* Recession?? What Recession?: The New York Times has reported that the current administration has chosen to adopt the same ostrich strategy with respect to the economy that worked so effectively for the president’s father during his re-election campaign in ’92: “The White House predicted on Monday that the economy would escape a recession and that unemployment would remain low this year, though it acknowledged that growth had already slowed. ‘I don’t think we are in a recession right now, and we are not forecasting a recession,’ said Edward P. Lazear, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers.”
I’m reminded of his dad’s comments during the Republican National Convention when trying to win re-election:
“My opponent says America is a nation in decline. Of our economy, he says we are somewhere on the list beneath Germany, heading south toward Sri Lanka. Well, don’t let anyone tell you that America is second-rate, especially somebody running for President. Maybe he hasn’t heard that we are still the world’s largest economy. …He won’t remind you that interest rates are the lowest they’ve been in 20 years, and millions of Americans have refinanced their homes. You just won’t hear that inflation, the thief of the middle class, has been locked in a maximum security prison. You don’t hear much about this good news because the media also tends to focus only on the bad.”
For McCain to win, he’ll need to distance himself from this kind of nonsense, and the current president isn’t going to make it easy for him, worried as he’ll be about his political legacy.
* Dems Have No Balls: I am so sick and tired of what is supposed to be a Democratic majority in Congress rolling over for Bush’s bullshit. Yeah, better to spend their time on the critical baseball scandal than protecting our civil liberties. The NYT today reported: “After more than a year of wrangling, the Senate handed the White House a major victory on Tuesday by voting to broaden the government’s spy powers …. One by one, the Senate rejected amendments that would have imposed greater civil liberties checks on the government’s surveillance powers. Finally, the Senate voted 68 to 29 to approve legislation that the White House had been pushing for months. Mr. Bush hailed the vote and urged the House to move quickly in following the Senate’s lead….Among the presidential contenders, …the two Democrats, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, did not vote. Mr. Obama did oppose immunity on a key earlier motion to end debate. Mrs. Clinton, campaigning in Texas, issued a statement saying she would have voted to oppose the final measure.” There are some things worth coming off the campaign trail to deal with. Very disappointing that the Dem candidates didn’t bother to do so.
* Joe Lieberman is Human Waste: As if we needed any more evidence of the foregoing truism, Lieberman has endorsed and will work for McCain. One of the primary reasons why? Because Obama and Clinton are soft on the “war on terror”: “We’ve got those terrorists and killers on the run right now,” he said. “They would snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.” Yeah, we sure have the terrorists on the run, having completely ceded huge tribal areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan to bin Laden, where the Taliban grow stronger every day, and put our entire military might into a country that poses no threat to us. We don’t need the vote of someone like Joe Lieberman. He should not be allowed to caucus with the Democrats and the Dems should strip him of his committee posts. Sadly, Harry Reid has already said that there will be no such retribution for Lieberman’s disgraceful actions.