American voters sent President George W. Bush and his gang of thugs called the Republican Party a strong message Tuesday.
It wasn’t subtle, it wasn’t polite and it wasn’t subject to interpretation.
It said: Go to hell. Go directly to hell. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200.
Democrats needed a net gain of 15 seats to regain control of the House of Representatives. The final count is still uncertain, but the Dems picked up at least 28 seats – nearly double what they needed and that gives incoming Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi the votes she needs to give Dubya and his goons the bung-holing they so richly deserve.
Granted, the Senate is in play but Democrats hold on to slim leads in both Virginia and Montana and wins there give them control of that chamber as well, leaving Bush and the boys wondering if anyone got the number of that truck that mowed them down.
Bush and the Republicans deserved to get run down. They stepped willingly out in front of that onrushing semi called voter anger over the botched war in Iraq and the cesspool of corruption that ruled their party.
Exit polls showed a vast majority of voters royally pissed over Bush’s Iraq debacle, the corruption and broken promises of the Republican Party and the deterioration of individual and civil rights.
Two years ago, those who viewed terrorism as a major issue gave Republicans 90 percent of their votes. This time, they split evenly between Republicans and Democrats.
Two years ago, evangelicals gave the GOP 95 percent. On Tuesday, 33 percent of the religious right wing voted Democrat.
If you had an “R” after your name you became an endangered species. Even Lincoln Chafee, a Rhode Island liberal Republican, and Jim Leach, an Iowa moderate, were left flattened on the road of political ruin.
In Tennessee, Republicans won only because they showed no shame in openly appealing to the latent racism that resides in their base, taking down Harold Ford by stereotyping him as some cock-happy black man chasing white women.
In Virginia, the racism of the old South came home to keep George Allen in the race where he trailed Democratic challenger Jim Webb by a razor-thin margin in a race headed for an almost-sure recount.
Same for Montana, where you can still find enough ignorant rednecks to vote for a corrupt racist like Conrad Burns to keep the race close and undecided when the sun came up this morning.
But in most of the country where people voted with their heads instead of their prejudices, the Republicans could not sway the outcome with money, attack ads and sleazy campaign tactics.
Voters took the first step to take back control of their country. As we head into the daylight of Wednesday, the only two questioning remaining are the fate of two out-of-step incumbent Republican racists named Burns and Allen.
Both of these dinosaurs often campaign as phony cowboys, decked out in their hats and boots and astride horses.
How appropriate, because the message delivered by voters on Tuesday is the type that so often ends with “and the horse you rode in on.”
16 thoughts on “And the horse they rode in on”
While revenge is not an appropriate response, I do feel that we need to be very vocal and clear about telling the Republicans where they went wrong. The Republicans are always trying to tell people how to live when they tend to be the biggest hypocrites and perverts of all. It is not a politician’s place to tell people how to live, that is what a preacher does. It is a politician’s job to create policies which help keep citizens safe in their pursuit of happiness. Republican devisiveness does nothing to help citizens feel safe when all they do is preach hate. Republicans need to stop making the Democrats “the enemy”. We are NOT the enemy. The enemy is hate. The enemy is ignorance. And the Republicans feed both when they demonize anyone and everyone who disagrees with them. And they spend so much time demonizing anyone who doesn’t agree with them that they are missing the big picture. We are ALL in this boat together.
I keep picturing the terror movies, where the victim finally breaks free and gets the gun, wounds the killer, but doesn’t want to kill him. He ends up, getting the gun and further terrorizing and abusing the victim.
I remember limballs saying on a broadcast about Clinton, you can’t just kill the snake, you have to cut off the head. He was refering to getting Clinton and Gore.
I’m afraid that this regime is like that terrorist in the movies. I don’t believe in revenge. I believe that you have to kill that snake and cut off it’s head.
bush has already pulled another ‘fast one’. Gates was involved in the Iran/contra where, the Pres and his CIA, defied congress, helping the contras to kill, torture and disappear thousands of people.
Is that the best the repubs have to offer? Or is it the same old tune, with a different drummer?
Do we need to at least get the hearings and have them ready when that killer gets back up and comes after us?
Rumsey out Gates in?
