Forget About That "Secret" (and Invisible too, now) Corny Corner-Ribbon's Drivel! The Real Secret is HERE Indeed - not over there!

Thursday, November 09, 2006

Thursday Thunder

Miracle meds and strange bedfellows...
I saw a little bit of it all in these past 24 hours on the telly!
Infomercials are mushrooming, on the TV as on the net of course, they pop up with stunning symmetrical regularity offering us all the solutions to all of our ailments... Seems to me that, verily, if all of mankind's ills could be cured so easily, we would be in an Earthly Paradise already down here...!!!
Not the case, hence I reserve the luminous right to remain not only skeptical but also sardonic and sarcastic as well...! ;)

No stranger bedfellows can be found though than in the political arena - and to see Dubya eat his words and suck it up now to one Nancy Pelosi, as his Republicans took it on the chin and her Democrats made a flamboyant return in the driver's seat at both the House of Representatives and the Senate for the remainder of the dimwit's presidential tenure... It makes one wonder if, maybe, just maybe Nancy P's "Judge Judy" allure can counter-balance Dubya's "Dumb and Dumber" act for the duration... The latter though said such things against letting the Democrats take over control of the House and Senate - likening it to letting the terrorists win and America lose - and now, he has to "work" with Pelosi and the rest of the donkeys gang! How humiliating it must be too, for an elephant herd, to be trounced and stomped by a bunch of donkeys! But, to be truthful, they are fearful of mexican mice, so, such a dispiriting result is not all that surprising really... And, by the way, is Dubya a Dumbo or a Bobo, deep down? But I digress...

With all of Americana in such disarray - struck with such internal strife and disillusion - maybe the enemy will strike NOW rather than later... They won't know what hit them, probably...? If there is one area where America's Adversary has it beat, it is in the UNITY department, for sure... At any rate, it is a safe bet that safety will go out the window for the masses and become a luxurious commodity few will be allowed to gain and keep for long in the next two years, the final two of Dubya's pathetic reign as Prez...

Already, most of America is looking forward to either McCainism or Hillary's brand of lesbianism in the White House as the NEXT administration...
Abe must be turning in his grave.

Link
Comments:
Next Race, for President, Gets in Gear
Nov 8, 12:42 PM (ET)

By NEDRA PICKLER


WASHINGTON (AP) - The end of the midterm election marks the official start of a 2008 presidential campaign that promises to be the most unpredictable and wide open White House contest in modern politics.

The campaign is tempting a diverse mix of ambitious leaders with the unique chance to pursue the White House without a sitting president or vice president in the way of their dreams. That hasn't happened since President Calvin Coolidge and Vice President Charles Dawes sat out the 1928 campaign.

Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., and John McCain, R-Ariz., widely considered the front-runners in their respective parties, dominate the early positioning. An intriguing wild card is freshman Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., the only black in the Senate, who says he is seriously considering a presidential run.

Among the other alternatives are Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, a Republican, and former Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Guiliani could change the dynamics of the race if he decides to run.


All the potential candidates were reluctant to appear too personally ambitious with Senate control hanging in the balance in the midterm.

McCain's top advisers planned a Wednesday meeting to examine the 2008 landscape. Clinton, the only serious potential presidential candidate on the ballot Tuesday, made a victory tour of New York state Wednesday.

Clinton brushed aside questions about 2008.

"We have some unfinished business. I'm hoping that starting next week, we'll have a more receptive Congress," she said, adding, "All I'm doing is thinking about going back to work next week in Washington. I'm going to relish this victory."

In an NBC interview, McCain cautioned against reading Democrats' near sweep of closely-contested midterm races as a portent for 2008.

"I'm a student of history," McCain said. "We lost badly in 1976. Ronald Reagan charted our course in 1977. We came back in 1980 and gained the presidency and majority in the United States Senate.

"Look, these things are temporary. ... We'll get back on track."

Edwards was preparing a 16-city tour to promote his feel-good new book, "Home: The Blueprints of Our Lives." Not coincidentally, the book was scheduled for release exactly one week after Election Day, and the tour goes through Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

Hopefuls from both parties already have been campaigning in those early presidential primary voting states.

