The removal of Donald Rumsfeld was either timed very poorly or very well depending on your viewpoint. If he was going to go- and was viewed as such an electoral liability - it would surely have been better to have done it a couple of weeks ago with Bush making his "new direction remarks" then. However, by resigning immediately it became clear that the results were perhaps worse than expected he has taken the rap for the loss of the Senate and House. This means that the newspaper columns are filled with Rumsfeld retrospectives rather than just acres of column inches about the results.
In the long term the Republicans may view yesterday as a blessing in disguise. The Democrats now have to deliver. Bush can spend the next two years telling the American people that he wanted to do a lot but was denied the chance by the Democratic Congress. The Republican nominee in 2008 will therefore be able to campaign on the basis that the Dems have been in charge and have made a right royal mess of things in the two years since they took control. Nancy Peolis and Hillary Clinton. The Republicans will be rubbing their hands with glee.
Rudolf Giuliani - Bring It On!
More analysis HERE on BritainandAmerica.com, an excellent new website devoted to conversations between Britain and America.
31 comments:
Mike Deaver has recorded a follow up video on his reflections now the dust is settling after the mid-terms. Interesting to note that he views the elections as a good thing and a bad thing for both parties. Check out the video here. www.despatchblog.com
It might not be bad news for the Republicans, provided they choose a candidate next time with an IQ above room temperature, but it is definitely bad news for Our Dear Leader Tone. Once the Dems get stuck into some proper probing of the factors and falsehoods behind the Iraq disaster, the consequences for what is left of ODL's legacy will be fairly terminal. Am struck by how little mention of this is being made in the press. And it will cast the poorest possible light on our own "democratic" processes of parliamentary accountability.
Fundamentally, Bush has been done in by the men in the pinstripe suits who worked for Bush majoris who, as widely rumoured, was to say the least cautious about the Iraq invasion. They want to put in place a strategy to contain the damage done to US business interests by the ill-advised and oft-times dangerous foreign policies of Bush minoris. If that involves letting the dems cast light on some of the blacker alleyways of decision taking, I think this is a price they will feel worth paying.
Why do you support these reactionary racist homophobes? The Democrats are far more similar to Cameron's Conservatives. Iain, you're a "Mr Log Cabin" Republican - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELfiVTTb5Jw. Ie a gay man who supports the Republicans despite the fact that many of them regard your life choice as a mortal sin. I can't understand it at all.
Is that the sound of whistling in the wind I hear?
Presumably you took the same view when you "came second" in 2005, Iain? It wasn't all bad news for you because now Norman Lamb had to prove he could deliver?
Thing about politics is, when you lose, you lose. There are no prizes for subsidiary positions.
Other than the broad left/right alignment thing, why do you seem to see so much common ground with the GOP?
The party is dominated by a vocal evangelical christian conservative wing, they hate gays, want to abolish abortion rights, want to teach creationism in schools, and support torture. There are a few moderate republicans who are more like the UK tories but they are getting fewer and fewer, drowned out by the southern-state centre of gravity and the campaigning vigour of the evangelicals.
iain,
You have become a New labour spinner bad news is actualy good news isnt't it.
Like James Mcfadden last night benefiting from geting in to the Everton FC dressing room early so he could enjoy a warm shower and some quality time to reflect on his behaviour. Similarly Alan Pardew should be thankful for the FA charge as it will offer him an even bigger platfrom on which to apologise for his outburst.
You said it was not going to be a Tsunami but it was a huge swing they lost both houses tell it like it is man otherwise you sound more like Hazel Blears and Alistair Campbell.
Iain,
As i've said before, I think this argument is clutching at straws. S
ure the dems have to govern now, which is harder, but all they need to do to win the political game is throw in some populist laws the Pres Bush is forced to veto.
Agree about Hilary Clinton mind, sends shivers down my spine....
Some entertaining exposes of the Dems naughtiness are already appearing.
See:
http://www.tcsdaily.com/
'Speaker Pelosi's Impending Intelligence Failure'
What larks, Pip! What larks!
"Why do you support these reactionary racist homophobes? "
Huh?
So Condi Rice and Colin Powell are figments of my imagination so , eh?
Its easy to carp from the sidelines now the Democrates will be part of the process, and when you see and hear the new leftie speaker they will turn back to the republicans in droves.
There is no chance of Guliani getting through the GOP selection process surely.
The Neocon,Religious Right that have hijacked the Republican Party are nothing like the Conservatives here, Iain ?? I think you will find that the Blue dog Democrats are even more conservative than the Conservatives here.
