2 years on:
A protected Green Zone. Badlands outside of it. Sorties only in armored vehicles. Occasional bombings that flatten – no change since Clinton. Oil industry limping along, with the hope for betta in the future, and the consolation of most of it being trapped in the ground, thus still available.
Lots of dead. On and on. Bigger prisons.
Partition, de facto, and/or war lords territory, as in Afgh. A mixture of the two, dressed up to look respectable. Only poor Iraqis and Mafia types left there. No civil society to speak of. Agriculture completely thrashed. Not one million displaced, but two, three, or more.
Probably some kind of deal with Iran. Israel may attack Iran; they are already behind the times and playing good proxy to no good purpose. Iran is too powerful, the US will have to treat with them, the upshot will be that the Iraqis will be left to their fate and Israel with maintain the status quo.
Slightly better deals for vet and their families. More poor people who enlist in the US.
A nuclear ME. China Patient.
Pooty Poot a dictator or retired and influential right up front, like the DG of Gazprom!

Posted by: Noirette | Nov 12 2006 19:50 utc | 4

@Noriette (4) – so you agree – no change, just more death …
@faux (5) – Prof Cutler

Posted by: b | Nov 12 2006 20:33 utc | 6

Duncan (eschaton)

The Iraq Study Group which Democrats have decided is going to save them is going to recommend either sending in more troops (McCain/Lieberman position this morning) or beginning to bug out. Elite Consensus will tell us to double down one more time, send in another 30,000 troops or so, while condemning the Democrats as defeatists. There won’t be enough Democrat support to use what little levers of power they have (not many) to force the administration’s hand.

next – how to introduce a draft – wonder who’ll come up with that in the mainstream, but I’m pretty sure it will be a “Democrat”.

Posted by: b | Nov 12 2006 20:59 utc | 8

exerpts from The Mass Psychology of Fascism
To comprehend the relation between sexual suppression and human exploitation, it is necessary to get an insight into the basic social institution in which the economic and sex-economic situation of patriarchal authoritarian society are interwoven. Without the inclusion of this institution, it is not possible to understand the sexual economy and the ideological process of a patriarchal society. The psychoanalysis of men and women of all ages, all countries, and every social class shows that: The interlacing of the socio. economic structure with the sexual structure of society and the structural reproduction of society take place in the first four or five years and in the authoritarian family. The church only continues this function later. Thus, the authoritarian state gains an enormous interest in the authoritarian family: It becomes the factory in which the state’s structure and ideology are molded.
thanks for the pdf links to Ellen Willis’ work. I’ve downloaded them for later.

Posted by: fauxreal | Nov 12 2006 22:23 utc | 10

the musical chairs in the slaughterhouse we shall call baghdad today take farce into a field where everything could collapse in a week
& it seems for some time now the insurgence & all elements of it have notched up the fight to another level of intensity
it is clear that it is they who are doing the choosing of both time & terrain
& from here it is difficult to understand, practically – how the movement of resistance has become so cohesive when it is made up of so many differing elements – but that by all appearances they have more cohesion than the forces that fight them
given the context of the world we are living in saddam hussein’s iraq was not a bloody affair – assad pere has been more brutal with his opposition & the israelis have practiced mass murder & called that a future & also a foreign policy to boot
but bush’s iraq was borne in blood, in innocent blood & it is no surprise that it is the blood of innocents that covers the sans of iraq today
america’s history is a history of violence – a violence done unto others & practiced if you will excuse me to perfection in that the mass of americans have been completely unconcerned about the abbatoirs that latin america was for nearly half a century – they seem not to care at all – & speak of el salvador for example as a ‘victory’, they can have their govt participate in the crudest of coups against chavez & that seems to be o k & they can permit their media to glorify in the sickness of fidel castro
malcolm x was correct to point out long ago how steeped those united states was in violence & it is still a truism that wherever the poor congregate in america – you have abnormal levels of violence & a policing that runs the gamut from day toi day fascism to day to day corruption
the violence of its popular culture inflates itself phenomenologically & concretely
the basis of blood in iraq is that the empire & all its minions whether they be in france, canada or poland – do not care what happens to the real human beings that inhabit iraq
& never have
within that perameter – negropontes & bremers death squads – are to be expected – the formenting of chaos & tension beween cultures, clans, groups & tribes is again something the u s has practiced since the phillipine war
i think many europeans forget – the bloodfest that was the war of secession, they forget the spanish american war – they forget the bloodbath that was the phillipines – except in an undetailed way they do not know the genocide that was committed agains the first people of the americas
they myths of the empire’s efficacity were pumped in the first world war where they arrived very belatedly indeed & conretely made great profit form the ruin that was europe – which was to be repeated in the next great war – where in this instance the russian & the yugoslavian armies did all the real work of fighting fascism
from this moment – the dirty secrets of those united states, those of the french, & of the british whether it was algeria, indonesia or malaysia were well hidden from the mass of people who were entertained & by alfred hitchcock’s half hour & this institution of entertainement & fear became one & the same thing
foxcnnbbc have now made a synthesis of all that
until the blood fills the screen & sprays itself on that public as it did in vietnam – the people will do nothing – because they know – forensically – that they could be the next in line
& that is what their culture tells them if you are a winner you are something
if you are a loser then you are a victim & if you are a victim then you are nothing at all. the death of millions of people since 1945 have proved that to be the truth
the first world does not care
so until the resistance stages acts of such slaughter that the empire cannot continue – the citizens of the empire will not cry out
i think i am the least optimistic of us about the immediate future of iraq
but i know the world will be moved if bolton gets the ass, if waxman’s committees have the courage to investigate thoroughly the real nature of the crime of elites & their representatives & for the chiefs of halliburton & bechtel to end behind bars – perhaps if that can happen – then the world can know that its resistance had meaning & that meaning resonated with the populace of america
i still feel the pschopaths cheney & negroponte are capable of taking us further down than we have been already

