Iowa's over, thankfully. Obama & Huckabee won there. That in itself is telling, but it's not the story I'm focused on.
This morning I read an Op-Ed by Joesph Galloway (McClatchy News Service) titled: Sins of Omission and Sins of Commission Haunt Bush in Pakistan. He said some very telling things that our next president will have to deal with. That's because bush43 isn't going to do a thing about them during the course of the next year. One thing he said that we all know now:
" The unfolding disaster in Pakistan in the wake of the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto is in part a reaction to a series of inactions and actions by the Bush administration during the last six years. Bush and Company took their eyes off the ball and became preoccupied with the sideshow of their own creation in Iraq as things went sideways and backward in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Then they outsourced much of the fight against the Taliban and al Qaeda to Pakistani Pres. Pervez Musharraf....But the administration declared victory prematurely — a bad habit it would repeat elsewhere — and turned many of its resources and most of its attention to invading Iraq while Osama bin Laden and the Taliban leadership escaped into Pakistan. Benign neglect is a dangerous policy in the badlands along the Afghan-Pakistani border, where the bleached bones of invading armies litter the mountain passes and the inhospitable deserts. Job One was Afghanistan, but it was left undone, too unimportant a backwater for the foreign policy amateurs, neo-conservative ideologues and military dilettantes advising the president. A preemptive invasion of Iraq and the toppling of a hated dictator in the heart of the Middle East — a cheap, easy and quick cakewalk — was what we needed. Never mind that we'd chased a bunch of fanatical terrorists into a part of Pakistan that no central government has ever conquered or controlled. We'd just throw $10 billion to Pakistan's military dictator and get him to take care of our problem, as if he didn’t have enough problems of his own dealing with Islamist fanatics. Now both Afghanistan and Pakistan are coming unraveled, and are likely to become two more disasters added to the growing list of "things to do" in the disaster department that President George W. Bush will hand to his unlucky successor in the White House a year from now."
Combine that with an election year where the previous norms aren't holding the citizens in check.
What I mean by that is that previously the Republican Party was able to give lip service to the libertarians and the Christian Conservatives without actually following through on their promises, and was still able to get their votes come election time. Similarly, the Democratic Party wanted the money and the votes of their more liberal members, but never gave them the initiatives nor the policies they called for. Both parties substancially took for granted significant portions of their constituents.
The natives have rebelled. In Iowa, the Christian Conservatives have loudly said they aren't going to take it anymore & voted for the Baptist minister Huckabee. Here is a man who is the ex govenor of Arkansas who drives the comforatable "sensible media elite" crazy. If he wins any more, it will drive these Wall Street Republicans scared & crazy. They don't like Huckabee. He isn't focused on making the rich and powerful even more rich and powerful. That scares the bejesus out of the Corporatists, which is primarily what the Media Elite is composed of.
That same Media Elite initially sought out Guiliani. He could be trusted to carry on with porking up the large corporations and interests while at the same time frightening the citizens into continuing to give up their rights & freedoms for the grander good and security of the nation. Too bad for the Media Elite that they didn't vet Rudy very well. He has a lot of skeletons that aren't all hidden very well in his closet. Some are out in public, and the public doesn't like them. So they turned to Thompson. Thompson is a guy who appears that his wife wants him to have the job more than he wants the job and it shows. Shows so much that once he announced he was in the race, the conservatives yawned. Oh, he said all the right things, but he also showed he doesn't have the fire in his belly that's needed to win the prize of the Presidency. So the Media Elite passed on him as well. Now, they all seem to be pulling behing McCain. How this all turns out, we'll just have to wait and see.
The Democrats are only in slightly better shape. I say that because they traditionally aren't as organized in a Top Down fashion as Republicans had been. This makes them appear as if they are unfocused upon what they really want in a governing body. It made it so much easier for the Media Elite to poke fun of them. Forget the message the Democrats tried to convey to the citizens, poke holes in their viability to be taken seriously by a very serious Media Elite. To make the headlines about $400 haircuts, whether or not you were a traitor in the last war you fought in, whether or not you had sex outside your marriage. Welcome Republicans, you've arrived at the same state place the Democratic party has occupied for a very long time.
Where do we go from here? So many things demand to be addressed. One thing is for certain, with the advent of blogs, such as this one right here, the Media Elite is getting it's ass rightfully kicked. For too long they controlled the nuance and the substance of our politics. No Longer, even though they don't realize it nor will they admit it. Thank you all for that one.
Will Obama climb the heights? Will Huckabee scale the mountain? Time will tell. Buckle up your seat belts and keep reading, but don't forget to read between the lines. None of us want to become trapped in some other Elites facade world. We'll just work it out ourselves.
Blogs may not be what our Founding Fathers wanted for us as a nation. In their day, they were the Media Elite. But it is much closer to truth and reality for we the people. For it's going to take all of us together to sort out what we as a nation can do to help ourselves and the world at large with our policies and actions.
Cross posted in Swords Crossed.