Stephen, O, Stephen... lighten up: the next season of South Park is just around the bend.

Must be worth a toast of some kind, eh?

Hah! You Americans think you've got problems?
I'm Canadian.

Geezer,

Jeebus, but I could use me some South Park right now. I'm three martinis into the evening, and 800 words into an essay that'll end up at LEAST twice that long, maybe triple. Oh, and with no promise of getting paid for it.

Not that I'm complaining, mind you. I mean, I did mention the three martinis, right? But I could still use me some South Park right now.

Thanks for the heads up.

Thanks for putting it in perspective, ahriman. ;-)

Fineman is the typical Democrat ideologue. He is against any and all Repuglicans just because they are Republicans. He’s upset with the liberal Sen. Pat Leahy for voting for the quasi liberal Roberts. Leahy was voting for the liberal regardless of party lable. Leahy put liberals first Fineman puts Democrats first. This is the same kind of thinking that cost the Republicans the elections in 92 + 96 when they ran liberals and got crushed. In both cases they lost to a man who got less than 50% of the vote.

Again I noticed when he lists “official roster of titular Democratic leaders” he ignored the currently very conservative Hillary. She has been #1 on all the polls all year. But he acts like she is a second tier Democrat. Even though she has dropped from 50% to 40% since supporting the Minuteman Project; she is still way ahead of #2 JFK who only got 16% in the Sep poll.

His concern about Change to Win is right in my opinion. But it only reflects reality. Since Reagan crushed Carter in 80 most male union members have not been Democrats. In the 92 + 96 elections the did not vote GOP but they also did not vote jack ass; they found “third parties”.

The rest of his article was a Rathergate style GOP bashing based on MSM/DNC lies :Katrina….

What Rob says. Sorry Stephen, but I don't think you'd want Fineman's version of a non-useless Dem party. He pretty much sums it up in his last 'graf by singing the praises of 'Big Idea' LBJ. The only good guv't is a Big Guv't.

I'll pass, thank you very much. I'm waiting for Rudy to declare as an Independent. A hawk on the WoT, fiscally conservative, a proud and vocal supporter of Israel, and doesn't give a shit about what people say about him. Does it get any better?!

Fineman is a democrat partisan hack. All he's really saying is no matter how moribund the republicans may be, the democrats can manage to be even more so. This is not good news. Both parties need a serious infusion of real leadership.

First, this Delay thing may be a blessing in disguise for Republicans. It may help them get back "on message" regarding Federal Spending and that'll be good for them and the country.

Also, I don't think Fineman is a hack, even though he's probably sympathetic to the Dems. His point is an obvious one, they don't what to stand for now.

Agree with Mike the Analyst. Fineman is no hack; he's a perfectly reasonable middle-of-the-road pundit. , if perhaps slightly left-of-center.

Just finished Churchill's "The Gathering Storm" about the run-up to WWII.

Think we've got problems? Imagine a Conservative government run by Neville Chamberlain with the Socialists (LaboUr) in active opposition.

It took the Brits getting their butts kicked in Norway and the Krauts rolling through France for them to buckle down and get their act together.

While Bush is doing his part, the rest of the DC establishment and the media is still putzing around with business as usual.

My one and only very liberal, very Democrat friend summed it up pretty well the other day. "Oh for the glory days of the carismatic Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis."

Ok, so both parties suck. But look at the people -- both here and abroad, now and in the past -- who are devotedly enthusiastic about their political party. Do you really want to be like them?

Just remember this great post by man who never shirked from writing a 3000 word essay...

The Dems are in complete denial about the fact that they stand for nothing. It's all Hate Bush, all the time. I have no idea what they're going to do when he's gone. Meanwhile, the GOP is at least putting out ideas. Social Security reform, going after terrorists, tax cuts, tax reform ideas, etc. Bush's ideas on rebuilding the Gulf were wonderful - tax free zones, union-free zones, enterprise loans..all these things can let the country see Republican ideas in practice. Compare this to the Dems great ideas...such as.... Well, that's my point.

I don't know where this meme that the Democrats have no ideas came from, but it's clearly false. It's easy to list off a bunch of positions the Democrats support that aren't just "hate Bush".

They're pro-choice on abortion.

They support race preferences.

They support transnationalism in foreign policy.

They want justices who are policy-driven.

They want to raise taxes.

They want to increase government control over health care.

They want to increase funding for education without imposing performance standards.

They want more stringent environmental policies.

They want weaker protections for property rights.

