I'm glad Bush "won."

[NinetySix]

I knew that Bush, even with all the dirty tricks the GOP was going to pull, couldn't possibly win last November. My greatest fear was that he would "win" by stealing another election, and damned if that isn't just what the son of a bitch did. But with the 20/20 vision of hindsight, I'm actually glad that he went to all the trouble to steal it.

Imagine the attacks Kerry would have suffered from the right wing, what the spew of AM talk radio would have sounded like, what the future of the Democratic Party would have looked like had Kerry been elected.

What would the GOP apologists have said by August of this year had Iraqi police and military units remained untrained, the number of US soldiers and Marines killed accelerated toward 2000, and Kerry maintained his "stay the course" policy, cowed by fears of flip-flopping on his pre-election stance?

How would Kerry have endured outspoken and vocal criticism from average citizens about the skyrocketing fuel costs and their concommitant effects on inflation and the economy? No doubt the coulda-woulda-shoulda crowd would wax nostalgic on Bush's silver-tongued talent for "jawboning" OPEC and how $3 gas would have been unthinkable in a second Bush term.

And when the US finally does have to eat crow and suck up to the rest of the world in penance for its transgressions (and it WILL), what would have been the fate of the Democratic Party as a result?

What will be the fate of the Republican Party as a result?

God bless President Bush for saving us from that fate and selflessly accepting the mantle of ignominy for himself and his party!

[Skittles]

1. I disagree

our troops don't stand a chance with this incompetent piece of shit in the White House; think of the racist, sexist asshole about to be installed into the Supreme Court - think of how everything is going to keep getting worse and worse. Under NO circumstances can I say I am glad "bush won".

[NinetySix]

7. My point dovetails nicely with your own.

If Bush had not been able to pull off the cheat and had gone down in defeat, how long would Kerry have lasted? By now his approval rating among Americans would be in the tank, and his slow-response team would be working overtime to counter the spin of last month's GOP attacks for the next 3 1/2 years until his inevitable defeat in 2008.

In the meantime, the same soldiers and Marines would be dying. Any Supreme Court nominee, even the most level-headed and reasonable choice, would be flagrantly and incessantly attacked, DOA before a Republican-controlled House and Senate.

Republicans would gain legislative seats in 2006 and quickly regain control of the White House in 2008, and the political wilderness would stretch even further before the Democratic Party than it does now.

Think of how much worse everything would keep getting if there were only a four year delay, after which the Republicans could point to a failed administration that their own obstructionism had engineered, with an "I told you so" to bolster their future successes.

John Kerry as the GOP's Herbert Hoover. A Republican wet dream come true....

[wisteria]

18. Sorry, your response is too obvious and gives no credit to

Kerry's abilities to work hard and get the job done.

[hfojvt]

19. Even before the results were in on the Presidential race

I knew we were screwed because we had not taken Congress. That is the totally baffling, disgusting thing - as bad as the first Bush term was, he should have gone down hard and taken his party with him. Now you are thinking that things are even worse and that that will happen this time, but it is hard to see. Republican incumbents still have huge war chests and so many of them are running in solid red states like Utah and Wyoming. Who is our candidate in Missouri, one state that we should have a good shot at? There isn't one yet. We are only 14 months from the election. When are we going to get some candidates? Who is going to run against Ryun here? The longer we wait, the steeper the hill we will have to climb.

[Redstone]

2. Well, it hurts to say it, but you may be right.

Maybe, just maybe, all we have to do is wait it out, and that big old wheel of Karma will turn, as it always does.

But damn, it'll be too late for the 1800+ Americans and God knows how many Iraqis who have died already.

I'm not arguing with you here; I appreciate your well-thought-out post, and reiterate that I think you may be right.

But how sad that so many will havehad to pay in blood.

Redstone

[NinetySix]

14. Everything you just said.

It's a high price to pay, indeed. A high price to have paid during the last term of office, a high price to pay in the short term as well as the long term future. America may never regain her former stature. But pride goeth before a fall. Perhaps this is our penance for our blind hubris. In the end, when a new equilibrium is reached, America (should she survive) might attain a semblance of the kind of life her Founding Fathers envisioned for her.

[long_green]

3. after the election, Molly Ivins wrote a column...

accepting the result as the only way to cure Americans of the habit of voting for Republicans.
The precise analogy she used was something a friend of hers touted as the only way to cure a "chicken-killing dog:" tie his last chicken carcass around his neck and let him carry it around until it rots; the smell will be so atrocious by then that the dog won't ever go near another chicken.

[marbuc]

6. I would have preferred not to suffer through the stink

[long_green]

9. Me too

but hell, I gotta have some semblance of a silver lining.

[cascadiance]

4. I think it's a bit early to be "thankful" yet...

A lot to happen before 2008... I'm sure we have many more struggles and challenges to overcome ahead of us. Hopefully we'll have a chance to rid ourselves of this cancer before he does lasting damage, and as you note perhaps what we replace it with later might be better than had we replaced it last election cycle.

