Blane the ignorance of the electorate.  

I did like his point however that the parties (particularly the Reps.) engage in "narrow and superficial partisanship," which to me is a crime that stifles voter turnout since many feel that there is no real choice between the parties on our bread and butter issues.

That's what we call it in my part of the world.

That is why voter reelected Bushy/Cheney for a second term. They were not ready to admit they were wrong about Bush in 2000.  I think it took the sad images of Katrina for many to suddenly see what was apparent to so many even back in 1999.

I think it's too easy to say that people just weren't educated enough to see the diaster of Bush Chenney.

Like it or not we were in the middle of a war so people don't want to second guess a commander in chief when he's trying to handle an enormous problem .... regardless if his decisions led to the debacle or not.

Secondly and this is important in this election year, people saw the democratic candidate, John Kerry as a self serving careerist politician who always harbored an ambition to be president .... in essence not much different than the Bush devil himself. People will often deal with the devil they know, rather than take a chance on an untested new one. Being a prominent Vietnam War protester didn't help .... I believe Senator Webb describe this best when he wrote and talked about the Bush / Kerry conumdrum.

Going forward let's get to a new politic and BUST the careerist / lobbyist politician back slapping palm greasing / fund raising cycle and get to work on the people's business.

Let's hope we get a Barrack Obama for president!!

I admit that I voted for Bush as the lesser of two evils.  It was a horrible choice but the vision of Kerry protesting the Vietnam war, in which my husband served two tours, was sickening.  I hoped the Dems would have given us a better candidate as many people would have chosen to remove Bush from the White House.

Back then the war wasn't going as badly as it is now. On top of it Kerry ran a very horrible campaign, didn't challenge Bush effectively, and basically gave the voters no reason to elect him. In addition the media constantly portrayed Kerry to be a "flip flopper" and an "elitist". Finally I think that the 2004 election was more of a vote AGAINST Kerry than FOR Bush.

That's why Bush's second term agenda failed. That's why his attempt to use "political capital" to privatize Social Security failed. That's why he failed to push anything forward.

Dennis Kucinich had a lawsuit pending against the debate station ABC/WMUR and it was settled only hours before the Democratic debate. It came out against Kucinich, however the station allowed him to speak after the debate. I watched him live. As soon as he started to talk about impeaching Bush and Cheney and sill holding them accountable after they were out of office there was a blackout disguised as "technical" difficulties. The following article explains the outcome of the lawsuit, but not what I saw when Kucinich spoke after the debate last night.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.c...

My question is this. Do we really live in a democracy when the mainsteam media will not allow the I word to be mentioned on TV, even when the president and vice president have committed many violations of the Constitution? I felt like I was living the Soviet Union.

2004 was a moral choice.  There were no unknowns.  But for a group of Americans, morality is not much an issue.  (Think of morality in our society as a normal distribution curve -- the old bell shaped curve.)  And for another group it does not rank very highly.  Add to that people who vote reflexively for the GOP without thinking, the same way they observe religious and social beliefs handed down from their parents.*/

Trivia--brush with the famous:  When McGovern was running for President, I was hitchhiking across Key Bridge one Saturday morning to go to the Capitol to see a photography exhibit.  McGovern picked me up in his convertible and we had a nice discussion on the way to the Capitol (I had attended an anti-war hearing he was at the previous week so we had something to talk about).

I think he would have made a fine president.

*/  My wife tells me that evolutionary theorists say that following one's parents' beliefs is a natural mechanism, because we're adopting safe, tried-and-true survival methods.  Think of living in a more unprotected society than we have now to understand these benefits.  It turns out that many successful people modify their parents' beliefs, sometimes to an extreme extent.  And over time society modifies general beliefs, hopefully for the better (e.g., perspectives on race, the death penalty, gender equality, etc.)  But we're still better off following some basic rules, like "Don't chase balls into the street!!"  But should Tom Cruise's kid follow his parents' beliefs about Scientology?  Meh.

Sometimes one should learn what NOT to believe from one's parents. Even in the Bible it says God gave man (women too today) agency. That means the right to choose. Otherwise nothing means anything. Besides eveyone should be required to rethink every piece of dogma thrown their way whether it is conservative, progressive, or liberal. I think this should be taught in school. Unfortunately I fear the home schooling movement will do just the opposite.

The other thing that needs to be remembered about 2004 is that, while the story was mostly out there by then, the administration was using every tool at its disposal to keep the truth about their lies and mendacity from getting to the public.