They want to prevent ANWAR drilling.

That's just off the top of my head. With a bit of research I'm sure I could double or triple that list.

The problem the Democrats have isn't a lack of ideas. Their problem is that the majority of their ideas are not popular with the electorate, and the Democrats have figured that out. That's why they typically don't state their views clearly and run on them proudly. Unfortunately, they aren't willing to abandon their unpopular ideas, and that leaves them without a positive program that they are willing to articulate. The result is that their public face becomes strongly negative -- "hate Bush".

Think of it another way. If the Democrats truly stood for "nothing", then we would have no idea what they would do if they came into power. But we *do* have a pretty good idea of what they would do if they had the power, and that's what they stand for.

Thankyou Kyle, you are dead on.

I dunno, I don't see the difference from any other time. I mean, we've had two totally useless parties for pretty much the entire time of it.

As I noted right here, if you look both parties right now are viewed with record levels of disapproval.

For three years or more now I've been saying the same thing: Republicans stand for things. Democrats stand for nothing except that Republicans are evil. Advantage: Republicans.

Of course the DK crowd wants to make the Democrats stand for something, but what they want them to stand for will send voters screaming to the arms of the Republicans. Or that's my prediction anyway.

Dean,

I would say that the Democrats stand for things, in the sense that they have a certain set of core beliefs. The conflict between the party insiders and the DK crowd is that the insiders think those core beliefs are unpopular with the electorate and must be concealed or whitewashed if the Democrats are to regain power. The DK crowd thinks those core beliefs would be popular with the electorate and thus should be proclaimed boldly and clearly.

I actually agree with most of the above. What I meant was that the Dems have no NEW ideas, just the same old retread quasi-socialist/Euroweenie crap they've been peddling for 30 years. Those ideas have been discussed to death, and most of the country has rejected them. I'm here in the Bay Area, so I am around a lot of people who actually believe the country really WANTS socialized medicine, open borders, "peace" at any price, etc. They have no clue that they are profoundly out of touch with the mainstream. But then again, in typical liberal fashion, they simply dismiss the rest of the country as racist, homophobic, fascist, Christer knuckledraggers. They simply do not believe they are wrong. It is impossible for them to believe this, as they never meet anyone who disagrees. The disconnect from reality is astounding.

Good God, I'm two fifths of rum and half a six-pack into th' evening, and I thin' that any opt'mism is mos' unwarranted, plus, yer' all the wors' sort of hom'sexshul deviates with puppies that won' be 'cepted by either party which'z why'n y'should be voting with GUNS by God an' has'no mistake I'm sending y'all in'rictaely-made wooden packages right now watch out.

Zappa 2008 n' so forth amen.

Stephen,

Don't worry about worthless parties in time of war. We in the Army will get it done regardless of who passes through the halls of COngress or sits in the Oval Office. I enlisted under Reagan, was commissioned under Bush Sr., was deployed under Clinton (Bosnia), fought under Bush Jr. (Afghanistan)...saw both Houses of Congress change hands (Senate more than once). We still take MAcArthur's warning seriously - fail and the nation dies.

Have a nice Bombay Sapphire martini for me (I am deployed down New Orleans way and can't indulge).

Lack of leaders? I'm not sure I buy that one. True leaders are in shortage at any time, but I see three decent leaders who will be running in 2008 - Rudy, McCain, and Hillary.

Contrast that to 2000 when the Dems ran Gore and Bradley.....

another hideous terrorist attack, those BASTARDS!!

Deaths reported in Bali blasts

Saturday, October 1, 2005; Posted: 9:13 a.m. EDT (13:13 GMT)

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) -- Several explosions occurred almost simultaneously Saturday in tourist areas of the Indonesian resort island Bali, killing at least two people and injuring many others, police and Indonesian media reported.

Foreigners were among the victims, witnesses said.

"I helped lift up the bodies, there was blood everywhere," I Wayan Kresna, a witness, told El Shinta radio station, adding that at least two people were dead. "Many people have been brought to the hospital."

Kresna said he witnessed the explosion at a seafood restaurant on Jimbaran beach, which is frequented by foreign tourists.

Another near-simultaneous explosion hit a shopping center in downtown Kuta, about 30 kilometers (18 miles) away.

Kuta was the site of October 2002 bomb attacks blamed on the al-Qaeda-linked terror group Jemaah Islamiyah that killed 202 people, mostly foreign tourists.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/10/01/bali.blasts.ap/index.html

McCain?

