Washington Hotlist - Politics 2.0

Quote Of The Day

Joshua Rosenstock — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 15:34:51 +0000

“There’s no question about it. Wall Street got drunk. It got drunk and now it’s got a hangover. The question is, how long will it sober up and not try to do all these fancy financial instruments?”

Setting aside the fact that George Bush is the last person who should be making jokes regarding alcohol or the economy, if Wall Street was drunk, guess who was the bartender?

McCain = More Politics As Usual

Joshua Rosenstock — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 13:49:19 +0000

Sen. John McCain’s campaign on Tuesday distanced its foreign policy adviser from a longtime Republican fundraiser who paid the adviser $130,000 when he was a lobbyist.

The payments by Texas businessman Stephen Payne to McCain adviser Randy Scheunemann, ending in 2006, were largely for lobbying Congress and executive branch agencies on energy issues, according to records filed with the Senate.

McCain’s presidential campaign says that Scheunemann did not lobby McCain on any issue relating to Payne, who is caught up in a controversy over whether he sought to sell White House access to a prospective business client.

How does McCain claim to be a different type of politician that can bring about change when his campaign continues to churn out more stories like these that remind us all of same old-same old? If McCain really cared about campaign finance and ethics reform, why would he permit such an individual to be so closely linked to him?

One of McCain’s main arguments about why he should be President and not Senator Obama is that his long experience in Washington has given him better judgment. Between Scheunemann and Phil Gramm, McCain has shown a strong lack of judgment regarding those who would have high level cabinet positions in a McCain administration.

Remember When We Thought The Democrats Were Divided?

Joshua Rosenstock — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 13:39:52 +0000

Supporters of maverick Rep. Ron Paul who are organizing a rally as an alternative to the Republican National Convention are moving their crosstown event to a larger venue.

The Rally for the Republic featuring Paul — the Texas conservative failed in his bid to win the GOP nomination for president — is scheduled for Minneapolis’ Target Center, home of basketball’s Minnesota Timberwolves.

It is too bad Paul didn’t get a better look from Republican voters. Anyone that desires a maverick that engages in straight talk (sound familiar?) got the raw end of the deal.

Would A Muslim Do This?

Joshua Rosenstock — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 13:34:36 +0000

If We Have Succeeded, Why Not Withdraw Troops?

Joshua Rosenstock — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 22:34:43 +0000

“Military, economic, political and all the benchmarks that we said that the Iraqi government had to meet. They haven’t got them all, but the fact that the government is functioning effectively, the economic situation is improving dramatically, the Iraqi government now has control of the major cities of Mosul, Basra and Sadr City as well as Baghdad…. Do they have a lot more to go? A distance to go? Yes, and it’s very fragile. It can be reversed. But they’ve succeeded.”

Translation: Mission Accomplished!

Is This What Change Looks Like?

Joshua Rosenstock — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 13:31:09 +0000

Senator McCain is fond of telling voters that it is he, not Senator Obama, that will be the most effective candidate to bring about change, which is interesting considering as a longtime member of the Washington establishment, that means there is something wrong with the job he has done.

When you see the picture below, does change come to mind? And didn’t Bush’s father and his former national security adviser strenuously oppose our current policy in Iraq (which has been defended so agressively by McCain)? If McCain is to win this election, it would behoove him to get on the same page with the people that support him.

The Media Should Report News, Not Be News

Joshua Rosenstock — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 00:42:26 +0000

I think I have had about enough of various mainstream media outlets (the New York Times is frequently guilty of this practice) talking about itself or other mainstream media outlets as if it is somehow newsworthy. It isn’t. The New York Times is just a newspaper. There are many newspapers. There is no reason for the Associated Press to release a story about why or why not the New York Times would or would publish an op-ed piece by John McCain. As if publishing the piece would make the right wing blowhards like the New York Times any more. They won’t. The perception that the New York Times is a mouthpiece of the Democratic Party has been held for many years (for good reason) and won’t go away on one decision.

It is interesting that sometimes professional pundits will say that certain memebers of the mainstream media love John McCain while other times they are guilty of favoring Obama. Which one is it? Is McCain a maverick or a traditional conservative? Is he a darling of the media or not? Too many people are trying to have it both ways in this election and it needs to stop now.

You would think with so many issues going on in the world today, the AP and other media outlets would have their hands full with real news that voters could use.

Bush, in a Shift, Accepts Concept of Iraq Timeline

Steve Levine — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 15:54:59 +0000

HOUSTON — President Bush agreed to “a general time horizon” for withdrawing American troops in Iraq, the White House announced Friday, in a concession that reflected both progress in stabilizing Iraq and the depth of political opposition to an open-ended military presence in Iraq and at home.

Mr. Bush, who has long derided timetables for troop withdrawals as dangerous, agreed to at least a notional one as part of the administration’s efforts to negotiate the terms for an American military presence in Iraq after a United Nations mandate expires at the end of the year.
The agreement, announced in coordinated statements released Friday by the White House and Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s government, reflected a significant shift in the war in Iraq. More than five years after the conflict began with the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, the American military presence now depends significantly, if not completely, on Iraqi acquiescence.

The White House offered no specifics about how far off any “time horizon” would be, with officials saying details remained to be negotiated. Any dates cited in an agreement would be cast as goals for handing responsibility to Iraqis, and not specifically for reducing American troops, said a White House spokesman, Gordon D. Johndroe.

But the White House statement said that the two leaders “agreed that improving conditions should allow for the agreements now under negotiation to include a general time horizon for meeting aspirational goals such as the resumption of Iraqi security control in their cities and provinces and the further reduction of U.S. combat forces from Iraq.”

The announcement could alter the American political debate over the war in Iraq and how best to end it now that even Mr. Bush is willing to speak of an end to the American presence. It came on the eve of a trip to Iraq and Afghanistan by the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Senator Barack Obama, who has vowed to pursue a strict phased timetable for withdrawing most combat troops from Iraq over 16 months beginning next year. He has cited Iraq’s eagerness for a timetable as support for his strategy.

Anyone else get the feeling that we’ve stepped Through The Looking Glass into Lewis Carroll territory…that Humpty Dumpty is once again telling us, “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master — that’s all.”

In an effort to distance themselves from Senator Obama’s long-standing call for a timetable for troop withdrawal from Iraq, the administration has devised the maddening locution, “a general time horizon for meeting aspirational goals,” and has the chutzpah to deny that this in any way represents a timetable for…troop withdrawal!

Apparently, when reality bites these Masters of Dissembling and Obfuscation in the ass, they have no qualms about adopting the very positions that they have previously ridiculed!

Quote Of The Day

Joshua Rosenstock — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 17:48:38 +0000

“If the vice president did nothing wrong, what is there to hide?”

Another Bush Gem

Joshua Rosenstock — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 17:52:47 +0000

From our President - the gift that has kept on giving for nearly eight years:

“I readily concede it (lifting a ban of offshore drilling) won’t produce a barrel of oil tomorrow, but it will reverse the psychology.”

Translation - As long as it looks like the government is doing something to address the energy crisis, Americans will ignore reality and be satisfied.

This is concrete proof that your President really does think you are as dumb as he is!

Sounds like the President has been getting his talking points from former Senator Phil Gramm and his infamous “mental recession.”