Yes! Bush defeated on Social Security.

[icarus]

Right on!

Bush Admits Defeat On Butchering Social Security

Okay, so I added the word "butchering."

This is the beginning of a long slide for the Bush agenda. Next year is a congressional election year, and after that he's a complete lame duck president. Iraq isn't going away and isn't getting any better, and Iraq plus the Katrina clean-up are the two key issues he mentions in this article: both of them stones around his neck.

The less-government pundits are having to face the facts that "less government" leaves us helpless in the face of disasters like Katrina, and "less government" means we can't afford wars in Iraq either.

Bush is not really a conservative "less government" president, by the way. He makes use of a "big government" with items like, oh, wars in Iraq, Patriot Act red tape, then makes himself popular by cutting taxes (for the people who put him in office) with no clue how to pay for it. That's not less government. It's just less money to run the same amount of government.

Anyone want to help me nail his coffin shut? *Icarus hands out nails*

Comments

[killerbeautiful.livejournal.com]

:takes one:

:whacks him in a few key places with the hammer before nailing in the coffin lid:

[webbapettigrew.livejournal.com]

I'm so enjoying watching his Presidency crumble like a well-prepared cherry crisp.

[fiatincantatum.livejournal.com]

I'm just worried that the REAL nail in his coffin is going to be another hurricane or major earthquake. Or a really bad, easily transmitted disease.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Oooo.. ow, ow, ow. Really not nice to hit a man there, I mean no one deserves...

... *counts bodies in NOLA* well, I guess he does at that.

Icarus

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

My favourite line is from a Jay Leno guest: "I really blame us for this whole Katrina disaster. I mean, when we elected him we knew he was slow." :D

Icarus

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

His problem within the Republican party is that he has not lived up to his promise to cut government. Bill Clinton cut more government than he has.

Icarus

[mad_maudlin]

I've actually heard very rational people espouse the theory that Bush's sekrit agenda involves shrinking the government by running up a deficit so huge it will require budget amputations to reconcile. He's also apparently using standardized tests to destory public schooling.

::sticks nail in bush's eye; raises hammer::

[aizjanika.livejournal.com]

I agree, mostly, but don't feel at all hopeful about the future. Our country has changed so much it's barely recognizable as the same country to me any more. What used to be considered "extreme" is now the norm.

Example:
At a bowling league thing for kids last week, another mom and I were talking with a Christian mom. The three of us were having a friendly discussion. Christian Mom wanted to know what we non-Christians believed and why. Another mom (Mom #4) was sitting with us (I didn't know if she was Christian or not since she never said), while we were talking about all of this, when suddenly Mom #4 got all huffy and started clearing her throat and indicating that her son had come up. (This is a kid who has to be 9 or 10 or 12 or something like that.) I was completely oblivious to this interplay and continued talking/listening. Mom #4 grabbed kid and left our table.

Other non-Christian mom was upset as she explained to me what happened since I am such a dunce. Mom #4 came back a few minutes later without child and chided us for having such a discussion where her kid could hear. "I would never do that in front of someone else's child," she said. "It's such a controversial topic."

WTF? It's not like we were describing porn movies we'd watched or something--or even discussing gay marriage or abortion or any number of "controversial" topics. Christian Mom had asked us what we believed about the Big Bang and we were also talking about whether we believed in God and/or Jesus. How is that "controversial"? Am I missing something here?

Mom #4 seriously expected that we should censor ourselves in a public place, rather than that she should remove her child from the area if she didn't want him to hear our conversation.

If that had been me with my child...well, first of all I never minded my kids hearing about others' beliefs (even if it included 2 months' worth of questions later), but if there was something going on I didn't want my kids exposed to (cigarette smoke, discussion of grisly murders...whatever), I'd just remove them from the situation by distracting them with something else or even, "Gee, look at the time. Sorry guys, gotta run!" I can't imagine expecting other people to just not discuss anything *I* didn't want *my* kids to hear.

Encountering crap like this reminds me why we never go anywhere any more. Son loves the bowling, though, and the kids on his team are nice and he's having fun, but geesh...

Anyone want to help me nail his coffin shut? *Icarus hands out nails*

I seriously fear it's too late for that. We'd have to nail the coffins shut for about 99% of the country right now.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I disagree. I remember the Reagan era -- people like this just grow more vocal during such periods. It's cyclic rather than degenerative.

Icarus

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that theory only works one or two years in. After six years--? *snort* Master plan....