Gates was an early subject of Independent Counsel’s investigation, but the investigation of Gates intensified in the spring of 1991 as part of a larger inquiry into the Iran/contra activities of CIA officials. This investigation received an additional impetus in May 1991, when President George H.W. Bush nominated Gates to be Director of Central Intelligence (DCI). The chairman and vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) requested in a letter to the Independent Counsel on May 15, 1991, any information that would “significantly bear on the fitness†of Gates for the CIA post.
Gates consistently testified that he first heard on October 1, 1986, from Charles E. Allen, the national intelligence officer who was closest to the Iran initiative, that proceeds from the Iran arms sales may have been diverted to support the Contras. Other evidence proves, however, that Gates received a report on the diversion during the summer of 1986 from DDI Richard Kerr.[8] The issue was whether Independent Counsel could prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Gates was deliberately not telling the truth when he later claimed not to have remembered any reference to the diversion before meeting with Allen in October.
Grand Jury secrecy rules hampered Independent Counsel’s response. Nevertheless, in order to answer questions about Gates’ prior testimony, Independent Counsel accelerated his investigation of Gates in the summer of 1991. This investigation was substantially completed by September 3, 1991, at which time Independent Counsel determined that Gates’ Iran-Contra activities and testimony did not warrant prosecution.
Independent Counsel made this decision subject to developments that could have warranted reopening his inquiry, including testimony by Clair E. George, the CIA’s former deputy director for operations. At the time Independent Counsel reached this decision, the possibility remained that George could have provided information warranting reconsideration of Gates’s status in the investigation. George refused to cooperate with Independent Counsel and was indicted on September 19, 1991. George subpoenaed Gates to testify as a defense witness at George’s first trial in the summer of 1992, but Gates was never called.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Gates
This is the best they have to offer? Or another jab a Dems?
I am so happy. I really thought the repubs would steal another. I called my congressman today and said that we have a mandate, political capital and I didn’t vote for him to be nice to king george and friends.
If you want to punish someone, the Neocons are my pick. A coalition of Zionist Jews and fundamentalist Christian Morons. If we told Israel (and it’s sponsors) to GO TO HELL like we just did the repugs, this world would be on it’s way to being a profoundly better place.
Come on! It doesn’t matter whether the Republicrats or Demopublicans are in control. The Imperial Program remains unchanged, and America is headed down the tubes. Saving America would require completely sweeping aside the present Republican/Democrat structure and implementing something entirely different.
I am happy for the Democratic victory. We worked hard for it.
I am, however concerned that the Democractic Party’s leadership will soon forget, if it hasn’t already, who got them there.
The leaders of the Democratic Party, who are at best complicit in Bush’s crimes, are working on a middle of the road strategy that will not include impeachment and any other (as they would put it) left-of-center desire. This tepid response to the electorate’s clear rebuke of Bush et al is exactly the wrong response to the events of the past 6 years.
We need accountability. This will be our last chance to get it. TheRepublicans, desperate to get Clinton managed to impeach him despite the fact that Clinton did no damage to the United States. Bush and the Republican Majority however, did do severe damage to our country and deserve to be prosecuted for their not-so-benign neglect of our citizen.
Some of the victims of Bush and the Republicans are: American soldiers that died or were permanently maimed in an effort to increase the oil company’s profits. Citizens in California who suffered at the hands of energy traders, the same energy traders (Enron et al) who counted on Bush not intervening in their massive rip-off of California’s enery users. Victims of Bush’s neglect of hurricane victims. Future generations who will have to repay with interest the huge debt that Bush and the Republicans have amassed. And let’s not forget the spying on us, and the rendition of prisoners to countries that torture, to be tortured. As far as immorality and illegality Nixon was a piker next to Bush.
I can only hope that Rep. Conyers by hopefully becoming chairman of the House Judiciary comittee pushes and gets review and prosecution of the Bush Administrations’ illegal, immoral and corrupt actions.
I hold out on to that hope. Pelosi and the other Democrats talking about cooperating with the Repugnicans is looking like a sell-out to me, already. They are, as usual, useless in dealing with the realities of the situation and instead proving once again their complicity.
Let’s hope it’s all talk…meant to soothe the waters, and not an actual strategy.
There’s no way that Bush’s crimes should stand unexposed, unpunished and as a guide for future presidents as to how to behave. We need to send a lesson to future administrations that Nixon AND Bush’s crimes lead to prosecution and imprisonment for those that perpetrate them. Any other lesson sends the wrong message to future presidents, be they Republican or not.
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