Just like Ann...
Posted on 11/08/2006 3:58:41 PM PST by pissant
History was made this week! For the first time in four election cycles, Democrats are not attacking the Diebold Corp. the day after the election, accusing it of rigging its voting machines. I guess Diebold has finally been vindicated.
So the left won the House and also Nicaragua. They've had a good week. At least they don't have their finger on the atom bomb yet.
Democrats support surrender in Iraq, higher taxes and the impeachment of President Bush. They just won an election by pretending to be against all three.
Jon Tester, Bob Casey Jr., Heath Shuler, possibly Jim Webb -- I've never seen so much raw testosterone in my life. The smell of sweaty jockstraps from the "new Democrats" is overwhelming.
Having predicted this paltry Democrat win, my next prediction is how long it will take all these new "gun totin' Democrats" to be fitted for leotards.
Now that they've won their elections and don't have to deal with the hicks anymore, Tester can cut lose the infernal buzz cut, Casey can start taking "Emily's List" money, and Webb can go back to writing more incestuously homoerotic fiction ... and just in time for Christmas!
But according to the media, this week's election results are a mandate for pulling out of Iraq (except in Connecticut where pro-war Joe Lieberman walloped anti-war "Ned the Red" Lamont).
In fact, if the Democrats' pathetic gains in a sixth-year election are a statement about the war in Iraq, Americans must love the war! As Roll Call put it back when Clinton was president: "Simply put, the party controlling the White House nearly always loses House seats in midterm elections" -- especially in the sixth year.
In Franklin D. Roosevelt's sixth year in 1938, Democrats lost 71 seats in the House and six in the Senate.
In Dwight Eisenhower's sixth year in 1958, Republicans lost 47 House seats, 13 in the Senate.
In John F. Kennedy/Lyndon Johnson's sixth year, Democrats lost 47 seats in the House and three in the Senate.
In Richard Nixon/Gerald Ford's sixth year in office in 1974, Republicans lost 43 House seats and three Senate seats.
Even America's greatest president, Ronald Reagan, lost five House seats and eight Senate seats in his sixth year in office.
But in the middle of what the media tell us is a massively unpopular war, the Democrats picked up about 30 House seats and five to six Senate seats in a sixth-year election, with lots of seats still too close to call. Only for half-brights with absolutely no concept of yesterday is this a "tsunami" -- as MSNBC calls it -- rather than the death throes of a dying party.
During eight years of Clinton -- the man Democrats tell us was the greatest campaigner ever, a political genius, a heartthrob, Elvis! -- Republicans picked up a total of 49 House seats and nine Senate seats in two midterm elections. Also, when Clinton won the presidency in 1992, his party actually lost 10 seats in the House -- only the second time in the 20th century that a party won the White House but lost seats in the House.
Meanwhile, the Democrats' epic victory this week, about which songs will be sung for generations, means that in two midterm elections Democrats were only able to pick up about 30 seats in the House and four seats in the Senate -- and that's assuming they pick up every seat that is currently too close to call. (The Democrats' total gain is less than this week's gain because Bush won six House and two Senate seats in the first midterm election.)
So however you cut it, this midterm proves that the Iraq war is at least more popular than Bill Clinton was.
In a choice between Republicans' "Stay until we win" Iraq policy or the Democrats' "Stay, leave ... stay for a while then leave ... redeploy and then come back ... leave and stay ... cut and run ... win, lose or draw policy," I guess Americans prefer the Republican policy.
The Democrats say we need a "new direction" in Iraq. Yeah, it's called "reverse." Democrats keep talking about a new military strategy in Iraq. How exactly is cut-and-run a new strategy? The French have been doing it for years. The Democrats are calling their new plan for Iraq "Operation Somalia."
The Democrats certainly have their work cut out for them. They have only two years to release as many terrorists as possible and lock up as many Republicans as they can. Republicans better get that body armor for the troops the Democrats are always carping about -- and fast. The troops are going to need it for their backs.
From the comments here at Free Republic, all she needed was blond hair and a short skirt.
I was speaking ideologically, not literally.