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Nov 12 2006 22:46 utc | 12

Looks like the MoA consensus is “hopeless” with the only roles open to the American public being “victim” and “collaborator”. What I see is very different. After a long and seemingly unstoppable period of power consolidation based on control of the machinery of elections, the press, and the cash funnel, the advocates of the American imperium have lost a significant battle and control of some of the important levers of power. Their manufactured consensus, built on media and fear has collapsed. When the winner of the Montana election says openly that the purpose of the Second Amendment is to allow the people to defend themselves from things like the Patriot Act, something is shaky in Napoleonic America.

Posted by: citizen k | Nov 13 2006 0:09 utc | 14

From Roll Call
Pelosi Puts Weight Behind Murtha in Leader Bid
http://tinyurl.com/yajgx2

Posted by: Thrasyboulos | Nov 13 2006 1:09 utc | 16

ck
it would seem that at least in the area of jurisprudence the cheney bush junta have it all sown up – i want to know how their carefully constructed destruction of the ‘rule of law’ can be reconstructed
the media also seems in these early hours – as healthy an instrument of the institution of fear as it ever was
i hope what you say is true – that the imperium can be stopped or stop itself – or even be more restrained in their crimes as other imperialisms were forced to until their final decline
this seems to me like an interegnum & such are the interrelations of this junta that i have a hard time seeing justice ever being done – even within their own world
perhaps abramoff will talk & others will fall, perhaps conyers & waxman will be honourable me & the machinery of hate can really be deconstructed
i am not at heart an optimistic man but as i have sd – the fall of john bolton would be good for starters

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Nov 13 2006 1:49 utc | 18

ck
i hope yr right
i feel torn between the possibilities of the 12 million who marched to oppose this war – 12 million ordinary people living through extraordinary(or as the chinese call them – interesting) times & the passivity not only of your culture but of western culture generallly & all of its works
perhaps i imagine a time when even the worst their jornalist possesssed a little of an ed bradley’s warmth not the vulgar & hideous forms they take today whether it is a hannity, or a blitzer or a wallace
mao tse tung elaborated over & over to never underestimate your enemy but how can it be otherwise when they pull routines that jackie gleason or a red skelton at their worse could have never pulled – routines so crude in their formation, planning & enactment that it stretches all credibility when we soo where those plans lead
it would seem at this hour that the criminals who cavort with the cash they clutched so carnally – the halliburtons & the bechtels or the blackwaters – will not suffer at all
i deeply hope that they will for what they have done to the people of iraq & afghanistan & what trust they have betrayed in their proper citizens

