George Bush

   Everyone should consider very, very carefully when they pick their President every four years. History – recent and ancient – demonstrates that the President of the United States is a very powerful office, particularly when supported by sizeable piece of the Congress – and we elect a President for four years no matter what happens.

   The war in Iraq is extremely unpopular as is its main supporter George Bush. But Bush, blind to majority opinion in Congress and the population, continues to execute an aggressive policy in Iraq.  History will document Bush as one of history’s most inept Presidents, but, hey, he has a year left and there isn’t anything anyone can do about it. A vote for President should be a serious decision.

 

All the media types seem to be bashing Democrats in the Senate for the all-night marathon before losing a key vote on their Iraq War withdrawal measure. They used phrases that the vote as a ‘sound political defeat’ for the leadership, etc. A foolish concept since everyone new what the vote would be before they started that is except for one Maine Republican who defected her party because of her tough reelection battle in a fiercely independent state.

Of course lost in the noise was the fact that a majority of senators would have voted for the measure had it not been for the rule that requires 60 percent approval of proposals brought to the floor. This is the same rule that bottled up civil rights legislature for decades until the early 1960s. In a way the Dems made their point and are now moving on.

There is of course a danger. A poll last week by the Associated Press noted that the approval rating for Congress is even lower than President Bush’s. It’s hovering in the 20s. If the Democrats are going to curry favor with the electorate for the next election, they are going to have to fix this. While Harry Reid looks good to the party’s base supporters, his image is probably way too shrill for most Americans. But then he might be the only distinguished member of the Senate that isn’t either 80 years old or running for President.

I picked up a CD version of one of the greatest rock albums of all time, "Who's Next" by The Who. I have carefully preserved the vinyl version for years, but by comparison it's aural muck. But when you play this reprocessed CD on the big old power stereo that takes back to the 70's, it's near Nirvana, and not the Cobain version. The CD version does justice to the lead riffs in the bass lines, rattles the house to the timbers and sends the kid scampering to her room as if I were playing the best hits of the Mamas and Papas. Particularly driving were the opening keyboard bars of Barbara O'Reilly that build into crashing bass. You can't play this stuff properly on an IPod. Maybe I should save my allowance for 'Tommy.'

Al Gore is turning into a new type of American hero. He has beating the American political system by working “off the grid,” becoming a more potent political force than the dozen or so dwarves running for president. And he is driving the country’s media nuts because he is taking his case for global climate change directly to the public and American opinion leaders. Who needs Maureen Dowd? They are doing all they can to suck him back into the political system, so they can hammer him. In turn his newest book is about the decline of the American media. Gotcha!