Rumsfeld Offered Twice to Resign

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said he offered twice to resign in the wake of the prison scandals, but President Bush refused.

Bush is smart. He knows that firing Rumsfeld would have pleased mostly the people who weren't going to vote for him anyway.

But by sticking with him, he was demonstrating a characteristic -- LOYALTY -- that plays big with the ones who would likely vote for him. It bolstered his base, many of whom look to gut-feeling intangibles to justify their vote. Policy matters little to people who base their approval of others on things like: Does he pray? Does he stick with his friends? Does he visit his mother? Does he look French?

Invading Iran Not on the Agenda

Condaleeza Rice had to announce the fact that invading Iran is not part of the administration's agenda. She added, "However, maybe if we move a few things around we could squeeze it in."

What's a hoot about this?

Soon we will have a generation of citizens who ask presidential candidates, "If elected, who would you invade and why?"

What Rice didn't address of course is that America's ability to invade anybody is practically nil right now. Bush's ridiculous invasion of Iraq under false pretenses (that Iraq is an imminent threat) has now hog-tied America's ability to seriously maneuver anywhere else. Al Quaeda couldn't found a dumber bait-and-switch victim than the Bush White House, and the toady yes-men who cowtow to the president who doesn't think things through. Oh, but look at me, dredging up the past. In his 1960 book Mr. Citizen, Harry Truman writes,

"I am not one who believes it does any good to cry over past mistakes." [unlike Mr. Bush, Mr. Truman evidently can recognize making past mistakes.] "You have got to keep looking ahead and going stragith ahead all the time, making decisions and coreecting the situation as you go along. This calls for fundamental policy, a basic outlook, for the making of major foreign and domestic decisions. Otherwise the operations of the government would be reduced to improvisation -- and inevitable trouble."

The last sentence is key because I think Bush policy, while rooted in a fundamental outlook created by others that George W. Bush has happily signed on to, has been administered by improvisation.

"A President who hesitates or temporizes usually is not certain of what he wants, and he is greatly handicapped when he has to act without a clear-cut policy."

The Bush administration's inability to look at the world as it really is and build upon that backdrop a blueprint -- ie, a clear-cut, well-thought policy -- that will tangibily build their neoconservative world alos illustrates Truman's point, even though most people think President Bush is a man who doesn't hesitate or temporize. Truth is, the Bush team does a version of hesitation. That is, they flip-flop. They create crises, then make up reactions to crises so they can eliminate resistance to their hastily-assembled policies, then they continually evolve and make up new justifications for their policies when the old ones get run up the flagpole and nobody salutes. Likewise, during the 2004 campaign, Senator Kerry did hesitate and temporize to the point where people felt like he was too cautious. James Carville and I have something in common. We were so frustrated with Kerry (for not blasting back at those swift boat goons for their character assassination of Kerry) that we wept. So hungry were we to see the Democratic candidate tear limb-from-limb the tacts of the cowards and bullies in and around the Bush administration.

Liberal

In 1988, Vice President George H.W. Bush, running for president, called his Democratic opponent Michael Dukakis "a liberal."

It was a slam.

Dukakis didn't respond at first. Finally, he trotted out a tired Democratic retort. He said, "Yes, I am a liberal . . . in the tradition of FDR, Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy."

Like a fool who hands a burglar his house keys, Dukakis was complicit that is in helping right wing propagandists cheapen the battle of ideas by smearing and tainting words so that they don't have to discuss actual ideas.

Dukakis was afraid of admitting he is a liberal because that word has been hijacked by the right wing and redefined. It's not wrong to be angry at the left wing for allowing it to happen because they just handed over the keys.

Comedian Bill Maher said, "One thing I've got against Democrats is that they never defend the word liberal. They let the Republicans demonize it. No one from the Democratic party ever stood up and said, 'Look up liberal in the dictionary. It means 'open minded' and 'forward thinking.' These are not bad things. These are thing I would want to teach my children."

When Clinton was running for president, he was also called a liberal. Clinton tried mocking the mockers by saying, when Republicans don't want to talk about issues, all they say is 'liberal, liberal, liberal' like a broken record. But he didn't sing the praises of liberalism. He also avoided it. He, too, handed over the keys.

Interviewing John Edwards late in the 2004 campaign, Ted Koppel "Are you a liberal?"

"No," Edwards leapt, leaning forward as if diving for a foul ball -- because that's how Democrats think of the word. It's a foul ball.

Conservatives aren't afraid of admitting it. They're proud of it. When Democrats get mealy-mouthed about reclaiming the word, it shows they are cautious and afraid and out-of-touch with just how strong, progressive and ambitiously open-minded many citizens are. They can be awakened if they have leaders strong enough to be the mirrors of progressive thinking that so many American have become.

"I have been fiercely partisan in politics and always militantly liberal," said Harry Truman. "I will be that way as long as I live."

When Democrats are too meek to declare the wonderful positions they take on serious issues -- and to proudly describe that position as liberal -- then they come across as mealy-mouthed and evasive. That's no way to round up the troops.