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Nov 13 2006 2:25 utc | 20

jj:
The Dems won’t go for Universal Service, although they might come up with a draft, a Selective Service, named “Universal Service”.
I imagine too-good to be overlooked will be a “guest mercenary” program wherein aspiring “illegal aliens” are sent off to fight and die for a chance at the ring of citizenship… of course they’ll get the same “stop loss” disappearing carrot trick that the present armed forces are experiencing right now, as they depart for their fourth tours of duty in Iraq, their original hitches long since expired. Recruiting ofices will open in Mexico and Central America.
And the program will have the attraction of eliminating, literally, the “immigrant” problem. Worst case, they die in Iraq. Win-win, according to the Republicrat/Demoplican combine.
To suppose that anything will change in Iraq over the next two years is to suppose that there are politicians in Washington who want change enough to swim upstream to achieve it. I don’t think that’s the case.
Thomas F Barton, who publishes GI Special has been insisting for ages that all of our guessing, second-guessing and hand-wringing is utterly wasted, or a salve to our consciences. It will be the Americans who are really being actively abused in the most foul way by the Republicrat/Demoplican combine who will end this war. The same people who ended the Viet Nam war. The grunts in the military.

Posted by: John Francis Lee | Nov 13 2006 3:12 utc | 22

but bush’s iraq was borne in blood, in innocent blood
given facts on the ground and the history of regional factionalism driven by tribalism/class/religion I don’t understand how you can say the americans are utterly culpable for the maintenance of this abattoir as you call it. the problems arise from a matrix irreducible to u.s. pursuit of “empire.” and at this stage of horrors, it strikes me as incredible european commentators here continue to make the claim. “redeployment” which, as I understand it, requires u.s. forces to retreat to the fortresses encircling the beligerents, will prove how much further the civil war will go. it seems to me bizarre persons here who have tracked with great consternation the ongoing war believe the “removal” of occupation will improve matters.
it’s pretty obvious the u.s. cannot leave for many reasons. certainly, the worst is not behind us.

Posted by: slothrop | Nov 13 2006 3:30 utc | 24

Papa Bush (41), Baker & Gates characteristically do not like to leave messy tracks in their wake. And they are too involved now to be ignored or overlooked. Not just involved, but committed.
And there had to be a deal between 41 & 43 to start this effort. And its not “stay the ccourse”. Its probably closer to the opposite.

Posted by: jony_b_cool | Nov 13 2006 3:44 utc | 26

“Unless there is some cathalytic event – another 9/11 in the US, an attack on Iran, or an attack by the Iraqi resistance with mass US casualties, there is nobody important who will really press for change.”
Even with those factors (and another “catalytic” event on this administration’s watch would remove the tiny veneer of competence they keep trying to attach to their failed policies), there is nobody in the world, including the impoverished sector of the USA, who wants it to be their own boots on the ground of that tar baby. Yet the only “solutions” being proposed by anyone who isn’t talking about withdrawal involve more damned boots on the ground.
Hell, US Army recruiters have been reduced to telling potential enlistees that the war in Iraq is “over”. Even the promise of health insurance, college money and three hots and a cot haven’t been enough to entice the poor to fill enlistment quotas for the past three years. So where are these boots going to come from?
There seem to be only two routes for the US, and they both begin with the letter “D”… Draft or Disengage. Nobody makes any money from the second option, so it’ll have to be the first… and Dollars to Doughnuts this proposal will have to come from another “D”… the DNC… in order to have any legitimacy.
Fareed Zakaria, in the latest Newsweek (the dumbed-down domestic version), discusses these boots a bit… concluding, as everyone else has that (t)he question of boots on the ground is critical to any progress, but he doesn’t mention where those boots are going to come from. We only know where they’re not going to come from, which is any nation adjacent to Iraq that doesn’t have a six-sided star on it’s flag.

For three years, America’s Iraq policy has largely ignored the rest of the Middle East. That was no accident. The neoconservative vision was always that Iraq would be made anew, shorn of the flaws and ailments of the Arab world. Before the invasion, senior policymakers speculated that Iraq’s postwar government would recognize Israel. “The road to Jerusalem runs through Baghdad,” they were fond of saying.

I think it’s clear even to the dual citizens who started this thing that squashing the locals aren’t going to make them turn into flag-waving Zionists overnight. So much for Plan A. But Zakaria still seems to be unable to remove the rose-tinted glasses and concludes that those phantom boots we keep talking about are going to be coming from Iraq’s neighbours:

None of the surrounding nations would benefit if Iraq actually did collapse, setting off territorial disputes, sending refugees into neighboring lands and exporting Iraq’s instability. Such an outcome can still be avoided, but only with active support from these countries. The Baker-Hamilton commission can be expected to recommend a major regional effort.

