Are the Democrats any different than the GOP?

Not when it comes to incestuous backroom political machine dealing. It seems the Democrats haven’t come very far since the days of Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley (1902-1976).

In 2004, Dem leaders dumped a promising candidate in Governor Howard Dean, who created a buzz through his straight talk and Internet website, to go with horse face Senator John Kerry just because it seemed it was his turn.

This year in Ohio, state and national Democratic leaders forced a promising candidate, Paul Hackett, an Iraq war veteran, who came a close shave in defeating Republican Jean Schmidt in last summer’s special congressional election, to drop out of a Senate race against incumbent Senator Mike Dewine.

Who do they want? Rep. Sherrod Brown, who served 2 terms as Ohio Secretary of State in the 1980’s.

Paul Hackett charged that “behind-the-scenes machinations” by Schumer, D-N.Y., and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., cut off his campaign money to avoid a potential primary faceoff with Rep. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio.

Hackett, a lieutenant colonel in the Marine Reserves, said he was quitting politics rather than take the party’s advice to run again for the House in Cincinnati’s suburbs.

“Thus ends my 11-month political career,” said Hackett, who gained a national profile with scathing attacks on President Bush as a “chicken hawk” – and by nearly defeating Republican Jean Schmidt in last summer’s special congressional election.

Ohio’s Hackett quits Senate race, politics 

So the new kid on the block gets shoved aside to maintain the old boy network.

Why have primaries at all? I mean if the party bosses decide who can run then a primary vote is just a formality.

Former Senator and one time Presidential candidate Gary Hart commented:

This is simply old politics at its worst. There is a party which hand-picks its candidates, decides who can and cannot run, directs money to the favorite candidate, and dictate terms. Up till now, that party has been the Republican party.

Now, it seems, my Democratic party is once again imitating the Republican party in a desperate effort to regain power. With the McGovern democratic reforms in the early 1970s, political bosses were diminished and grassroots voters were elevated. The theme was, Let the people decide.

Gary Hart: Pressuring Paul Hackett To Abandon Campaign is Old Politics at its Worst

It is yet another reason I see no worth in participating in party politics and is yet another proof that the US political system is broken.

The Democratic Party died today

I am announcing my official break with the national Democratic party.

I was never a party member. I have never declared my party at election time and I refused to vote for party candidates during the primaries, but in recent years I have voted Democratic and given them money – especially during the 2004 elections. But even that level of support has ended for me as of today.

The party died for me on Wednesday when the Senate Judiciary Committee’s senior Democrat, Patrick Leahy of Vermont, announced his endorsement of Judge John Roberts, shortly after leaving the White House where the 2nd vacancy in the Supreme Court was discussed with President Bush.

Leahy said:

[Judge John] Roberts “is a man of integrity,” said Leahy, who told Roberts over the telephone about his decision. “I can only take him at his word that he does not have an ideological agenda.”

John Roberts Picks Up Democratic Support

The problem is that Roberts refused to answer truthfully many of the questions during his confirmation hearing. For example:

“At least two other matters enjoy sacramental status. Sen. Diane Feinstein, D-Calif., asked Roberts — who had promised the committee to tell the truth, “so help me God” — whether he accepted the “absolute” separation of church and state and whether he would support giving special treatment to racial minorities.

Again, Roberts promised to follow the Constitution, which is why Feinstein undoubtedly will vote against his confirmation.”

The problem with Roberts

Basically Roberts is Scalia light. Someone who plans on ruling based on the 200 year old text of the Constitution rather than on the interpretation of those words as the court has done since judicial review – which by the way also isn’t in the Constitution – was invented.

Abortion isn’t in the text so women have no right to it. Separation of church and state isn’t in the text so it doesn’t exist either and so on.

Scalia’s Dissenting Rhetoric

The truthful answer he should have told Senator Feinstein was – No, but instead he side stepped the question with a vague answer.

So much for Roberts being a man of integrity with no agenda .

The only thing that could save my support for the Democrats would be that maybe Leahy worked out a deal – he gives up on Roberts and Bush nominates a less conservative woman for O’Connor’s spot.

Some how I doubt it.

Some would argue that the Democrats realized that the Roberts nomination was a done deal what with the GOP majority. It would seem that Leahy wanted to preserve what political capital the Dems have and hold off a fight until it really matters.

Bullcrap!

How important is the appointment of the Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court? Political and religious conservatives are frothing at the mouth to get Roberts on the court since they seem to think he will start putting the court back to where they think it should be – like “separate but equal” is ok and women *ARE* property of their husbands.

Face it, the Democrats got outplayed again by Rove and company and were handed their balls.

If principles don’t mean enough to them, to fight to the bitter end, then why should I vote for them or give them money?

I still don’t plan to declare a party but I do plan on supporting my local and state Democrats where it makes sense but my days of supporting the National party are over.

Democrats: We like anal lube. Really.

