Krugman: Who Is Worse The Lying Republicans Or The Enabling Democrats?

Paul Krugman on the Failure of the Democratic Leaders in Congress to End Bush's Years Long Nightmare of Failure: "Finally, the public hates this war and wants to see it ended. Voters are exasperated with the Democrats, not because they think Congressional leaders are too liberal, but because they don't see Congress doing anything to stop the war."
http://cannonfire.blogspot.com/2006/04/tom-delay-appointee-involved-in-drug.html

OP-ED COLUMNIST
Time to Take a Stand
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: September 7, 2007

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Democrats will look at Gen. Petraeus’s uniform and medals and fall into their usual cringe. They won’t ask hard questions out of fear that someone might accuse them of attacking the military. After the testimony, they’ll desperately try to get Republicans to agree to a resolution that politely asks President Bush to maybe, possibly, withdraw some troops, if he feels like it.

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First, no independent assessment has concluded that violence in Iraq is down. On the contrary, estimates based on morgue, hospital and police records suggest that the daily number of civilian deaths is almost twice its average pace from last year. And a recent assessment by the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office found no decline in the average number of daily attacks.

So how can the military be claiming otherwise? Apparently, the Pentagon has a double super secret formula that it uses to distinguish sectarian killings (bad) from other deaths (not important); according to press reports, all deaths from car bombs are excluded, and one intelligence analyst told The Washington Post that “if a bullet went through the back of the head, it’s sectarian. If it went through the front, it’s criminal.” So the number of dead is down, as long as you only count certain kinds of dead people.

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And six or seven months from now it will be the same thing all over again. Mr. Bush will stage another photo op at Camp Cupcake, the Marine nickname for the giant air base he never left on his recent visit to Iraq. The administration will move the goal posts again, and the military will come up with new ways to cook the books and claim success.

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more at:
http://mgpaquin.wordpress.com/2007/09/07/brooks-and-krugman-12/

Beware of tirades that are based on false memes:

"President Bush's success rating in the Democratic-controlled House has fallen this year to a half-century low, and he prevailed on only 14 percent of the 76 roll call votes on which he took a clear position.

"So far this year, Democrats have backed the majority position of their caucus 91 percent of the time on average on such votes. That marks the highest Democratic unity score in 51 years."
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=1728952&mesg_id=1728952
http://public.cq.com/documents/cqt/news110-000002576765.html

That's how the Dems will be judged.

in ending Bush's occupation.

FISA, War Funding, Private TRADE Deals, Iran attack approval, etc, etc, what is not to love?

:puke:

False memes?

All I see is a whole lotta opposition to meaningless issues while giving the Failure Fuhrer blank checks on VietRaq the Bloodbath and FISA.

WHERE'S THE OPPOSITION TO ISSUES THAT MATTER?????

What good is a $2/hr increase in mimumum wage without a reliable system of checks and balances or a reliable voting system or a strong Free Press, or any of the things our Free Ancestors took for granted that have all vanished (except for window-dressing and bullshit) so swiftly.

So, let the Dems do all those things which are cosmetically nice and would be wonderful in the absence of the Fall of the Old American Republic...if it wasn't happening before our eyes NOW.

In that context however, the Dems remind me of someone standing in front of their mirror in the morning, scrubbing their face and cleansing zits off while a terrible burning smell fills the room.

Oh, that's just their pajama bottoms burning, but the smell of searing flesh doesn't really seem to have the URGENCY that those pesky facial zits do.

So he/we/they burn because of a willful denial of what are the real prorities. Fiddling with zits while they burn alive, yes that is an apt analogy for the Democratic Party and it's opposition to Bushitler.

The Democratic Leadership (and I say this with great pain as I have poured more than a thousand dollars down their maw and worked more than 100 total hours for them over the last three "elections") can therefore, tweak all the benefits of enviro-regs, raise the minimum wage or anything else they want to.

But that burning flesh smell permeates them room and it is overpowering and getting MUCH worse, recently.