"This is going to be a donnybrook like we haven't seen in Iowa," said Democratic strategist Jeff Link, who is working for home state Gov. Tom Vilsack's underdog campaign. Link said the state's voters have been wrapped up in the midterm races, but he expects they will turn to presidential politics "pretty quickly, because the caucuses are 13 months away."

Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana, who has been an impressive fundraiser, said Wednesday he would wait until Christmas before deciding on a presidential bid, and told The Associated Press in an interview: "I think the public is ready for a break from politics."

The midterms effectively ended the presidential ambitions of two Republican senators - Rick Santorum and George Allen, whose Senate fate was still uncertain.

The campaign also damaged the prospects of Sen. John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee who wasn't even on the ballot. Like other 2008 hopefuls, Kerry had been traveling the country to raise money and attention for midterm candidates, and he put his foot in his mouth by suggesting that students who don't study could end up stuck in Iraq.

Kerry said it was a botched joke about Bush, but Republicans used it to suggest that the Vietnam veteran was criticizing U.S. troops.

Kerry was forced to cancel campaign appearances so he wouldn't become a distraction to Democratic candidates, but his advisers promised he would be back out soon to talk about 2008.

Kerry and other Democratic hopefuls will have a tough challenge in Clinton should she decide to enter the race. She is the clear fundraising leader and has worked to build a moderate image in the last couple of years. Still, some Democrats are concerned that she is so polarizing that she couldn't win a general election.

Bayh and Vilsack can claim Midwestern values and experience winning elections in red states, although both have to build their name recognition outside their home base.

Other Democrats are claiming the foreign policy credentials to lead in a time of war - Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware is the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, Arkansas' Wesley Clark is a retired four-star general and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson is a former ambassador to the United Nations who has represented U.S. interests throughout the world. But all three have a challenge to rise to the top tier of candidates, as do Sens. Chris Dodd of Connecticut and Russ Feingold of Wisconsin.

The biggest question on the Democratic side is whether Obama will enter the race. The senator has been drawing a rock star reception on travels around the country this year that is unmatched by any other potential candidate. Yet he's only served two years in the Senate, leading to questions about whether he has the credentials to be president.

Still, Obama and Clinton were tied at the top of an Associated Press-AOL News poll conducted late last month. Each were selected by about one-fifth of registered Democratic voters surveyed.

On the Republican side, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Giuliani and McCain were essentially tied with support of about one in 10 questioned in the same poll. Rice has insisted that she will not run.

The Republican side splits into three tiers, with McCain and Romney at the top because of their early organization and broad appeal. McCain has alternately challenged and embraced Bush, building a reputation as a maverick who isn't afraid to speak his mind. Romney is clearly positioning himself as the alternative to McCain, especially among religious conservatives.

Others who have raised significant funds are Guiliani and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. But both face questions about whether they can win support from Republican primary voters - Guiliani because of his liberal views on social issues including gay rights, gun control and legal abortion and Frist because of problems in the Senate caucus that he led.

More long-shot candidates on the GOP side include New York Gov. George Pataki, Sens. Sam Brownback of Kansas and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, Reps. Duncan Hunter of California and Tom Tancredo of Colorado, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former House Majority Leader Dick Armey. Most face problems building name recognition or raising the money that will be necessary to compete in this highly competitive race.

Republican New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg could launch an independent presidential campaign, with billions in the bank to self-fund. He has denied that he is interested - most recently while promoting Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman's successful independent bid for re-election - but some of his friends have privately promoted the idea of his outsider appeal.

Each side has two imposing figures who have insisted that they are not running to replace Bush but could turn the race upside down if they changed their mind. They are Rice and former Vice President Al Gore.


...
 
Bush, Pelosi Have Unlikeliest of Lunches

Nov 9, 12:46 PM (ET)

By JENNIFER LOVEN


WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush made nice on Thursday with Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi after her Democratic Party gave his Republicans a trouncing in this week's elections - but not before telling Congress to complete a hefty list of assignments while Republicans are still in charge.