Once again the Democrats bent over and became spokespeople for anal lube:

Senators Avert Showdown Over Filibusters

By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent

Under the terms, Democrats agreed to allow final confirmation votes for Priscilla Owen, Janice Rogers Brown and William Pryor, appeals court nominees they have long blocked. There is “no commitment to vote for or against” the filibuster against two other conservatives named to the appeals court, Henry Saad and William Myers.

The agreement said future judicial nominees should “only be filibustered under extraordinary circumstances,” with each senator � presumably the Democrats � holding the discretion to decide when those conditions had been met. Officials said the pact was intended to cover the Supreme Court as well as other levels of the judiciary.

http://tinyurl.com/bj26z

What this means is the Dems lose the fight over the most contentious nominees and gained a “maybe” the Republicans won’t drop the bomb on the filibuster in the future.

If I was the Democratic leader I would have dared them to do it and when they did make sure the Dems never voted on another piece of legislation for the rest of the term. Instead of Yay or Nay each one would be asked to vote “present”.

That way when the elections came around the Dems could say we stood up for our party and the Republicans are responsible for every thing passed that term.

Now once again the spines are no where to be found.

If find any please send them to the DNC, 430 S. Capitol St. SE Washington, DC 20003

Talk about a Flip Flop

Senator Zell Miller’s speech at the Republican National Convention on 9/1 was the talk of all the pundits that week, especially when Miller challenged Chris Matthews to a duel. Back in 2001, Miller had nothing but nice things to say about John Kerry. President Bush and the Republicans have harped on Kerry for changing his position on some issues over the years yet here is Miller saying nice things about Kerry in 2001 and then being real nasty about him at the RNC in 2004. The following intro is posted on Miller’s Senate website:

Introduction of Senator John Kerry

Democratic Party of Georgia’s
Jefferson-Jackson Dinner

March 1, 2001

My job tonight is an easy one: to present to you one of this nation’s authentic heroes, one of this party’s best-known and greatest leaders � and a good friend.

He was once a lieutenant governor � but he didn’t stay in that office 16 years, like someone else I know. It just took two years before the people of Massachusetts moved him into the United States Senate in 1984.

In his 16 years in the Senate, John Kerry has fought against government waste and worked hard to bring some accountability to Washington.

http://miller.senate.gov/speeches/030101jjdinner.htm

Selected quotes from Zell Miller’s speech at the RNC on September 1, 2004 and my responses

Zell Miller is the “Democratic” Senator from Georgia who has made no bones about the fact that he supports President Bush mainly for the so-called “war on terror”. On Wednesday evening, Miller gave a bitter angry speech against the Democrats and why he is supporting Bush. I decided to post some selected bits of the speech and give my responses to them. My responses are indicated in bold with the Me: indicator. Miller’s quotes are in italics:

President Roosevelt, in his speech that summer, told America “all private plans, all private lives, have been in a sense repealed by an overriding public danger.”

In 1940 Wendell Wilkie was the Republican nominee.

And there is no better example of someone repealing their “private plans” than this good man.
He gave Roosevelt the critical support he needed for a peacetime draft, an unpopular idea at the time.

And he made it clear that he would rather lose the election than make national security a partisan campaign issue.

Me: And Wilkie was a loser – several times because his party was still known as the ones who did nothing when the Depression hit. It would be another 10 years before the GOP won the Whitehouse.

Besides it is the present GOP that is making National Security an issue in the campaign. It is the only “issue” they can run on and is a smoke screen.

I can remember when Democrats believed that it was the duty of America to fight for freedom over tyranny.

It was Democratic President Harry Truman who pushed the Red Army out of Iran, who came to the aid of Greece when Communists threatened to overthrow it, who stared down the Soviet blockade of West Berlin by flying in supplies and saving the city.

Me: The Democrats defended freedom in Vietnam…. oh wait…. never mind.

And it was Truman who integrated the military and started the trend of Democrat support for civil rights ending decades of tyranny in this country.

Motivated more by partisan politics than by national security, today’s Democratic leaders see America as an occupier, not a liberator.
And nothing makes this Marine madder than someone calling American troops occupiers rather than liberators.

Me: Better have a talk with W. who, in a press conference, said we were occupying Iraq.

Tell that to the one-half of Europe that was freed because Franklin Roosevelt led an army of liberators, not occupiers.

Me: But FDR and later Truman didn’t force Europe to adopt US version of democracy. The people in Europe wanted to be freed from Nazis but the US presence since 1945 has not been a big party. All we did there was remove another occupying army.

Tell that to the lower half of the Korean Peninsula that is free because Dwight Eisenhower commanded an army of liberators, not occupiers.

Me: Eisenhower? He knew it was a stalemate unless he used nukes, ran in his first election promising to bring the boys home, and did the right thing and signed a truce. Oh, that’s right Zell, South Korea is free because of a truce and 130,000 US troops and a lot of Koreans don’t want us there anymore because they feel we are the obstacle to reunification.