Despite the fact that nobody wants to call this thing, Iraq already has collapsed, and there already is a “major regional effort” going on… it just isn’t friendly to Israel or the USA.
To be fair, Zakaria isn’t entirely removed from reality (even if he can’t seem to shake that ubiquitous pro-Western bias), and his bleak conclusions do reflect that reality. Namely, there is not a soul in the world who can tell us definitely what the fuck we’re doing in Iraq in the first place. Every analysis has to pick one of the several unsatisfying a priori about what the hell it is we’re doing (Was it about oil? Was it about WMD? Was it to overthrow an evil dictator? Was it the US President’s personal grudge? Was it the pro-Israel contingent trying to overthrow a rival? Was it a “central front” on the GWOT? Was it intentionally to destabilize the region to ensure imperial control? Was it to pursue the PNAC “perpetual war” doctrine? Was it motivated to boost the US economy? Was it to justify more defense contracts?) Nobody can prescribe a solution because nobody is precisely sure what the goal was in the first place.
The funniest thing about Zakaria’s assessment is his ultimate conclusion that “America’s only real leverage is the threat of withdrawal”, and that “…for such a threat to be meaningful, we must be prepared to carry it out.” While nobody can agree about why the US continues to occupy Iraq, it’s crystal clear to everyone that we have no intention of budging from there until the administration that put us there is given that rose-petal parade they wanted (viz. They must not allow this to be seen as the liability it so apparently is).
So my projection for the next two years is that there will still be a naked emperor, but he will be obscured from view by a giant pile of boots.

Posted by: Monolycus | Nov 13 2006 4:31 utc | 28

Namely, there is not a soul in the world who can tell us definitely what the fuck we’re doing in Iraq in the first place.
Wait! Hold the phones…
I can. I can tell you what we are doing there insitu Iraq. Or at least I know who can that is…
Antonia Juhasz’s : The Bush Agenda : Invading the World, One Economy at a Time

The agenda has been refined by President Bush and leading members and allies of his administration over decades, dating back most notably to the administration of his father, George Herbert Walker Bush. Its leading framers include men who served in the administrations of both father and son, such as Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Zalmay Khalilzad, Robert Zoellick and Scooter Libby. Decades of joint writing, refining and advocating for a set of clear economic and military principles reached its fullest articulation and most aggressive implementation under the administration of George W. Bush — what I call the “Bush Agenda.” This agenda predates the current president, however, and its advocates certainly hope it will outlast him.
Within the Bush Agenda, “freer trade for a freer world” refers to specific economic policies designed especially to support key U.S. multinational corporations that are used as veritable weapons of war, both in the war on terror and in the administration’s broader struggle to spread its vision of a freer and safer world. Often, these economic policies are applied in tandem with America’s military forces, as was the case in the March 2003 invasion and ongoing occupation of Iraq. To date, the Iraq war represents the fullest and most relentless application of the Bush Agenda. The “freer and safer world” envisioned by Bush and his administration is ultimately one of an ever-expanding American empire driven forward by the growing powers of the nation’s largest multinational corporations and unrivaled military.

“The Bush Agenda is essential reading for anyone bewildered by the president’s reckless pursuit of foreign policies so harmful to the values, the economic interest, and the security of the American people. Juhasz lucidly lays out the reasons, combining solid analysis and data with vivid, if infuriating, illustrations of where the Bush Agenda’s adherents want to take our country.” ~ Rep: John Con-years
I have had this book on my shelf for weeks and have yet to get to it, as
I already am up to my ears in prop-agenda research.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Nov 13 2006 5:07 utc | 30

Oh, and merely because I can, the redundancy is redundant but I found this quote of the day, which raps it all up nicely…

The “bipartisan” Iraq panel—led by Bush Family consigliere James A. Baker III and former “Democratic” Representative Lee Hamilton of Indiana, who prepared a whitewash of the Iran-Contra affair which allowed many guilty men to escape hanging—is expected to move into Endgame before January, and has already pushed Bush Family capo Robert Gates into the top spot at the Pentagon. Members of the group are scheduled to have a joint conference Monday at the White House with Bush, Cheney and military aggression adviser Stephen Hadley.
“All of these things are pushing toward one thing, and that is victory in Iraq,” White House fantasist Dan Bartlett said. “And if there are good suggestions coming from either the Baker-Hamilton commission or elsewhere–Henry Kissinger, John Negroponte, Curveball–we want to listen to them.”
That willingness to listen reflects the new political reality, which is that the Bush Crime Family has about six weeks to get their Big Scam into some kind of foolproof payout mode before the new congress convenes and puts the brakes on the whole big clusterfuck.

