Former "troll" talk now mainstream

[M]

Hehe... remember this little post of mine?

The Democrats have, since 2000, been getting angrier and angrier at the GOP and later independents. It all started with the Recount. Not the impeachment- that was added onto the list later my demagogic revisionists.

Then there was the 11th, when the most liberal Dem watched Bush with respect and admiration grab that bullhorn. "I can hear you! The whole world can hear you! And the people who knocked those towers down will be hearing from us real soon." The nation cheered the Patriot Act, the whole country listened with approval as Bush announced that rogue states were terrorists as much as the terrorists themselves.

We went to war with the Taliban. RW Apple's first quagmirish piece came out. Everyone still supported the president officially. But the very lefty among us began to feel uncomfortable. They couldn't oppose the war, but the brief surge of patriotism was draining from them adn they were revolted by their own proud American feelings, the sort that has marginalized partisanship in WW2.

After the war they began to vent. The war was strategically brilliant and morally praiseworthy, but we had failed to secure the peace. The nation was rampant with guerillas. This was true, and nobody really noticed that anything was too amiss.

But Vietnam syndrome cannot be cured as simply as Lost Generation syndrome was cured by Pearl Harbor. It was too deep and too fundamentally anti-American. By the time, an entire year later, Bush wanted to take on the next rogue terror mastermind, Saddam Hussein, liberals were remembering that Bush has "stolen" the election.The majority of lefty politicians tepidly supported the war. But their oen support was decaying. Eventually straddling the divide was the worst choice of all. Lefty idealogues that Dems had betrayed them with their pseudo-patriotism, And the GOP and moderate independents realized the Dems had dumped the idea of bipartisan pro-Americanship against our common enemy. So, in 2002, we dumped them.

Now, the presidential election was heating up. Daschle and increasingly Kerry sounded anti-American, pro-France, and at least sympathetic to Baathism, PLO, etc. They made up the ridiculous idea we were not at war with terror sponsors, or even terrorism itself persay, but merely with Al-Qaeda.

Then came a horrid shock to all lib idealogues. We finally went to war with Iraq and 3/4 Americans felt it was the right thing to do. Now, in case any of you haven't figured it out yet, WMD was just an unsuccessful ploy to get France to go along with us. It was outweiged by France's Iraqi debt, oil contracts, personal involvement with Saddam's WMD, etc. We went to wwar with Saddam because of 9/11. No, Saddam didn't plan. He may have given them operational support through Prague embassy, but that really wasn't the point. We went after Saddam because he was a.) a terror sponsor, and b.) a brutal dictator, whose removal wouyld spark a domino effect in the Mideast. (BTW, it has- see Bahrein, Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan, Oman, UAE, Morocco, Egypt, even Saudi steps toward democracy. Also Israel's improving relations w/ many Arab states.)

So post war the dems were mad as hell and they wanted no more of it. Bush was a liar, we went to war for noreason, or oil, or to gain a colony (huh?), or as parrt of an evil Zionist conspiracy, or cause they just liked war, or because Bush was really stupid, or even all of the above.

All this without our little friend Howie, the darling of the media and academia (whose views he shares completely). So where's he come from? Lurch's pride.

Yes, Lurch. (Althought to me he more closely resembles Sam the Eagle.) Little Howard Dean, an angry yippie and an absolute nobody, started attacking Kerry. Kerry, he claimed, supported war with Iraq and then turned around and opposed it. He, Dean, had always opposed it. This was nectar and ambrosia to dogmatic Dems. But they wouldn't have heard a bit of it. After all, Graham had a similar campaign that never caught on, and he was a sitting senator from an important state.

Suddenly, Senator Kerry takes off the gloves, saying furiously that he has an impressize war resume and a proud record of public service, so bug off, you little twit. Suddenly people saw Dean. And more and more of 'em liked what they saw.

So Dean moves further and further to the left, and rich yippies are giving him millions. Kerry just swerves left in a vain attempt to catch up with him. Everyone else also moves leftand gets angrier. So now it looks like the choice for Dems is Dean or Dean clones. Around this time Vilsack announces Dean is part of a top tier. Time Magazine picks this up and suddenly everyone knows Dean's name.

Now, Joe isn't taken in. The media can't stand him. He had a few brownie points for being Gore's running mate and nobly waiting to see if Gore would run for pres (which of course he wouldn't, knowing he would lose clearly this time.) Joe gets a few good punches in defending Israel. The media barely mentions this. When they do, the spin is that Lieberman is the negative one for bashing Dean for bashing Bush, and suddenly Joe's candidacy disappears.

Clinton, Hillary, Gore, and McAuliffe are getting more and more worried. The coalition Clinton had brought together and made the strongest political power in the nation was fracturing. it was spinning off to the left, and Bill knew he had to avert disaster, by any means necessary.

Enter Wesley Clark. The general, a lifelong Republican who never got along at all with Clinton, let the Russkis take Pristina airport (which they still hold), and can't make up his mind on a single issue, suddenly gets a lot of media buzz. Why? He's swarming with Clintonites. And he goes... nowhere. Ouch. Every speech he makes has a new wacky foreign policy idea, and all the while he says presidential candidates shouldn't make foreign policy decisions. He's not even a good speaker. So he sinks like a stone.

Some effort now gets pumped into Edwards campaign, which was on life support. A formerly working class Southron with, uh, "great" hair, he briefly had a lot of media buzz several months back. Then people figured out he was a broken record with a single line: "My father used to work in a sawmill with lint in his hair and grease in his face." This was his answer to every question from, "why not wait till 2008?", to, "how would you deal with North Korea?" Where that'll go, we have yet to see. But it doen't look too encouraging.

Then we have Dick Gephardt. Oh, boy. The man who kept getting a few more seats in the House and a few more and then... 2002 disaster. The darling of organized labor, whose components are going Dean. The caucus is going to be on a below zero January evening. Who would motivate you to go out and "chill" with your fellow partisans, and nominate your candidate? The entertaining little doctor, with his strongly held radical positions and his fury? Or Richard Gephardt, who was serious concerns about the poposed FTAA? Um, yeah...

Well, at this point I'd call Howie unstoppable. Thoughts?

[M]

This is quite true. Last year, I was still on a 9/11 high. However, I do think we have a good chance for 2008 if we run Rudy, Arnold, Condi or McCain, even Frist. If the dems nominate Bayh, though, he would win big, likely with my vote.

[M]

Well, either we are moving into a truly split nation- which VERY narrowly favors the GOP for the presidency, favors the GOP by a fair amount for the House, and will lead to a regular GOP crushing majority in the Senate; or someone is about to emerge who will again build a Nixon, Reagan or Clinton like consensus and redefine, or solidify a redefinition, of American politics. For the Democrats, the best choice by far would be a Bayh-Richardson ticket, which I would likely be a strong supporter of. For the GOP, I increasingly think an Arnold Termination Landslide is a brilliant and realistic possibility. I think the Hatch amendment WILL get passed, and I have seen Schwarzenegger operate- his I-am-the-people style is executed perfectly and is almost unbeatable. As a backup, Giuliani makes a lot of sense but has baggage; Powell or McCain could do it too but won't. Rice is a brilliant running mate, as is Frist. If neither party makes these moves, and you end up with something like Frist or Owens vs Hillary- exoect a repeat of 2000 and 2004, narrow GOP presidency, a congress trending strongly GOP.