Another Republican Bashing

Check it. The dems need to start thinking now about serious policy positions and objectives to do AS A PARTY to get back to both our principles and win elections. We can do both.

1. Are we going to accept Bush's foreign policy? This is the numero uno question. Most dems I know cannot fathom accepting terms like preemption and still think the UN is the principal spreader of liberty around the world, that the Iraq war was misguided, and so forth. Before, we didn't have a lot of incentive to get OVER these things (other than it was smarter position). Now we have TWO major incentives for doing so a) It's working. Iraq is a better place today than 4 years ago. Elections are happening around the region. There is HOPE for democratic change. It still may fall flat in our face, but at the moment, things are looking as good as they have in the past 5 years for sure and pretty much as good as things have been in the Mid-East since the infamous Rabin and Arafat handshake. b) the Republicans are shooting themselves in the foot elsewhere by being big spending jackasses and butting into the Schiavo and Baseball cases. They are weak, vulnerable in swing areas, and ripe for defeat.

But here's the thing with Bush's foreign policy - it is working on a large scale, but vulnerable on a small scale. The entire issue of torture and lack of post-invasion planning, and Bush's clearly irreverent attitude towards it, belies the fact that he can't handle the details and operate things efficiently. I said this before the election and say it now - our position ought to be - Bush was right with Iraq, but isn't the man to carry us through the long hard process of helping Iraq reconstruct. We're the party that will clamp down on the sloppiness and the torture and gain more world wide support.

But further, we DON'T have Bin Laden or Zarqawi or Al Zawahiri. It's tough, I know, but fucking-A, let's (AS a party now) get serious about HOW we're going to get those bastards - not outsource the dirty work to Afghan warlords, we'll keep up the backroom pressure on Pakistan and Afghans, put the pressure on the folks in the countrysides to denounce the Taliban, get some mutha fucking badass spies in there to fuck shit up, James Bond, double 007, shit. I'm talking about kick-ass mothers out there hunting down BL, with other bounty hunters looking for him, fatwas, jihad, button-men, pimps, thugs, whores, priests, children, anyone and anyone whose willing to help us in the short term get those bastards. I'm serious, we're always accussed of being the feminine party and so forth - why are we afraid to admit we'd all love to see these guys dead or alive - PUNISHED for what they've done to us. I'm not talking about what they are planning or what they will do - but they've shed our blood, a lot of it, and for that, we need to retribute in kind. Let's be candid and clear about it, not just to our military, but to our society - this is who we are, what we stand for, and we protect ourselves and our citizens first and foremost.

2. Once we get on the right page with how we're going to handle Foreign Policy now and for the forseeable future, in essense, taking parts of the Bush Doctrine and sticking to it...we can address a whole host of other issues: Spending, estate taxes, medicare, schools...and put forth reasonable, practical proposals that are consistent with trying to extend equal opportunity (not outcome) to as many as possible.