Take him, please.

It's October, must be Ramadan season. The festivities are beginning.

Wait!

The Dems DO have ideas and we'll find out in '06, via Bros. Judd:

Democrats have an answer to the question, "OK, what's your alternative to the Bush policies you constantly criticize?" It is: "We're working on it." When it emerges, in a form yet to be determined, it's likely to include proposals for tax reform, health insurance, energy independence, national security and retirement reform.

Both House and Senate Democrats, plus outside consultants and think tank operatives, say that the party should have a full-blown alternative agenda to take into the 2006 elections - but that it doesn't need one yet. Democrats think that 2006 could be - in the words of Democracy Corps, the liberal polling group - "a major change election," like 1994, when Republicans gained 52 House seats and nine Senate seats and took control of Congress for the first time in 40 years.

They think that 1994 happened to them because of negative campaigning by Republicans against then-President Bill Clinton, defeat of his signature health care initiative and perceived corruption in the Democratic Congress.....

Oh, and I received another request for $ for the RNC, and the survey asked whether I intended to vote in '06 and '08.

Interesting.

Interesting. I had a recorded message on my answering machine when I got home last night. It started out with "This is X, chairman of the Republican". That's when I hit the delete button. But it does seem like the GOP party infrastructure is getting nervous. I'd be really curious to see what their internal polling is telling them right now.

McCain should cross the aisle to the Dems. At least it would take the MoveOn heat off Lieberman.

But I would vote for a red-ass ape before I voted for John McCain...

You know, I have gotten those calls from the GOP also. They asked what issue was the most important to me out of a list. I gave my answer and the girl rattled off a scripted repsonse to my answer then asked for a donation. Since my pick on the questions was illegal immigration, I told them that until there was a change in policy about the enforecement of illegals, there would be no donation from this household. That totally flabergasted the young lady on the phone. They have since called back, and gotten the machine.

I am hard pressed currently to find ANYONE from ANY party that I could live with...

Becky, I wrote back on the survey that if getting them to return to their principals by sending them back to permanent minority status, then so be it.

When they call again, just tell them "you're not listening." No money until you start acting like republicans.

The Republicans have ideas but no leadership (or will) to really push them.
The Democrats have neither ideas, the will or the leadership to do anything.
What this has created is a vaccum that enough useless Republican politicians are filling with typical political, vote buying, garbage.

Unfortunately, (speaking as a conservative) this will probably end up with enough Republicans losing to give control back to Democrats over the next couple of national elections.
Republicans have a historic opportunity to make the case for conservative federal policies and they are blowing it.

Why? Once again, power corrupts and (near)absolute power corrupts absolutely.

I hate what the Democratic party has become and what it will mean to the country if they prevail but no one will be more responsible for their recovery than the "leadership" of the Republican Party; Bush, Hastert and Frist.

Sandy-

"Becky, I wrote back on the survey that if getting them to return to their principals by sending them back to permanent minority status, then so be it."

It's "principles". Just FYI...

Thanks, Terry. I knew that. I've just forgotten.

SAHM - brain's kind of mushy.

Neither the Democrates or the Republicans have new ideas, it is obvious to anyone who has looked at the history of our republic. Currently the best goverment we have had in the last 50 years was Bill Clinton in the white house and Newt Grinrich running the Congress. Bill kept the republicans from getting any of their bad ideas passed into law and Newt kept the democrats from getting any of their bad ideas passed either... opps I ment "new" instead of bad. Over those 8 years (I know newt got replaced), because no new ideas got passed into law the number of federal employes droped 320,000 and dang if the budget didn't go into a surplus. Quite frankly I don't give a dang about the culture wars its a bunch of wind and thunder that dosn't matter much to the continued viablility of US as a nation. Reckless spending and increasing the national debt without end do matter. I want divided goverment again with fisicaly responsible leaders and if it takes Newt being president with Hillery as the Senate leader.. I will do my part by contributing to both of these leaders, or anything that will get us fisicaly responsible leaders again. The House / Senate / President should be not controlled by the same party again since having all these branches in the same hands leads to bad results.

Dan

Dan - the Senate isn't controlled by the pubbies.

that's the point.

I've often said that the worst thing about the Bush administration was that he was the best choice available in '04.

I have this awful suspicion that things would be even worse under a Democratic Federal government, and that we'll get to see it first-hand.

I would have taken a little comfort from the fact that the current administration got to fill two places on the USSC...

then Bush nominated Meirs. (sigh)