Talking Points

“…It really depends upon how our nation conducts itself in foreign policy. If we’re an arrogant nation, they’ll resent us…but if we’re a humble nation they’ll respect us.”
George W. Bush, October 11, 2000

OUR LEADER, UNSCRIPTED

If you have broadband and somehow missed the news conference at which the President was asked if he could think of a mistake he had made, click here.

BUT HE GOT AN HONORABLE DISCHARGE!

Thanks to mediamatters.org for pointing out how little this means. An honorable discharge is not necessarily a job recommendation. For example:

John Allen Muhammad, convicted last November for his participation in the D.C. sniper shootings, served in the Louisiana National Guard from 1978-1985, where he faced two summary courts-martial. In 1983, he was charged with striking an officer, stealing a tape measure, and going AWOL. Sentenced to seven days in the brig, he received an honorable discharge in 1985.

REPUBLICANS FOR HUMILITY

William Frey, MD: ‘I believe you will find these sites useful and consistent with your belief that a significant number of former Bush supporters will vote him out of office. I am proud to be among them. The first is Come Back to the Mainstream and the second, Republicans for Humility.’

☞ And don’t tell me humility means giving in to the terrorists. Almost no one criticized our actions in Afghanistan – only the halfway measures that kept us from getting Bin Laden and his crew at Tora Bora while the getting was good. But invading Iraq in the way we did played directly into Bin Laden’s hands. It weakened us and strengthened the terrorists.

KERRY AND IRAQ

It’s not that complicated.

THE AUTHORIZATION: Kerry has consistently said he voted to authorize the President to go to war, but only to do so – as the President promised – as a last resort. The President recklessly and arrogantly misused the authority Congress voted, with disastrous consequences.

The fault here lies not with a Senator for wanting the President of the United States to be in a strong bargaining position, but with the President for misusing that authority.

THE $87 BILLION: THEY opposed the $87 billion before THEY flip-flopped and approved it – because THEY wouldn’t let it pass when it would be funded by rolling back a portion of the high-end tax cuts. Kerry’s ‘no’ vote was against the funding mechanism (borrowing the funds from our kids). Had he succeeded in killing the bill, the Senate would have come back 10 minutes later to find a compromise. No serious person ever questioned providing the money; it was a fight over whose money it would be. Kerry was fighting for average Americans and their kids. The Republicans, as has too often become their trademark, were fighting to be sure that the richest among us sacrificed nothing.

And, finally, speaking of the richest among us . . .

THE OWNERSHIP SOCIETY

A New York Times editorial decrying President Bush’s appealing-sounding ‘ownership society’ reports: ‘In 2004, take-home pay as a share of the economy dropped to its lowest level since 1929, when the government started keeping records.’

In the past nearly three years of economic recovery, the distribution of economic growth has become more skewed than at any other time in modern memory. Currently, 47 percent of growth is flowing to corporate profits.

As I’ve said so many times in this space since George Bush took office, it is a positively grand time to be rich and powerful in America. The owners are doing just fine, thank you very much.

Tomorrow: Gnats, Cats, and Tiny URLs