John McCain in his own words:
This is how you run against a war-monger. This is how you attack his supposed strengths. The American people are done with this war, and they are most certainly done with this disastrous, draconian, oppressive Republican mindset. McCain, Mr. 26%, and the rest of their Republican party are dinosaurs, awaiting extinction. War is not the answer, no matter how valiant and virtuous they paint it.
Good luck with that in November? Exactly.
I have long been a John Edwards fan, but I haven’t been ready or willing to commit to his candidacy until now. It certainly seems to me that he has really caught fire in the past few weeks, and I don’t believe I’m the only one who’s noticed. I just hope it isn’t too late.
I am especially thrilled with the fact that he has continued to attack the rich and powerful, especially those who have bought and paid for our leaders in Washington. Edwards recently said, “We’re not gonna have an auction in Iowa, we’re gonna have an election. We’re gonna decide who the best candidate is, not who the person is who can raise the most money.” This is a refreshing and much needed change after seven long years of bush league government sold to the highest bidder.
Contrary to popular belief, the presidency of George W. Bush has not been a failure. Rather, I submit to you that he and his Republican party have been quite successful in the things they set out to do. The sad fact is that those things were never meant to benefit me and you — it was always about enriching themselves and the people that put them in power. Nothing more and nothing less.
There is a undeniable wave of authentic populism in America right now. You see it in Ron Paul’s fund-raising numbers, in Mike Huckabee’s overnight emergence from relative obscurity, and in the deep emotional response to John Edwards. Very few Americans have shared in the Bush boom, and many are truly struggling to make ends meet. We also have very real concerns about the priorities of our government and our standing in the world.
John Edwards is clearly a threat to the status quo, and those who stand to lose their unfair advantage under an Edwards administration have made a concerted effort to silence his critiques and eliminate his message from our political discourse. But that just makes an ad (via Digby) like this one even more powerful:
Doug Bishop says, “I’m gonna do my best to make sure that my children aren’t the first generation of Americans that I can’t look them in the eye and say ‘you’re gonna have a better life than I did.” Both he and I believe that Edwards is the only candidate on either side who can make that happen.
I sincerely hope he gets the chance. It will be the fight of a lifetime, but one that desperately needs to happen and one that we can win with a President John Edwards.
Digby on Rudy:
I’m finding myself more and more obsessed with the Giuliani campaign because it really appears to me that the Republicans may just nominate someone dumber than Bush and crazier than Cheney. And without the morals of either of them. How is that even possible?
I hate to say it but I think she might be right.
So said Rep. Artur Davis (D-AL) to John Tanner, the man in charge of voting rights in the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, last week in a hearing on Capital Hill.
This simple rebuttal was in reference to Tanner’s appearance before the Georgia NAACP where he actually said “because our society is such that minorities don’t become elderly. The way white people do. They die first.” More importantly, Tanner’s statement follows years of advocating for a law requiring a photo ID to vote, which was clearly designed to disenfranchise elderly black voters in Georgia. So when Tanner finally appeared before his committee, Davis wasted no time in exposing his utter idiocy and willful ignorance:
Other money quote, “once again you engaged in an analysis without knowing the numbers.”
I point this out not because it’s amusing (though it clearly is), but because Davis’ levelheaded, unemotional, and irrefutable line of criticism and questioning is the perfect tonic to the past seven years of faith-based fear-mongering. This is precisely how you defend the truth against the Bush administration’s known proclivity to fix facts “around the policy.”
Why we as people aren’t more forceful in the prosecution of bald-faced lies is beyond me, but if there is one lesson I hope we learn from the Bush era it’s this: we cannot afford to let these little lies and even bigger crimes against humanity go unpunished, for every day that passes without a sound provides more cover to their actions and legitimacy to their deeds. We must work day and night to expose every falsehood and fraud perpetrated by these mendacious criminals, and enlist friend and foe alike to turn back their massive onslaught against what is fair and right.
To do any less is to concede that all is already lost.
Please tell me why each and every one of our Democratic Senators and Representatives isn’t fighting to get in front of this one. It defies common sense.
Where are our esteemed Presidential contenders? Hillary Clinton? Barack Obama? Not a thing. No leadership. Their silence suggests complicity. Is that really so? We’re not only listening, we’re watching your every move.
Harry Reid? He’ll sell out the American people for $22,000 in Telecommunications contributions from 2001 - 2006 (I can only imagine what his take will be for 2007, now that he’s the Majority Leader). And seriously, $22,000 — is that all it takes? He could easily raise much more in an hour with a decisive stand, and motivate thousands of people to become even more intimately involved in his cause.
Jay Rockefeller? Sure, he’ll write a stern letter and talk a mean game, but folds at the first sign on conflict. Is it really this hard? Yet again, he seems perfectly content to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Not even George W. Bush is this incompetent.
It seems only Chris Dodd understands what’s at stake. And it’s clear to me that this isn’t about politics, or winning the election, it’s about standing up for what is right; it’s principled leadership, pure and simple. And just in time too. George W. Bush and his corporate cronies are hell-bent on “saving” us from our freedoms, the very way of life that is guaranteed by the Constitution.
Thus far, only one man stands in between democracy and the destruction of all we hold dear. It sounds preposterous, hysterical even, but think about it: are we all subject to the same laws, or are the President and his benefactors / beneficiaries solely above the law?
