Just one question... (Vanity)

Aussie Dasher | 8 November 2006 | Aussie Dasher

[Aussie Dasher]

Watching in stunned amazement from the other side of the Pacific, trying to take in the electoral devastation meted out to the GOP, I have only one question (and my inquiry is genuine): How the hell was this allowed to happen?

[familyop]

IMO, our President should order destruction of Iran's nuclear, communications and ground-to-air missile sites, then have our military get out of the way and lay low. Subsequent reactions from terrorist regimes could be very educational for us. We could use a national will to fight sooner rather than later.

[g]

[yankeedame]

I don't see it as "devastation." Ruling parties tend to sit on their behinds after a while in office. I just woke up, but looking through the numbers I get a feeling that things could've been a lot worse.

Hear! Hear!

[PogySailor]

Uncontrolled spending by the GOP may have been a factor. Yet I can't get my head wrapped around the idea that the solution a majority of voters chose was to turn the purse over to the party that BRAGS about soaking the rich and spending like a drunken sailor.

[MNJohnnie]

Pretty hard to win a battle when 40% of your squad spent every day of the last two year every day shooting its leaders in the back.

The Always Angry do not get off the hook on this just by screaming "It wasn't our fault". Yeah it is.

The perpetual whining from Conservative Talk Show Hosts, Columnist etc about a political glass only 70% full is the largest reason for this. Now they have a glass 100% empty. I hope they enjoyed dumping out the glass with their temper tantrums. There are no guarantees another such glass will come to them in their life time. Last time the Republicans lost the US House it took them 42 years to get it back.

Spending all your time sniping your own side because they are not dogmatically pure enough for you does not win battles

[verity]

"Never underestimate the stupidity of the American voter."

[joesbucks]

Which conservative talk show hosts from the jaw bone media are you referring?

[Grut]

The main problem with our democratic republic is that there is no IQ test required to vote.

That's because there's no IQ test required to pay taxes.

[trisham]

Actually I think this is normal for mid term elections. It always seems that good Republican rule is followed by the folly of the Democratic party. Americans seem to have short attention spans and have forgotten the Democrat iniquities of the past. When their taxes are raised and their freedoms curtailed by the Dems we will probably see another shift to the right in '08.

************

Well said, with the exception of the shift to the Right in '08. That's far from assured, imho.

[tiki]

The Republicans lost their base. It really wasn't about the war in Iraq, it was about honor and living up to your promises. There was no cohesion, most ran away from Bush. They weren't true to their principals.

And the number one thing as I see it, they weren't strong. They had no firm principals, they didn't care about the country.

[Conservativegreatgrandma]

Your analysis I can buy. I think they're misguided but the MSM has convinced enough stupid voters to believe that Bush is just keeping our troops in Iraq for the fun of it.

[Pan_Yans Wife]

Quagmire? I thought that was the buzz word at the beginning of the war. Either way, it isn't accurate.

[Crawdad]

A little Led Zepplin this am wouldn't hurt. This has to be the Kos kids new anthem.

Ah, ah,
We come from the land of the ice and snow,
From the midnight sun where the hot springs blow.
How soft your fields so green, can whisper tales of Gore,
Of how we calmed the tides of war. We are your overlords.

On we sweep with threshing oar, Our only goal will be the western shore.

So now you'd better stop and rebuild all your ruins,
For peace and trust can win the day despite of all your losing.

[Toespi]

Our biggest gain. Two conservatives on the Supreme Court.

[madprof98]

Hubris. I voted for one Democrat yesterday, a guy running for state representative (didn't even know who he was). I voted for him because our conservative, pro-family GOP state rep changed his position on an issue I care about (school calendars) almost immediately after his election, sent me a nasty note about it that claimed he had some superior sort of knowledge unavailable to the lay public, and now refuses to comment on the issue at all.

I think something similar happened to the GOP nationally. The Iraq war is the chief instance of it. How many times did we hear that the popular perception (most people's perception) was just wrong and that the tide was turning and victory just around the corner and so on?

I don't think most people who voted for Democrats knew much about them. They only knew that they wanted to punish some people who had forgotten who put them in office.

[Conservativegreatgrandma]

Uncontrolled spending by the GOP may have been a factor.

On to the extent it may have kept some of our voters home. Spending will be far worse with RATS in control. We ain't seen nothin yet.

[Steel Wolf]

This war is three years old and you use words like "long time". That is ridiculous.

Given the massive disparity in forces, three years is a pretty long time to be at war, chief. Iraq took three weeks to win. It's three years later, and the place is still a disaster. As much as FR loves the WWII comparisons, this ain't it. Iraq is a backwards country of just over 20 million people. The insurgency ain't the Wehrmacht.

Moreover, this war has been a huge success by any empirical standard.

Your first sentence illustrates exactly why we're not achieving victory. Everyone wants to compare body counts, win-to-lose ratios of small arms engagements, and land mass controlled. All important for defeating a conventional enemy. All useless for winning the real centers of gravity in Iraq; the support of the people.

The media imposed a total blockade on positive interpretations of Iraq. Bush's comments were ample but always deprived of a context of supporters.

That's simply not the case. For one thing, President Bush's comments were neither ample nor accurate. Media bias and ineptitude increased the damage from those comments, but even a perfectly even handed media coverage would have reported more bad news than good from Iraq.

My first time in Iraq, I hated the media with a fierce passion. They weren't lying, exactly, but they'd hover like flies on insurgent made-for-tv propaganda attacks. Newsmen want to see blood, and the insurgents showed them were to look. A win-win scenario for those two. We should have done like we did in post war Germany, and imposed a total media blackout on resistance activities. Why? Because allowing that coverage, non stop, 24/7, is what turned the spark of insurgency into a bonfire.

But, like so many other facets of Iraqi reconstruction and postwar planning, the administration handled the media as well as a deer handled a speeding 18 wheeler.

Its too bad this McWar didn't meet your high standards.

I don't know what you mean by McWar, but I can assure you we'll look back and wish we had done it right.

[MNJohnnie]

No, people who should KNOW better keep aiding the Democrat Noise machine attack on Iraq policy.

NOTHING in War is perfect. This constant need to whine because things are not being done the way this person thinks it should is what feeds this negativity about Iraq

Counter Insurgency is NOT Total War. Different Mission, different tactics, different problems. This inability of Americans to get out of their War Movie mindset of easy answers and painless victories is the cause of this simplistic nonsense about Iraq.

Forget any sort of muscular US Policy. Now we will sit and do nothing until they hit us. They we will do limp wrists ineffective responses and we will get hit again and again and again. Simply because the American people cannot be bothers with anything more complex then a Rambo movie style war.

The Russians followed this Wage Total War Doctrine purposed by the "Iraq is a mess" crowd in dealing with Afghanistan. How did that work out for them?

[handy]

My suggestion is that every Freeper who still subscribes to a newspaper call and cancel TODAY.

I have no more subscriptions left to cancel. Gone long ago.

[Gay State Conservative]

More and more Americans are,or believe they are,dependent on "government" for their survival.One of our two great Parties is controlled by filthy 1960's Maoists.A substantial percentage of Americans are,put quite frankly,not very bright....and 90% of *them* vote democRAT.

[repvetsyiydli]

Let's see. Scandal, extreme spending, immigration, and one that get's by most of the Reps, lack of BALZ!

Do you see Kerry resigning after impuning our Military?

Do you see that New Orleans congressman resigning after the FBI raided his office?

Hell no!

All you see are weak willed Reps jumping ship at the 1st sign of Dem and MSM fabricated scandal.

Now we'll see if President Bush really stays the course or get's NO NEW TAXES just like his father.