[achtung_circus]

5. Keep your eyes on 2006. nt

[the_spectator]

8. Doesn't make great sense -

if you're a Lieutenant Onoda http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onoda_Hiroo who believes that the 2004 election was stolen, all your "let Bush take the shit of the next 4 years" should become pretty irrelevant. There would be nothing bigger than the fact that the Repubs were able to successfuly steal the election on a nation-wide basis. They would just keep doing it.

I have to respect the general logical consistency in the worldviews of fundamentalists and fraudsters alike, in that the simple basics of what they have elected to believe in must inexorably lead to absolutism of belief.

[NinetySix]

10. I don't believe a Kerry victory would have fomented a movement.

I sincerely doubt that all the shit landing squarely on the shoulders of the Republicans (and don't doubt that it will take its toll on all the sitting GOP Congressmen and Senators in '06) will allow them to steal any more elections in the near future. Imagine what would happen if the next election were stolen as things stand now. There were no spontaneous demonstrations in the streets of Ohio in '04, but how do Ohioans feel now? Strongly enough to revolt against patent fraud which deprives them of the right to self-governance? With blood and jobs flowing as freely from Ohio as they are right now, I expect such an attempt would be pure, untenable folly.

If Democrats start to criticize the insane policy of the GOP rather than enabling it, stand up on principle, and look to the populism which lies dormant in its now disenchanted constituency, things can change. The momentum is there to revive real and enduring American democracy.

The greatest irony would be if this were Bush's shining moment as a unifier--of We The People against tyrrany. What a legacy!

[Beam Me Up]

23. Whether it is a better that he 'won' or not is irrelevant. The point is,

he and those who manipulate him are occupying high offices allowing them to do grave damage to our nation on every conceivable level. Worse, they are NOT going to stop until we stop them. And, under ordinary circumstances, much of this would be argued out via the electoral process but, as we've seen, "its not who votes that counts but who counts the votes." It's also who controls the corporate media, and for the most part they do.

Cindy Sheehan is an EXAMPLE of the new politics; politics that are outside the box of 'left vs right' or 'Dem vs Repub'. Her message is also being broadcast primarily through new media. This situation is MUCH bigger than the conventional dialectics. The Bush* administration is a genuine threat to the national security of the United States and, by extension, the global security of the human race. It's not just me who thinks so, either. I've heard it from Al Gore and Joseph Wilson, for example, and I don't think they were exaggerating one bit.

[Amonester]

11. Well, at least Kerry was telling the truth about the

"January Surprise" (**'s "anti-democratic" assault on SS "Reform")

And just like the anti-war movement was, he got "ridiculed" for telling the truth...

I, for one, tend to believe what the "truth teller" says as opposed to what the "lying a**hole" catapults over and over.

And what if the ticket's 6 months withdrawal plan had just been completed next week, huh? How many thousands would not have to die (or get atrociously maimed) soon, or next year? What if the National Guard was truly keeping the peace at the borders, using all new technology devices to make sure all containers imports are "okay" (as for just one example)... I could go on, and on (on environment measures too... Greenland's Glacier's melting as ** sits on his sorry a**!). Not to mention how the world could be back in seeing the US government as a credible advanced partner again (almost like "pre-Iraq-war" status) could have been another "plus" to the Kerry/Edwards team...

Not sure if the Democratic Party would be that "hated" as much as stated. Not sure at all. But I respect your opinion. I prefer not to share it.

Thank you.

[NinetySix]

12. Don't get me wrong; I too would have preferred Kerry.

But as the old saying goes, a lie can travel halfway 'round the world while the truth is putting its shoes on. And if Kerry's campaign response mode to being Swift-Boated was any indication, the liars would be ripping him a new asshole all the while he was telling the truth (with Kerry assuming the American people could naturally discern the difference).

I would prefer Kerry (to be candid, ANYONE) at the helm to Bush, most particularly with regard to foreign entanglements, the environment and global climate change, the REAL issue of National Security, as well as the solvency of the US Government, a sustainable economy, and greater income equity.

But remember how the Republicans got where they are today: by taking potshots from the Peanut Gallery. It's easy (not to mention effective) to criticize when the onus is not on you to come up with alternative policies. Bush has no one to attack in order to provide a relative burnish to his image the way he did during the course of the general election, and the GOP have no one to blame for the foreign policy failures they themselves have instigated, although the American people do.

Let Rush Limbaugh, et al, spin themselves into obscurity. Let the GOP turn on one another and tear their own to shreds as we sit on the sidelines. Let the American public get in full measure the Government they deserve, if not for actually electing them, then for abetting their fraudulent election "victory" with their silent capitulation. The sooner the electorate's buyer's remorse becomes an abcess, the sooner they will seek a final cure for the venom and vitriol that passes for political discourse, and the policies that rob them of their livelihoods.