Or not…
via: Poppy Bush sends A-Team to rescue Junior (Dirt City Paranoia)

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Nov 13 2006 5:23 utc | 32

So, Bush is now polling at 29%, post election. “Big Daddy” Bush makes the cover of Time magazine, posing as “Big Daddy” with little Brick sulking in the background. The Iraq Study Group has reemerged from its pre-election ruse status and lives on as either an exploding victory cigar for the democrats or a hickory switch for little Brick, or perhaps both. But one things for sure, this aint no study group. At least from the Iraqi perspective — and because of that, it really has nothing to do with Iraq perse. Like Vernon Jordan, Sandra Day O’Connor, or Rudolph Giuliani knows squat about Iraq — sure, how to fix Iraq? Lets ask Ed Meese, I bet he’ll know what to do. Jesus. No way never. No. This “sudy group” is nothing less than a political intervention, an overacted and acting out melodrama version of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Complete with sanctamonious soliloquies delivered and deliberated upon in the media, all with the requisit grave seriousness. After all, reputations are at stake, ideology is at stake, shit, maybe even the old plantation itself is at stake. And like Cat, they will drill and poke through, just enough of it, the mile deep sludge layer of self obsession and denial built up by the whole families work in Iraq, to reveal just enough of the horror created, to facilitate what might begin to look like a sober re-assessment. What might look like a fresh start. Big Daddy and Brick will go into the basement for a real heart to heart, and maybe discover one another. But what they won’t discover, even if the ISG pulls Brick back into the family fold — is that none of this passion play has a fucking thing to do with what happens in Iraq, and everything to do with how we see it, by not seeing it.

Posted by: anna missed | Nov 13 2006 6:52 utc | 34

Another clip from art. Uncle linked @#27, whose significance may have escaped him:
At Princeton in January, Hillary Clinton criticized the Bush administration for being too soft on Iran. “I believe we lost critical time in dealing with Iran because the White House chose to downplay the threats and to outsource the negotiations,” she declared. “I don’t believe you face threats like Iran or North Korea by outsourcing it to others and standing on the sidelines.” Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana is another leading Democrat who wants a more hawkish stance towards Iran. The execution of the next planned phases in the neocon project (the achievement of regime change in Iran and Syria) isn’t necessarily dependent on the Republican Party and the diminishing number of hard-line Bush loyalists within it. Some Democrats want to pull it off.
Why is this important? These JackAsses are presumed to be the Pres. & Veep Nominees in ’08.

Posted by: jj | Nov 13 2006 8:31 utc | 36

Meanwhile over there …
Link

The Shiite prime minister promised Sunday to reshuffle his Cabinet after calling lawmakers disloyal and blaming Sunni Muslims for raging sectarian violence that claimed at least 159 more lives, including 35 men blown apart while waiting to join
Iraq’s police force.
Among the unusually high number of dead were 50 bodies found behind a regional electrical company in Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, and 25 others found scattered throughout the capital. Three U.S. troops were reported killed, as were four British service members.

and over there: Link

Insurgent activity in Afghanistan has risen fourfold this year, and militants now launch more than 600 attacks a month, a rising wave of violence that has resulted in 3,700 deaths in 2006, a bleak new report released Sunday found.
In the volatile border area near Pakistan, more than 20 Taliban militants — and possibly as many as 60 — were killed during several days of clashes, officials said Sunday.
The new report said insurgents were launching more than 600 attacks a month as of the end of September, up from 300 a month at the end of March this year. The violence has killed more than 3,700 people this year, it said.