The GOP deserved to lose. Although it would most likely have been in the country's best interest for some of the GOP congresscritters not to have gotten what they would have deserved, they made a number of mistakes that probably cost them a fraction of a percent here, a fraction of a percent there, etc. Sheer stupidity. Why, for example, did they squeeze in that "internet gambling" nonsense? There are enough on-line poker players, many of whom would have voted Republican, that such a boneheaded move could easily have cost the Republicans 0.1% of the vote. Sure, that's not much, but when a race is going to be close a candidate shouldn't throw away votes like that.
Ironically, my biggest concerns are about whether Republicans will fumble after their loss, and whether our enemies will pick up a dangerous message from the election. The loss of power itself doesn't concern me nearly so much.
Indeed, if it weren't for those issues ("Aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?") this loss could actually be a good thing for the people in Iraq. The Congress doesn't have the authority to yank us out of Iraq instantly, and giving the Iraqis a warning that they must become self-sufficient within two years would be better than having us win this one bug lose the presidency in 2008 (in which case the Iraqis would be left stranded without warning). Unfortunately, I fear Bush et al. may be tired of having to support the war effort when they're being undermined by enemies within the U.S. Can't say I necessarily blame them, but the Iraqi timetable is probably going to be rushed too much as a result.
The old goats should retire at reasonable ages, so ambitious conservatives don't have to run as Dems to get a chance. I wonder if we will be as unrelenting ridiculing 90 year old Big Daddy Byrd as they were about our old coots ion 2000?
No, they just have the authority to require it as a precondition of critical spending bills that cannot be vetoed.
I'm sorry, but Ann you are a bloody great soldier and you have my undying respect!
Love her to death. She's the best there is at driving right at the enemy.
And God Bless her for it!
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
She cannot put a happy face on this
the GOP was spanked thoroughly
they went from clear majorities in the house and Senate to being a minority in both (probably)
they lost the majority of governorships and the number of state legislators that are dems is now a clear majority for them too
this was after intensive redistricting to ensure a republican majority---in those other years Democrats had control of the redistricting. Republicans that should have been safe are now out on the street
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
W & Co lost because they tried too hard to finesse too many issues. Ann really had nothing to do with it.
Bullsh. She was cheerleading the idiot wing of the party off of the cliff.
By this I guess you are implying that the most conservative segment of the party stayed home.
And I would ask you for proof of this assertion.
Ann's tone is wrong. It's just the usual. I would like thoughtfulness instead of firebombs just for oh, a change.
It's cotton candy. All fluff and invective.
First of all, I'd guess that the "Internet gaming" ban probably had more to do with Republicans' losses than Ann Coulter. So would you accuse the ban's sponsors of treason?
Secondly, Ms. Coulter's statements tied in with a paradoxical conundrum illustrated by The Maltese Falcon. The villain is threatening to kill Humphrey Bogart's character if he doesn't tell them where the Falcon is. Bogey points out that if he dies, so does the secret of the Falcon. The villain suggests to Bogey that while that's true, he doesn't always behave rationally (and thus the threat is still real).
Conservatives want their congresscritters to actually behave like conservatives. They threaten to withhold support if they don't. The congresscritters contemptuously threaten that if they're unelected the conservatives will suffer, so it would be irrational for the conservatives to carry through with that threat; they thus feel they can ignore the conservatives.
What would be nice would be if we could show the Republicans that we were willing to withhold support if they go too far left, without our actually having do so. Unfortunately, that isn't possible. Our apparent unwillingness in the past to act against left-leaning Republicans has made them oblivious to any such threats.
IMHO, the major goal of many people stirring up conservative discontent was to try to convince Republicans in Congress that they needed to acknowledge their base. Had the Republicans done so, conservatives would have rewarded them with support and everyone on the right would have benefited.
Oh well--too late now.
Just like Ann...
Didn't say that. I said "the idiot wing." They're the ones who think they're conservative. Problem is, they also think Paul Craig Roberts is a conservative.
I dare call it treason."
Helping a party you don't like win a national election is treason? So many freaks on this site...
The Dumbass Dimwits in Cleveland didn't know how to operate them.
No, it was to sell magazines and newspapers. Hope she doesn't spend her 6-10 Sieverts all in one place.
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