdrawal or SCHIP that the majority of the public supports.

They need to make the Republicans filibuster every bill until they're reading out of the phone book, then they'll earn the right to ask for more seats from the voters. Until then, people will continue to think that they're weak-willed and don't stand for anything.

Their current strategy simply doesn’t work, and we can prove that empirically using the poll numbers.

Posted by Original Andrew | October 17, 2007 10:54 AM
50

Yeah...FUCK Nader AND fuck FDR. That latter asshole was up to his eyeballs in International Bankers.

Posted by JessB | October 17, 2007 10:54 AM
51

Time to impeach!

Posted by MrEd | October 17, 2007 10:56 AM
52

libzilla, speaking of politically retarded, do you understand that it takes a 2/3 majority of the Senate to pass impeachment? And that at present we have 51/100ths? (50/100ths, really, Joe L would never vote to impeach the president.)

WHAT, AMONG THE OPTIONS THAT THEY HAVE, DO YOU WANT THE DEMOCRATIC LEADERSHIP TO DO?

Posted by Big Sven | October 17, 2007 10:57 AM
53

@50 Fuck Hillary too! (or any of them, the are all up to their eyballs with international bankers, Bush, Clinton, Kennedy, ALL politicans)Watch this one: Hillary is going to get the major backing from the Military Industrial Complex in the coming months. Think about it: She has already said that American troops will remain in Iraq (at least 75,000) until 2013.

Hillary, if she does win, will in someway spin the minor troop withdrawl as a huge gain while still feeding the notion of perpetual war that will get her money to run for re-election. And the Democrats will go right along with it.....

Also, what is Hillary going to do about the executive powers that Bush has claimed that are well outside of the Constitution? NOT A DAMN THING. She has not come out against any of it with any plans to do away with it.

It is time for a full fledged Constitutional Convention. Simple amendments will not work at this late point in the game. The executive branch needs TOTALLY AND COMPLETELY RETHOUGHT AND OVERHAULED NOW!!!

Posted by Just Me | October 17, 2007 11:06 AM
54


Big Sven @ 52,


That just doesn't compute. The Republicans were able to shove through their Evil Greatest Hits during their 12 year Reign of Terror and they never had anywhere near veto-proof majorities.

They either scared the Dems into submission, or the Dems collaborated. Either way, the idea that the Dems don't have enough seats to stop Bush is ridiculous.

Posted by Original Andrew | October 17, 2007 12:02 PM
55

See this is why other countries have a wide spectrum of political parties.

Posted by chi type | October 17, 2007 12:29 PM
56

A Constitutional Convention? Yeah, that would be a great idea in the current political climate. So much for the Bill of Rights and checks and balances.

Hillary is bad on foreign policy but she's no worse than Bill Clinton (and her domestic policies might even be better/more liberal). The difference between her foreign policy and that of her rivals isn't that great; Obama and Edwards also said they couldn't guarantee troops out by 2013. If ending the war is everything for you, you have three choices: Richardson (not so good on Iran or the military industrial complex in general aside from ending the Iraq war), Kucinich, and Gravel.

As for protecting the Constitution, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden and Barack Obama and Chris Dodd all voted against allowing FISA surveillance and in favor of restoring habeas corpus to enemy combatants. Kucinich votes the right way on these issues, too. The others say the right things but have the luxury of not having to vote. What more do you want them to do (don't say filibuster because the FISA bill had 60 yes votes with 12 Senators--6 from each party--not voting).

Posted by Cascadian | October 17, 2007 12:31 PM
57

Original Andrew-

"The Republicans were able to shove through their Evil Greatest Hits during their 12 year Reign of Terror and they never had anywhere near veto-proof majorities."

Well, in the first six years of their "reign of terror" they got through precisely the set of things at the intersection of what they wanted and what President Clinton wanted- NAFDA and welfare reform being the biggest. 88% of Democrats view Bill positively, so that must have been a *somewhat* workable system.

In the second half of their reign of terror, which was really a reign of terror, they had a president on their side so they didn't have to care about vetoproof majorities. I will admit they bullied the Dems into not using the filibuster more often, and that is a strike against the dems, but you really can't compare this congress with an unfriendly (to put it mildly) president to the previous six years.

Posted by Big Sven | October 17, 2007 12:50 PM
58

True, Big Sven, most people seem to forget that Clinton was really a "Centrist Democrat", and not nearly as liberal on social issues as most Dems would have prefered; in fact it was his "triangulation" strategy, which essentially distanced him from the left and the right, that got him elected in the first place.

Posted by COMTE | October 17, 2007 1:29 PM
59

@52 and other Dem apologists: Dem opposition to the war, etc....is a song and dance staged for rubes like you. Most voted for the war and are still in congress. The DNC in the primaries funded and backed the blue dog Democrats(Republicans with a D), and made it a point to exclude a huge crop of anti-war Iraq war veterans running for office with the explicit intent of ending the war. http://www.counterpunch.org/walsh10142006.html I guess you could draw a bunch of retarded conclusions form this, but the fact is the Dems are prolonging a war in which most of the population is against. Neat trick that. Progressive humanists, anti war Christians, half assed socialists, fag republicans, etc, need to realize the Dems will never end the low intensity genocide called Iraq War 2.

Posted by libzilla | October 17, 2007 2:42 PM

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