In short, if a second Bush term doesn't wake the slumbering giant, the American people, what will?

[wisteria]

20. Thank you for this positve post- I agree with you!! n/t

[Mnemosyne]

13. Excuse me, WTF? Or am I misunderstanding your point?

Do you sincerely believe that the tens of thousands of dead, possibly over a hundred thousand, were worth it so that Kerry didn't have to suffer embarrassment and failure as a president, and to force the repubes to pay penance with self-destruction?

If I am mistaken on this, I apologize, otherwise, your point is horribly selfish.

[NinetySix]

15. Those tens of thousands, possibly hundreds, were already dead.

The way I read it, either way was a Catch-22. Had Kerry won the election and withdrawn all of our troops on January 20, 2005, we still would face the inexorable torrent of criticism from the right (which seems somehow never to fail to convince the public), and it would almost certainly have brought the Democrats defeat for years to come. The second-guessing and charges of weakness from the GOP echo chamber would have undermined Kerry, ensuring a return to a "sensible" policy of strength, thus ensuring future wars in the same vein. Those who have died since that date would have gained, at most, a four year reprieve before dying on some other godforsaken battlefield in a revived perpetual war.

I don't give shit number one about John Kerry's personal or political embarassment, nor about partisan victories or defeats, but about what is right. If it requires the blood of their children to awaken the American people to what is right, then it is because of the errant choices they have made in their blind self-interest. I can't turn back the clock to undo the mistakes made by this Administration or the electorate that allowed them to take power any more than I can unring a bell, and neither can John Kerry.

I abhor what is being perpetrated in my name, but it is a process I can't halt, or even slow. I wish the killing could end this very hour, and that the previous status quo could be achieved again, as flawed as it was, but this is a dynamic process, not a static one, and much like a Greek tragedy, it must play out to its gruesome end before there can be a denoument.

I simply think that it is an opportunity for Americans to learn their lesson about aggressive militarism, in the way they failed to do following the VietNam war. Perhaps such a lesson learned will help us once and for all to exorcise that martial spirit among us which invariably leads to the corruption of our national soul.

[NoSheep]

16. hm.

[Mnemosyne]

21. The blood of the warmonger's sheeple children

is one thing, though sad all the same. The continued blood of the innocent Iraqi's is quite another.

Fuck lessons, innocents continue to die for lies and profit. And if asshat idiot boy had not "won", there would have been less deaths. Kerry would have given an exit plan and it may have settled things down. Even though he wanted to stay to try to fix this mess, he would have had a conscience and gotten us out as fast as possible and made amends to the Iraqi's, however was necessary. He would have done something!!

Almost anything would be better than where we are now.

[wisteria]

17. Your miss the point that it would be very likely that a

President Kerry would have policies in place and ideas on the table that would by now be taking our country in a positive and forward direction.
I get your point and Bush deserves anything nasty that comes his way, but I would have still liked the outcome to be different.

[cascadiance]

22. I think ultimately getting the DLC weeded out will be a good thing...

which wouldn't have happened had Kerry won, and we might be paying for that too, with some of the looming scandals that are just about to bust loose now which would have been covered up had Kerry been in charge (Sibel Edmonds, etc.).

However, we still have yet to have success redefining the party vs. the DLC, nor have we seen a constructive conclusion to these looming scandals which I too hope takes place soon. That's why I'm saying I'm waiting a bit to pass judgement on whether Kerry losing was a better thing or not. The advantages that we might gain from us all learning how bad Bush is are starting, but still haven't been fully realized yet. Having Bush in power still might yet be a net negative unless we get some positive outcomes happening down the road. I'm not holding my breath yet. We've been "Roved" too many times to be too confident yet.

[NinetySix]

24. I think you're the first to take my point.

It is certainly on balance an overall negative to have this fool in office. Kerry would certainly have been a more circumspect and competent leader. But sometimes substantial and lasting change requires dire circumstances to be brought about, and for all of the tragedy that has befallen us since Bush took power, it may be that we are seeing the final, desperate (but hopefully futile) attempts by this small cabal to maintain their grip on power before they are forever swept away by the tide.

As offensive to the citizenry as the Stamp Act and the Boston Massacre were during the formative years of our Republic, it would not have been better had they not occurred. What resulted from these tragedies, the creation of the world's first democratic state since ancient Greece, one based upon the Enlightenment ideals of liberty and equality, would never have come to pass. And change took place not only here, but even in the Empire from which we gained our independence; although a more gradual process, the former British Empire and its provinces, today the Commonwealth, are thriving liberal democracies in much the same mold as had been envisioned by our Founding Fathers.

So perhaps the positive change that will emerge from this crucible will be worth the price we are paying; we must wait and see.