And our Democratic Leadership, who evidently don't give a shit if they loose a million phone-bankers and precinct-walkers as long as they can make it up with a whopping check from a rich guy (ten million dollars, you see, is equal to one million peasants and their pussy $10 contributions) are repeating THE EXACT SAME MANTRA AS THE BUSHIES:

"There is no burning happening here. There is no burning smell. Boy you moonbats are crazy! We are afraid of you because Bill O'reilly says you make us look bad."

Oh and by the way, one more little thing: If all those things you wrote are true, why did the Republics impeach Clinton when his crime wasn't even much of a crime (as opposed to lying us into a Hitler-Poland-type invasion of Iraq, resulting in the deaths of more than a million and the maiming of hundreds of thousands more) and they ALSO didn't have the votes to convict?

Why then did the Republics proceed?

If you can answer that question to your own satisfaction, perhaps then you will see why your seeming belief that pre-2000 America still exists NOW, and all your premises based upon the fact that this is just "normal politics", are faulty because your original implict premise, that the politics of America 2000 are the same as today, and we are the same nation that we were then, is so utterly incorrect.

How could any thesis of yours, Perry, which arises from such a flawed implicit original premise, have any validity itself?

But don't waste time on THAT question, yet. Focus on why the Republics felt so comfortable impeaching over a Blow Job when they didn't have the votes to convict while the DEMS are afraid to impeach even with the bloody carcasses of dozens of Felony One counts lay all about them, performed so shamelessly and openly, evidence good enough to convict is laying around EVERYWHERE.

Yet they refuse to notice, refuse to pursue it.

And the Nazis and the Bushies have taught us, The Law is NOTHING without people with the guts to enforce it.

Geezus, he might as well whine from his lofty apartment building and bitch about the view out of his fuckin' window!

.... bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit.

We have the House votes if our leaders LEAD.

Aren't you tired of trying to make excuses for the inexcusable?

Blaming Democrats may be fashionable around here, but it sure as hell isn't reality.

.. that if the situation were reversed, that if the Repugs had our majority in the House, that their leaders could push through ANY LEGISLATION THEY WANTED.

Our leaders are a pack of fuckups who cannot find their own asses with both hands. I don't blame the party, I blame THE LEADERS. THEY ARE NOT LEADING.

And the American public has registered ITS disaproval with an 18%, almost the lowest in HISTORY rating of congress.

Get a fucking clue pal.

I've seen the news, man. You're the one that needs to come up to date.
Want to bitch some more - go ahead, polls don't mean anything to the Republicans blocking legislation. They're dragging the Democrats in Congress down with them.

So, people like you can go out and blame the Democrats!

to "win" 50.1-49.9% in COUNTED VOTES.

And even if the entirety of DU was silent about Democratic weakness, do you think it would change the message THEY send to their base, you know, the people who provide the arms and legs and ears and eyes and feet BUT NOT THE MONEY, that we are stupid, foolsih, not worth listening to, to be taken for granted until the next time our Democrtaic Leadership runs away from us and goes grovelling back when Bushler calls.

Read what happened to FISA. If you are a Marine, how can you look at what happened there and NOT feel a curdling of your guts at the cowardly weakness. They came running back like dogs, under the threat of a pResident with a 28% approval rating.

Remember when America was still free, how a President with a 28% approval rating was hamstrung and no one let someone with no support run roughshod over them. Nixon in '72 and Carter in '79, both hamstrung because they had no support from We the People.

Just curious: Why do YOU think those mores, once ironclad and which reign almost without exception for the 224 1/2 year of Old America, no longer applies today?

I am curious to hear why you think that is.

Another one: Why, during the latest grovelling FISA disgrace, did the Bushie bill pass and needed to pass and did pass with only 50 votes, but the Democratic alternative bill required 60 votes to pass, and of course failed?

Please spare me any technical explanations of filibusters, I know all about them. The definition of filibuster IS NOT the answer to the question I am asking you. Maybe yuou can help me. Why do things work that way now, and how come they seldom, if ever, worked that way during the 224 1/2 of the Old American Republic, God how I loved it so and miss it now. The Greatest Nation in Human History and Bushler unravelled it as easily as you or I would unravel a sweater.