Posted by: b | Nov 13 2006 9:41 utc | 38

from b’s 1st #31 link
The United States demanded that the defense and interior posts be held by officials without ties to the Shiite political parties that control militia forces.
that should be a neat trick

Posted by: annie | Nov 13 2006 11:00 utc | 40

@b (#39)
Once again… more boots on the ground should do it. Never question the policy, only keep re-arranging the variables within that policy (Change Rumsfeld… maybe we didn’t use enough force… some tactical errors were made). It’s like trying to reason with an insane jeweler who’s looking around his shop for a bigger hammer with which to repair your watch.
The sad thing here is that it’s not just the neocons who keep proposing this. The “more boots on the ground” mantra was taken up early and often by Hillary Clinton and the rest of the DNC… their objection wasn’t that it was the wrong thing to do; their objection was that it was being done “on the cheap” (although you’ll have to walk me through how a projected US$2Trillion+ is a “cheap” war) This must just be a psychological malady that afflicts people who have a lot of defense contractors in their stock portfolios.

Posted by: Monolycus | Nov 13 2006 14:13 utc | 42

Hmm. On the other hand, Democrats say (they) will push for Iraq withdrawal.

Democrats, who won control of the U.S. Congress, said on Sunday they will push to begin withdrawing American troops from Iraq in the next few months but the White House cautioned against fixing timetables.
The Iraqi government must be told that U.S. presence is “not open-ended,” said Sen. Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat expected to be chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee in the new Congress that convenes in January.
“We need to begin a phased redeployment of forces from Iraq in four to six months,” Levin said on ABC’s “This Week.”

Senator McCain, while avoiding the use of the now defunct phrase “cutting and running” in deference to his newly empowered colleagues in the Senate, did strongly imply that the presence of a timetable for the withdrawal of US troops in Iraq would fulfill some ancient prophecy or other and unleash upon the world the unimaginable horrors of Hell itself. Or something to that effect. Feel free to use your imagination a bit… your representatives always do.

Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican considering another run for president, said setting a date for withdrawal “will lead to chaos in the region” and that more troops might be required for stability.
“I believe that there are a lot of things that we can do to salvage this but they all require the presence of additional troops,” he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Posted by: Monolycus | Nov 13 2006 17:08 utc | 44

In two years? Same shit, different pile. Hope not, but likely.

Posted by: gmac | Nov 14 2006 0:03 utc | 46

No, they won’t be pleasant, citizen k, but (to work with your apt analogy) we haven’t just set the building on fire, we’ve been pouring gasoline on the fire ever since we started it. Hell, we’ve become the gasoline itself.
Staying is itself a catastrophic defeat, and the only one we can mitigate.
That’s not as clearly put as I’d like it to be. I’ll try harder next time….

Posted by: alabama | Nov 14 2006 1:10 utc | 48

The democrats will come up with a new strategy, peace will break out all over Iraq and spread to the neighboring countries. All will lay down their arms and embrace each other while singing Kumbaya.
A new American century will produce untold riches for everyone, even brown people.
At the same time, a cure for AIDS will be found (cheap too), world hunger will be eliminated, and the planet will stop getting hotter and return to normal.
Now, isn’t that a lot nicer than all your doom and gloom forecasts?

Posted by: dan of steele | Nov 14 2006 12:38 utc | 50

Pissing in the Liberal Punchbowl Again
-Joe Bageant
a taste:

Ah, but lo and beshit, the Democrats have rescued us. If you can call running around like chickens with their heads up their asses while the Republicans did what they always do — get caught stealing the national silverware, while bombing the hell out of some miserable piece of dirt as a distraction, thereby self-destructing in 12 years as usual, but getting obscenely rich in the process.

Posted by: beq | Nov 14 2006 16:30 utc | 52

And then there’s Morford.

But wait (your inner cynic cannot help but say), won’t the incoming army of Democrats be just like every other gaggle of politicians? That is, a bunch of duplicitous, self-serving, double-speaking shysters? How will they be any different? Won’t it soon be just business as usual?
Well, yes. Yes it will. But the good news is, there is simply no way this far less hateful, moderately progressive group could ever touch the epic, historic levels of abuse and misprision the GOP attained during the height of their neo-fascist run. Such an impossible feat would again seem to defy the laws of evilness.
Put another way, we might indeed soon be back to business as usual in D.C. But never has a return to obnoxious, contentious, healthy American politics seemed so incredibly refreshing. Praise Jesus, and pass the wine.

Hi vbo.

Posted by: beq | Nov 14 2006 18:48 utc | 54

oh i read that already uncle that is sooo yesterday..
i have just a wee bit more faith in the revenge abilities of certain guys like waxman who have been in the forefront of harrasing the ptb over the last however how long..
lets not chop them off at the ankles before they’ve even started.
humph!!

Posted by: annie | Nov 14 2006 19:06 utc | 56