Rumsfeld was effectively 'appointed' by Daddy Bush, and Robert Gates his proposed successor is another daddy Bush regular. He was one of those who could not 'recall' in the Iran Contra.
Not sure if you have read A State of Denial by Bob Woodward- But Rumsfeld and Cheney have been running the show from day 1, Bush has a limited grasp of power and of reality.
The Lib Dems have stolen a march on the conservatives today with their bonfire of repressive laws proposal. Don't weep for the Republicans, they took habeus corpus away from the citizen, and sanctioned state torture. They do not hold conservative values.
John Trenchard - a few black members does not mean a party is not racist. In Clarence Thomas they managed to find the only anti-black black man I've come across. Sure, most of the party leadership aren't openly racist, but a hell of a lot of the grass roots are.
Iain
This is somewhat delusional thinking.
The areas which caused serious discontent among the US population are predominantly the areas where Bush is "the man".
Even if the "spoiler" excuse were applicable, it is far more likely that Bush will stand accused as he will undoubtedly veto Democrat bills on issues such as stem cell research.
Iain you are the very worst type of politician - the type that gets a good hard smack around the head from the public and says "it wasn't that bad, actually it was really a victory"
You belong in a TV studio picking up £500 for spouting BS.
Please do not ever go anywhere near the levers of power - we have had enough of your type, how do you think we ever got here.
Later on 18 Doughty Street :-
Why global warming isn't all bad.
West Ham's cunning 'let's lull the Premiership into a false sense of security' strategy.
The silver linings to the cloud of all those dead, defenceless innocent civilian kids in Iraq.
Looking on the bright side of the nuclear weapons capability of Iran and North Korea.
You don't mention Barak Obama. You will.
a few black members does not mean a party is not racist
The Democrats have long shown that. The party of the Old South, of Governor Wallace and Nathan Bedford Forrest, have conned more than few US blacks to vote for them.
a few black members does not mean a party is not racist
Indeed, the Democrats have long shown that. The party of the Old South, of Governor Wallace and Nathan Bedford Forrest, have conned more than few US blacks to vote for them.
This is a load of nonsense, living in the US I can vouch that this was a wholesale rejection of the Republican party and its current ideology - and it was not on a single issue; exit polls showed that 'corruption' was actually the number one issue amongst voters, not Iraq.
People are fed up with the nepotism, and the clique that currently characterises the White House. They are fed up with the Scooter Libbys, the Dick Cheneys, the Halliburton links, the Mike Foleys, the fundamentalism over gay marriage, stem cell research etc etc.
Most of the ties that bind lead to Iraq sure, but when just about every architect of neo-conservatism apart from the President and VP have denounced the ideogoloy, it's time to think again.
And I tell you what, the person who had the worst week isn't Bush or Rumsfeld. McCain...
Iain, I am a Tory and would be a Democrat in the US.
The Republicans make Thatcher and Tebbit look liberal, just which part of shafting the needy and feeding the rich do you find attractive?
ps I am a huge fan and so the above isnt a insult at you, but at the neoc***s and Bush.
anormouse - you can't compare the pre-FDR Democrats with the present-day party.
Sorry Ian got to disagree with you on this one..This Bush administration will take years and years for the USA to recover legitimacy as a positive force around the world because of their actions..To have totally squandered the good will and sympathy of most of the world after the terrible events on 9/11 to a situation where five years on around the world the USA is largely reviled beggers belief!
I don't know whether anyone's picked up the on-line buzz that the US channel Comedy Central blog allegedly broke the news of Rummy's resignation, not the 'mainstream' media. See http://ccinsider.comedycentral.com/cc_insider/2006/11/1215a_et_only_l.html
Although I do recall back in early October GWB being 'forced' to stand by his defense secretary amid rumours Rumsfeld would be moved on if the mid-terms were bad. Hmm, like a football club chairman giving his manager his full support...
you can't compare the pre-FDR Democrats with the present-day party.
But this is the post-FDR Democrats, “the present-day party” as you call it:-
"Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever,"
From Governor George Wallace’s acceptance speech in 1963 before he and his Democrat party activists physically blocked the entrance to the University of Alabama to keep blacks from enrolling.
Until well into the 1960s the Democrat administrations of the South preserved the Jim Crowe era (their own creation, anyway), and kept the Lincolnian-idealled Republicans well out of Dixie politics.