Tell that to the half a billion men, women and children who are free today from the Baltics to the Crimea, from Poland to Siberia, because Ronald Reagan rebuilt a military of liberators, not occupiers.

Me: No Zell it was economics, not the military that brought down the Iron Curtain. The USSR went broke.

Never in the history of the world has any soldier sacrificed more for the freedom and liberty of total strangers than the American soldier. And, our soldiers don’t just give freedom abroad, they preserve it for us here at home.

Me: Sort of. Although the military is prohibited from being used as a police force here, we go and pick fights in other countries from time to time so our enemies don’t come here and try it. Actually the fact we are bordered by the Atlantic and Pacific has more to do with our relative security than having a large army.

For it has been said so truthfully that it is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us the freedom of the press.

Me: Actually it is the Bill of Rights and the courts that protect the press.

It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech. It is the soldier, not the agitator, who has given us the freedom to protest.

Me: Again it is the Bill of Rights and the courts.

It is the soldier who salutes the flag, serves beneath the flag, whose coffin is draped by the flag who gives that protester the freedom to abuse and burn that flag.

Me: No, the Bill of Rights

No one should dare to even think about being the Commander in Chief of this country if he doesn’t believe with all his heart that our soldiers are liberators abroad and defenders of freedom at home.

Me: It doesn’t stop them from making stuff up to justify using the military. Reagan – Grenada, Bush Sr. – Panama, Johnson – Vietnam, Bush Jr. – Iraq…..

They don’t believe there is any real danger in the world except that which America brings upon itself through our clumsy and misguided foreign policy.

Me: That is just a lie Zell but it sure sounds good doesn’t it. We have had some clumsy misguided foreign policy of late but no Democrat would be caught dead saying there was no real danger in the world.

It is not their patriotism – it is their judgment that has been so sorely lacking. They claimed Carter’s pacifism would lead to peace. They were wrong.

Me: With no qualifiers, sort of. But Carter did bring Egypt and Israel together and until Sharon and his thugs messed things up, there was actually some hope that #1 problem in the Middle East might be solved.

They claimed Reagan’s defense buildup would lead to war. They were wrong.

Me: Excuse me Zell, but do you read the papers. Maybe you mean a nuclear war? Even that is not certain with Pakistan and India having their fingers on the button. I guess we are just on vacation in Iraq.

And, no pair has been more wrong, more loudly, more often than the two Senators from Massachusetts, Ted Kennedy and John Kerry.

Me: Ah…. the LIBERAL card. At first I thought his brain had stopped working and he forgot who was running on the Dem ticket.

Listing all the weapon systems that Senator Kerry tried his best to shut down sounds like an auctioneer selling off our national security but Americans need to know the facts.

Me: Since 1996, the John Kerry who once opposed the Apache helicopter and wanted to cut Tomahawk cruise-missile funds by 50% has evolved into a steady supporter of military budgets. Starting in 1997 Kerry voted for every regular Department of Defense appropriations bill and for every authorization bill as well. Before that time he did oppose entire defense spending bills but not specific weapons systems in order to help reduce the federal deficit and in one proposal use the savings to hire more police officers.

This is the man who wants to be the Commander in Chief of our U.S. Armed Forces?
U.S. forces armed with what? Spitballs?

Me: If that is what Congress wants to pay for then sure.

Senator Kerry has made it clear that he would use military force only if approved by the United Nations. Kerry would let Paris decide when America needs defending. I want Bush to decide.

Me: Ah… The French card – nice Zell. Too bad Kerry never said it.

John Kerry, who says he doesn’t like outsourcing, wants to outsource our national security.

Me: What? He never said that.

For more than twenty years, on every one of the great issues of freedom and security, John Kerry has been more wrong, more weak and more wobbly than any other national figure. As a war protestor, Kerry blamed our military.

Me: No, he blamed the civilian leaders of the military who sent he and others to war they knew we couldn’t win but were too full of themselves to get out until they lost all public support. That is a fact as told but the actual people who made the decision to continue the war in Vietnam.

As a Senator, he voted to weaken our military. And nothing shows that more sadly and more clearly than his vote this year to deny protective armor for our troops in harms way, far-away.

Me: Bush sent troops to Iraq without enough body armor and armor for Humvees. Kerry voted to pass the $87 million bill that would have sent more body armor to the troops and rolling back Bush’s tax cuts to pay for it. That bill was defeated. So Kerry voted against the bill without the change to pay for it.

John Kerry wants to re-fight yesterday’s war. George Bush believes we have to fight today’s war and be ready for tomorrow’s challenges. George Bush is committed to providing the kind of forces it takes to root out terrorists. No matter what spider hole they may hide in or what rock they crawl under.

Me: First of all, the GOP is encouraging the attacks on Kerry’s service record. 2nd if Bush is committed to rooting out terrorists then why is Bin Laden still on the loose.

Get well soon Zell