I've tried not to go into political rants on my blog, as there are already too many that do that. (One exception was my Labor Day Rant.)
However, I can't ignore today's issues. For the last five years, the Republicans have slowly dug their own graves by continually overstepping their bounds and abusing their privileges, and most of all, by not listening to the American public. Today the Democrats take control of the House. They also have 28 Governorships, and are one seat away from taking control of the Senate. In addition, a lot of propositions were shot down, many of them conservative ploys to confuse the voters.
Strangely, California now has one of the most conservative governors with the Arnold's re-election. He won mostly by turning his back on the Republicans who financed his campaign, and he wisely distanced himself from conservative issues in the last days of his first term. Unfortunately, this is exactly what he did before the first election, so we can expect him to return to catering to the Republican right when the dust has settled.
However, by far the most important victory yesterday was one that was not an elected official: Donald Rumsfeld has resigned as Defense Secretary, after months of denial from both Rummy and Bush that there would be any changes after the election. Rumsfeld has disturbingly stayed the course in Iraq to the point of irrationality. It's very clear that the war has become a complete mess, and new leadership is needed to turn things around. I can only hope that this is the beginning of major changes in the operation. Unfortunately, we still have Dick Cheney and Karl Rove, although Rove's influence has apparently dropped considerably.
An excellent article on the Iraq issue was Fareed Zakaria's cover story in Newsweek last week.
I also sincerely hope that the Democrats don't blow this singular opportunity. They need to work together to unify the country now. If they try to whiplash in the other direction, then the country will still be too divided and ultimately things will reverse direction again in another coming election.
2 comments:
I'm not gloating, but I'm cautiously happy. I'm deeply concerned about where we are in Iraq, and whether the situation there can be salvaged enough so some semblance of democracy can take root, without civil war or the country being divided up like a pie.
Fareed Zakaria has written some great articles about this in Newsweek, but nobody ever listens to him.
Our government also needs to stop spending like crazy, with money we don't have. It's going to kill our economy.
We have a great deal of work ahead of us.
You're right, I'll add a link to Zakaria's Newsweek article.
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