Like the Left over here, the Democrats’ wholesale ‘conversion’ to colour-blindness is remarkably recent and well within living memory, while their race-bigotry goes back 150 years.
How can you be sure they have really changed?
anormouse - because none of the current Democrats were in office back then except Sen. Robert Byrd (who is incidentally 176 years old).
That said, he used to be in the Klan...
Comedy Central's blog did indeed break the Rumsfeld news, and they are in glee about it. Wonkette got it from them, and the MSM got it from Wonkette.
Iain is clutching at straws when he says this is a good thing for the Republican party. It will indeed allow Bush to blame everything on Congress and the Senate, but that will only lead the public to believe that he's a lame president who couldn't lead a dog to a bowl of kibble. It's bad for all the Republicans.
On the other hand, it's good for the country. America always seems to work best when the President and the legislature are from different parties. Clinton got a lot done that way, but of course Clinton was a lot better at politics than Shrub is.
Hillary...ugh. She's a terrible politician, and I do not doubt but that she's reached her highest electable point. She may be an excellent lawyer, but she just does not have political skills, nor political talent. I agree with her on many issues, but I wouldn't vote for her, because I don't think she can work with other people well enough to be an effective politician.
Oh, and in case you're interested, here is the article George Herbert Walker Bush wrote about why the US should not invade Iraq.
anormouse - your knowledge of US political history is clearly sufficient for you to know that since Reagan the majority of southern whites have voted Republican, meaning the modern Democrat party laregely represents liberals and minority groups. Since neither party is traditionally based around ideology, of course both have seemingly contradictory events in their past. Nevertheless, even when the Democrats had a large racist element, it was still the party which challenged segregation. And isn't it telling that when the party took this harsh line on racism, white bigots converted to the Republicans?
There was a 20 twenty year gap between the Democrat’s belated drive against segregation and the large scale abandonment of the party by the south. If the southern whites truly embrace the bigotry that bigoted liberals insist is there, they would have promptly abandoned the party in the 60s. And it is absurd to imply that southern whites were turned on by a real or perceived racism either within Reagan’s character or his policies. What racism?
Since neither party is traditionally based around ideology…
All parties are ideological - at any one time they must necessarily express themselves in a set of ideas. So even though a party may not over time follow any consistent idea, it is still the product of a thought-tradition and must expect to be challenged on that if it has not formally and blatantly divorced itself from that tradition . The Democrats have not done so and it is therefore they who stand accused in ‘the dock of history’ on this matter.
Many Democrats (and Labour people) practice a soft racism that insists that blacks are valid only if they support the party that has finally chosen to patronise them. Those blacks who have the insolence to exhibit choice are vilified. Thus Clarence Thomas was accused of ‘historic ingratitude’ by the liberal Maureen Dowd, while the equally liberal cartoonist Ted Rall despicted Condi Rice as Bush’s ‘house nigga’. The white man is free to vote however he chooses, while the black remains the enfranchised property of the Left.
blogcritics.org/archives/2003/06/25/232557.php
michellemalkin.com/archives/000160.htm
"The Neocon,Religious Right "
If you conflate the largely northern basedsecular neocons with the religious right then you really shouldn't be aharing your views on US politics with anyone else.
The neocons, true to their Leninist (specifically, Trotskyist) roots, are using the white Evangelicals, a section of the Catholics, and certain factions within the old "mainline" churches (Methodist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Episcopalian, &c) as "Usefull Idiots". The "Idiots" seem to be wising up, though.
In particular, they seem to have noticed that there has been absolutely no change whatever in the krytocratically imposed law of abortion on demand up to and including partial birth, the Roe v Wade ruling having overturned by judicial fiat the laws of all 50 states.
The fact is that, should there ever be any such change, then the Evangelicals and the Catholics would declare "Mission Accomplished" and go home to the Democratic Party, whence they came in the 1970s.
The neocons have been trying to recruit new "Useful Idiots" through the worthy, but wildly improbable, Marriage Amendment, presumably with a view to taking over the Democratic Party through the black churches on that false prospectus, just as they took over the Republican Party through many of the white churches on the false prospectus of restricting abortion.
But are the Dems ahead of them? When newly-elected Dems are described as "right-wing" or "conservative", then what does this actually mean? Fiscally hard-line, and hawkish on foreign policy?
Or, like the old right wing of the Labour Party, morally and socially conservative while (indeed, precisely by being) keen to alleviate the harshness of capitalism in order to preserve constitutionality and public order? The former I fear, but the latter I hope.
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