And it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. Well the Democrats in their efforts to set the record straight about what 'baby steps' actually are, have moved forward to begin impeachment investigations on one member of the Bush Administration. I thought the picture on the left was appropriate since it looks like a downward spiral in which metaphorically the entire Administration has been in since they stole re-election in 2004 (make no mistake about it they stole it and here's some new voter suppression details that have made their way out of the RNC from that election).
Anyway, MSNBC reported that House Democrats will introduce a bill tomorrow that requires the House Judiciary Committee to begin impeachment investigations against Gonzo.
From Crooks and Liars:
Windows Media Video: Play | 
Quicktime Video: Play
It's about time but still not enough. The only way to get these criminals out of office is full impeachment.
Now some quick takes on other stuff from this past weekend...
At the CNN/Youtube debates the buzz afterwards surrounded on a riff Hillary Clinton gave towards Barack Obama based on his take on diplomacy. The question was whether the candidates would meet with Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, Kim Jong-Il of North Korea or Mahmoud Ahmenijhad of Iran in the first year of their Presidency. Obama said that he would and pointed to the Bush Administration's dismal record in meeting with countries that we have disagreements with and in essence using diplomacy as a reward only to those that agree with us.
Hillary countered that she didn't want a meeting in the first year without some sort of preconditions and essentially pawned the concept off to her subordinates to handle as she felt they would get too much PR out of a meeting with the President of the United States.
I see Hillary's point, but it's wrong. Now let me clarify. I am undecided for 2008. Unlike the 2004 race when I knew John Kerry was my guy by February 2003, nobody stands out to me as someone I can fully support. I have heard Obama be wrong on a variety of topics as well (see: aggression towards Iran) so this is not me picking a side in the overall race.
I believe that the President is someone who for the good of our nation, needs to meet with leaders even if they disagree with us or would publicize the meeting to the rest of the world. If we're concerned about going to meet with Kim Jong-Il in North Korea or Ahmenijhad in Iran, don't. Meet in a neutral location and have a summit with countries from the region.
One of the most spiteful things the Bush Administration has done is to shelf diplomacy and push it off on other countries in the region. With North Korea he put the pressure on Russia, China, Japan and South Korea to carry the water for American policies. Some of those countries are not in full agreement with our policies. But it's just like Bush to outsource work that Americans should be doing.
While they did that, idiot boy ran his mouth about an 'axis of evil' and scared North Korea and Iran into speeding up their nuclear programs.
Now I'm not saying Hillary would do that but it's clear that we need to meet with other leaders and hear them out. We may not agree with them on every issue but we don't have to.
When Russia was at the height of the cold war standoff with us we couldn't find much of anything to agree about with them and they were far more dangerous than Chavez, Jong-Il, Ahmenijhad and Castro combined. Yet we met with them in summits and when that didn't work we communicated with them. President John F. Kennedy had Tommy Thompson (no not the moronic former Governor of Wisconsin)as an ambassador there and he spoke with members of Nikita Khrushchev's regime frequently.
By staying in contact Kennedy had an idea of how to address him and empathize with what our enemy ultimately wanted. Did he want nuclear war? No. And I highly doubt North Korea or Iran do either. Khrushchev wanted to look good in the standoff with the U.S. to his own people and because we were smart enough to talk to him and see his side we were able to get them to stand down and a nuclear weapon was never launched in over 40 years of conflict.
Here meeting with our enemies may give them political clout at home but it also gives them piece of mind that we're not looking to attack them for their oil or to overthrow their governments. In turn we can offer Iran and North Korea light water reactors to help with their energy needs and then receive concessions in return in the human rights and diplomatic fields.
It's to everyone's benefit that Americans stand up and converse with everybody. It prevents conflict, gives the people of those countries less of a reason to hate us and ultimately attack us and it provides us with more respect and better standing in the world. Which at this point, is desparately needed. Point goes to Obama.
-The Republican Presidential Candidates are refusing to do the Youtube debates. And with good reason. After all if you were an insensitive racist warmonger, wouldn't you be afraid to take questions from the public? Besides if these guys learned anything from Bush it's that Republicans only look good when they pre-screen audiences, have them sign loyalty oaths and then broadcast the ones where people fawn over them. Otherwise you could end up with another "Macaca" incident.
Funniest thing about it is the RNC asked their supporters to send in as many slanted questions as they could to play gotcha with Democrats. I suppose that's how they got this idiot's question in there. Of course Biden's response to it was hilarious.
-Rp
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