I digress, so I will simply ask you another question. As a Marine (and I am a USAF vet myself), how can you look at that odious display of dog-like cowardice (THEY CAME CRAWLING BACK IN FEAR AND GROVELLED, GIVING CHIMP EVERYTHING HE WANTED AND MORE) displayed by the Democrats during the FISA incident and NOT have a negative reaction?

I though cowardice and toadying were unforgivable sins to Marine, and indeed should be to ANY LOyal American. That's what it MEANS to be American..we don't BOW to Kings!

But the Democrats do. They bow, scrape, whine, wheedle, toady, and then spit right inthe eys of the people who bust our asses for them every other year.

Last question: Why, if those things aboout not having the votes to impeach are true, and they probably are, at least in the absence of the mountains of evidence that would fall from the trees if someone had the balls to prosecuted New Hitler or his Bushies, WHY did the Republic Party impeach Clinton, under the same condition of not having the votes AND WITH NO REAL CRIME TO PROSECUTE, just a bullshit trumped-up perjury charge in which the Bushies committed FAR MORE CRIMINAL ACTIVITY in setting the perjury trap than Clinton did with his BJ?

Why did the Republics go forward with such a fruitless endeavor that was bound to backfire (it did backfire, right? Gore was elected in 2000 and is now President, right?)?

Answer that and you will begin to understand the disease that killed the Old American Republic. Maybe we can resuscitate it, but right now that is one fucking cold corpse.

first: congress critters are not leaders, they may pretend to be leaders, but they are not. They wait for a parade to start, then jump out in front and claim to be leading the parade.

second: there are not enough votes because there is not enough support. conversely, people aren't supporting an particular issue stance because they think there are not enough votes

third: to get the freaking votes, people have to pressure their congress critter, people have to start the parade.

at the moment it's not a lack of support or even votes - it's a lack of hope and belief that we the people can make a difference, it's a "what's the use?" attitude..

:grr:

"We don't have enough votes." is the battlecry of those willing to give up their country.

but the overall Bush agenda of invading other countries on false pretenses and attempting to control their economies for American based multi-national corporations. This includes the basic end of adherence to international laws and standards, human rights, and domestic constitutional rights. This cancer must be eradicated and no one of either party that keeps it going should be allowed to continue it. Us vs them isn't all that is involved in this fight to restore a decent country that will at least work around the framework of rights and decent behavior. This disease has a deepening grip and unfortunately is winning. If my party can't eradicate it from its own ranks, I know it can't effectively take on the republican party that completely adheres to this disease.

Except for two legislators with a (D) behind their name in the Senate, and a handful in the House, the overwhelming majority of Democrats have stood firm against Bush's occupation, voting repeatedly for legislation containing an end date.

I like the pressure that Krugman wants to exert on Democrats who MAY be thinking about buying the administration line, but I really haven't seen or heard any significant number of Democrats willing to accept that violence is down in Iraq, that the 'surge' is working, or that any reduction in violence in Baghdad justifies the continued occupation in any way.

What happened to journalistic integrity? Is it too hard for Krugman (and others) to actually identify the actual legislators who are standing in the way of an end to the occupation and address them, instead of yet another broad brush attack on the integrity of the entire party?

.. now that Krugman is not saying what you want to hear, it's HIS integrity that's in question.

It is the integrity of the LEADERS in the House and Senate that is in question, and there is really no question about it. They are either incompetent or compromised, there is no other explanation.

Killing the troops - where is their logic??

Over 600 Americans have died in Iraq since the Democratic majority was voted in November.

I save some hate for them, too.

Anti-war fervor has not exactly lit up Democratic leadership yet. I think most of 'em are still too comfortable.

than the knife coming at you from the front.

:hi:

What good is it if they never fight what's important.

No more funding, no more war! Their not weak, they enjoy the same benefits and don't really want change, just the perception that they want change so we will just see them as weak but still Democrats who are trying. ;-)

If America realizes they are all playing a game, we would in the streets. Its kind of like WWE wrestling, they hate each other, one side is evil, one side is good and they all make lots of money and are actually friends. Thats our government, the difference is people know WWE is fake and staged but for some reason cant see that the government is?????

are profiting from the illegal occupation of Iraq and would profit further if we expand the illegal military action to additional countries like Iran

So why would "democrats" sincerely try to stop the illegal invasion?