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How Puzzling!
Posted 12-11-2006
I am puzzled by something that seems to occur every time the
Democrats gain control of a legislative body; there is a call for a "new era
of civility". Why now, after twelve years of a Republican-controlled
Congress, the first six years being a hateful, mean-spirited witch hunt over
Bill Clinton's sex life and the last six years being a rubber stamp of
unmeasured proportion of a President that took office after losing the
popular vote by over 500,000 votes?
I don't blame the Republicans for the calls now for everyone
to play nice. I blame the media. Where were they during the 1990s when the
Republican Congress ran amok over Clinton instead of addressing important
public policy issues? Where were they when Vice President Cheney was telling
Senator Pat Leahy to go f… himself? But now, when Senator-elect Jim Webb of
Virginia tells Bush that how his son is doing in Iraq, is between he and his
son, the media makes a big deal about it as if Webb is not falling in line
for their calls of civility.
Senator-Elect Webb, like the other parents with children in
Iraq, should not be required to make nice with the person that put their
child in harm's way. It is not like we were attacked by Iraq, and to the
contrary, people in this administration, particularly the Vice-President and
the former Secretary of Defense helped facilitate Saddam Hussein's brutality
by providing chemical weapons during the 1980s. But I digress, because this
article is really about how the media always wants the Democrats to be the
nice guys.
I am in no way criticizing news sources like the Tribune
Review. While I usually strongly disagree with their editorial page, no one
can claim they try to be anything other than a mouthpiece for the far right
wing of American politics. More insidious are newspapers like the Post
Gazette that are supposedly moderate, yet cry that people like Jim Webb
should "respect the office" of the Presidency. I never read one single
comment by the Post Gazette condemning six years of witch hunts by a the
do-nothing Republican Congress in the 1990s. Now Senator-Elect Webb is
suppose to act warm and fuzzy with a President who cavalierly sent Webb's
child and hundreds of thousands of other Americans into Iraq on what has
clearly been identified as trumped up evidence.
The Democrats will be civil with the Bush Administration if
it shows that it recognizes the will of the American public. The overriding
issue is the endless death and destruction that is taking place in Iraq.
Bush's idea of cooperation seems to be for the new majority party to come
around to his way of thinking. That wasn't the message from the public, and
whether or not Bush parades generals out that say, "we must stay longer",
there better be signs that we are not "staying the course".
But there are plenty of Democrats inside and outside of
Washington that remember the lack of respect shown to the last Democratic
President. So Bush better recognize the rubber stamps are gone. Energy
policies drafted under this administration will be scrutinized. Horrible
policy decisions like no negotiation with the drug companies serving the
Medicare Part D program will hopefully be overturned. And the cocksure
President who once boasted, "Bring 'em on" is no longer going to be coddled
by the party controlling Congress. But the question remains is whether he'll
still be coddled by the media.
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