"It is our responsibility to put the elections behind us and work together on the great issues facing America," Bush said after meeting with his Cabinet and Republican leaders from the House and Senate. "Some of these issues need to be addressed before the current Congress finishes its legislative session, and that means the next few weeks are going to be busy ones."

On the president's to-do list for the current Congress before January's changeover in power: spending bills funding government's continued operation "with strong fiscal discipline and without diminishing our capacity to fight the war on terror;" legislation retroactively authorizing his warrantless domestic surveillance of suspected terrorists; energy legislation; and congressional approval for a landmark civilian nuclear cooperation agreement with India and for normalizing trade relations with Vietnam.

Bush cast such objectives as a way for both parties to "rise above partisan differences." But with Democrats skeptical of many of these items, Bush's plea for Capitol Hill to do things his way - which came just a half-hour before his makeup luncheon with Pelosi - could complicate the reconcilation effort.


That effort started within hours of the election that will put Democrats in charge of the House and the Senate for the final two years of Bush's presidency. After what both Bush and Pelosi described as a gracious phone call early Wednesday, they pair had lunch at the White House on Thursday.

What's on the menu? "For the president, it's probably a little bit of crow," presidential counselor Dan Bartlett told CBS'"Early Show."

Bush and Pelosi pledged to find common ground in a turned-upside-down Washington.

"The people have spoken, and now it's time for us to move on," Bush told reporters in the East Room on Wednesday.

Said Pelosi: "Democrats are not about getting even. Democrats are about helping the American people to get ahead."



This after some seriously sharp rhetoric.

He mocked her as "a secret admirer" of tax cuts and an opponent of measures crucial to keeping Americans safe, warning that "terrorists win and America loses" if her Democrats prevailed on Election Day.

She called him dangerous and in denial, an "emperor with no clothes" who has misled the country about Iraq and presided over an economy that still fails many.

The president dismissed the bitter language as nothing more than campaign-trail heat. "I understand when campaigns end, and I know when governing begins," he said.

Both sides have much at stake.



The last two years of a presidency are difficult times for any Oval Office occupant. In the twilight of power, they must fight lame-duck status to get anything done.

But Bush is heading into that perilous period after an Election Day that pried his party's grip from Capitol Hill, in voting widely seen as a rebuke of him and his leadership, particularly on Iraq.

That makes his domestic wish list - such as adding private accounts to Social Security and permanently extending all tax cuts passed during his administration - not much more than a fantasy, especially for a president who largely has ignored the same Democrats who now will control the legislative agenda.

Add to that the prospect of Democratic investigations into missteps in the war, treatment of terrorism detainees and Bush's expansion of executive power, and his next two years could be a headache.

Democrats, too, have much to lose. If seen as unproductive or too obstructionist, they risk losing their majority - a very slim one in the Senate - in two years. How they govern also could impact the party's chances in the wide-open race for the White House in 2008.



Hence all the happy talk about bipartisanship.

Pelosi, for instance, put any suggestion of impeachment proceedings against Bush "off the table." She welcomed the president's move to capitulate to critics and accept the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

Bush signaled readiness to consider Democratic priorities such as a federal minimum-wage increase and to find compromise on renewing the No Child Left Behind education law, overhauling immigration policy and overhauling budget-busting entitlement programs.

Yet the two sides remain bitterly divided over Iraq.

"'Full speed ahead' - I don't think so," Pelosi said on CNN, mocking Vice President Dick Cheney's contention that the administration would continue its war strategy unbowed.

Bush countered that leaving Iraq before the mission is complete is a nonstarter. "If the goal is success, then we can work together. If the goal is, get out now regardless, then that's going to be hard to work together," he said.

And Pelosi indicated Democrats will pursue an agenda that has been resisted by Bush, while the president indicated that his patience with compromise would go only so far.

"She's not going to abandon her principles and I'm not going to abandon mine," he said.


...
 
Ahh...

Nowhere else than in POLITICS can we see such rampant HYPOCRISY - eh?

Ok - it is seen elsewhere too, in other circles that I shall not name for THEY KNOW WHO THEY ARE anyway...

;)
 
Politics leave me uninspired too, fear not...!

I rarely comment them myself.
Only criticize them, on occasion, here and there...!!!
 
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