[(Anonymous)]

It just occured to me, did he win a re-election? This is his second term? Wholly shit! A whole nation on crack, how amusing! LOL

[stentoriansista.livejournal.com]

Wow, it only took the American people 5 years, 2 wars, and one major natural disaster to see the gross inadequacies of a man they never should have elected in the first place. The really sick thing is I think that if gas prices hadn't risen, his popularity rating would still be in the 50s at least.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

More like 51% of a nation voting pro-religion and anti-abortion.

I really hate being blamed for the re-election of someone I campaigned heavily against. I didn't fucking elect him and it was a very close call.

But he can never be elected again and boy, has he shown his true colors.

Icarus

[jaig.livejournal.com]

Pfffft, I have a lead coffin!

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Wrong. He has never been a popular president aside from the boost he got from war.

His popularity was a bare 49% when he started in office, barely winning his first term against an exhausted Democratic party.

(Recall that the independent prosecutor hounded Bill Clinton for 8 years over Whitewater and finally turned up sexual allegations and an impeachment over his affair.) He did not win the popular vote -- against the Al Gore-bot, of all people, someone we'd made fun of for a decade.

Bush's took heat over his many vacations early in office, and remours abounded that he wasn't really the president -- Cheney was running the show. People were also angry that Bush turned out to be more right-wing than he had let on in his campaign. He had portrayed himself as a moderate Republican, but the first thing he went after in office was abortion.

Then 9/11 hit. Bush's lucky break.

Like every other president during wartime, his popularity soared.

But his popularity ratings before Katrina were already sagging, like every other president during a losing war: 48%, propped up by his tax-cuts and strong anti-abortion, pro-Christian stance.

Katrina hit, and his popularity rating went down to 38%. Overnight.

Icarus

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. We could solder it shut. *Icarus lights blowtorch for soldering.*

Icarus

[stentoriansista.livejournal.com]

OK, Point.
However, you kind of gloss over the part where we *re-elected* him. There were 3 years between Sept. 11th and the 2004 elections, and his popularity stayed high enough through that period(granted, just barely) to get him re-elected.

And maybe it's the cynic in me, but I still think gas prices had more to do with his popularity dip than compassion for Katrina survivors. Sure people were appalled, but it didn't affect say, your average Iowan. It's easy to turn off the tv and forget, it's harder to look at your wallet emptying everytime you fill up. People care about what's important to them, what touches them directly.

Maybe working in politics in DC has made me jaded before my time, I don't know. I work for social justice just as hard as I ever did, but people are really starting to depress me.

[stentoriansista.livejournal.com]

Ok, soldered lead coffin, check. I'm also thinking a stake through the heart and burial in consecrated ground. Anybody in?

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

However, you kind of gloss over the part where we *re-elected* him. There were 3 years between Sept. 11th and the 2004 elections, and his popularity stayed high enough through that period(granted, just barely) to get him re-elected.

Yes. That's part of why he kept us in Iraq. War-time presidents are almost always popular, able to beat the drum of patriotism. So long as he could keep it under wraps that we were losing the war....

The way to keep your hopes from flagging is to broaden your view to encompass vast scopes of time.

I lived in DC for ten years largely, working on the Tibet issue when it came to politics, and it does get depressing.

Icarus

[aizjanika.livejournal.com]

I remember the Reagan era, too. I think these people got even more vocal during the Clinton administration and they've been getting louder ever since.

Still, I hope you're right and not me. :-)

[stentoriansista.livejournal.com]

::smiles::
Thanks for the encouragement. I think a lot of us here just feel like we're banging our heads against a wall, and after a while you just start to wonder "why am I doing this?" It's been my experience that something does eventually come around to remind me why I do this, and in the interim, I can whinge in strangers' journals. :)

[impetuousoddity.livejournal.com]

Damn. You really hate the Bush Administration huh? ::stands impatiently in line for nails::

[singtoangels.livejournal.com]

::puts hand out for a nail:: I want one of those super big ones. You know, like the kind they nailed Christ up with. Hmmn. Nah. The religious conotations would go to his head. Then he'd never stop yapping about his 'new world order' gobshite.

Maybe just a railroad spike to the groin.

And maybe you should read my last journal entry if you want to know what I think he's doing. heh. It's a solid classic. I mean, shit, it worked for Hitler and Stalin, didn't it? Why not for the big W, or whoever's pulling his strings?

BTW - I know this is from ages ago, but I was reading through old emails from you and you said that you knew someone who was doing hosting. That still valid? Could you 'hook a sistah up'? :p

Cheers,
Sing

[vichka.livejournal.com]

ок, I do take the "whole nation on crack" part back. Though, I cant believe the other 49% let it happen.
No, really, I know that you are not on crack ;)
<3

[vichka.livejournal.com]

The coffin is lead. No nails. Blowtorch.