Keep in mind that the administration delayed and obfuscated in every possible way to keep the investigation into the conspiracy to out Valerie Plame under wraps until the election was over. Also, the Republicans delayed the investigation and release of the second part of the SSCI investigation into the mis-use of intelligence to lie to the people to get us into this disastrous war (a report that has never been, to this day, completed).

The institutional Republican party used its power to protect Bush and Cheney and their own power-brokers at our expense.

Now, those of us that are political junkies and work hard to find something closer to the truth than is reported by the establishment media can justly feel saddened that so many of our fellow citizens allowed the wool to be pulled over their eyes. But, as we've been discussing around here as of late, fear and the manipulation of fear and hatred are powerful and nefarious forces.

This era will be remembered for official lying on a scale never before seen. The apex of the power of the conservative movement and its talk radio witch doctors may have bought them 2004, but the veil is lifting, and they are done -- just rewards for a cabal of liars.

But this is a long term struggle. We will never be the country we should be until we can find 535 honorable women and men to represent us in Congress; we are no where even close to that number (probably somewhere around 150 at the moment).  

I'm sorry, but there are just too many inconsistencies, lies, and outright fantasies in McGovern's piece to take him seriously.

Let's start off with the alleged 600,000 Iraqi deaths in the October 2006 Johns Hopkins study.  I haven't read it; the link in the WashingtonPost.com version of McGovern's piece doesn't take you to it.  However, the simple math defies common sense.  By October 2006, combat operations in Iraq had been underway for 42 month, since April 2003.  That is an average of 14,286 per month or 476 per day or 20 deaths per hour 24 x 7.  Does anyone recall a single day when 476 people were reported killed in Iraq, including US, Iraqi security forces, and civilians?  How about 476 every day for 42 months?  I didn't think so.

Next, consider the issue of habeas corpus and other due process protections for terrorists and criminal combatants.  Never in the judical history of our country have we extended due process to saboteurs and spies of lawful enemy states.  McGovern suddenly imagines a right to due process for stateless terrorists?  (I'll grant you that the torture aspect of the handling of detainees is very distressing; why didn't McGovern address it?)

The 2000 and 2004 elections were stolen by the Republicans?  This is my favorite conspiracy theory.  Why didn't they steal the 2006 elections as well and keep control of Congress?  Were they secretly counting on Reid and Pelosi to be such embarassments as an opposition leadership?  Sure they were.  I agree with earlier posters here:  Gore and Kerry ran dismal, ineffectual campaigns.

Impeach the President of the US for bungling the disaster relief after Hurricanne Katrina?  Okay, then I guess President Clinton should have been impeached for botching the humanitian relief in Somolia.  And, President G. H. Bush before him should have been impeached for bungling the response to Hurricanne Andrew.  Get real!

Finally, would McGovern have us believe that he actually supported the first Gulf War?  What alternative universe does he think that he is living in?

I'm sorry, but George McGovern, like Jimmy Carter before him, has no standing on which to criticize this or any other dysfunctional administration.  Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld have been a disaster for this country, but we don't need the self-serving ramblings of a loser like McGovern to point it out to us.    

Your response to the 600,000 figure in the Johns Hopkins study appears to be that it's impossible because it's just too many dead people.  Hardly a logical argument.  You're saying it can't be, because it just seems too many. You base your complaint on the number of combat operations which were taking place.  The problem is that the study was not based solely on combat operations, but on a number of other factors, among them being collateral damage from internecine attacks in the vacuum we so thoughtfully provided to the insurgents and tribal contestants, deaths from inadequate access to food and water and medicines, collapse of the infrastructure, disease transmission, etc.  

In response to complaints about due process and habeas violations you write

Never in the judical history of our country have we extended due process to saboteurs and spies of lawful enemy states.

Um, wrong!  A prime example was the German saboteurs who were put on trial during WWII.  They were tried and most, except two, I think, were executed, but the fact is they were provided counsel and the right to legal proceedings.  In fact, others involved in the war such as Tokyo Rose were also tried under the rule of law and with legal counsel.  In situations where we have not provided due process to enemy combatants, it's because we have designated them as prisoners of war and therefore subject to a different set of rules.  The fact is that we could only benefit by treating these terrorists as what they are: stateless criminals bent on destruction and mayhem.  Arrest them, appoint them counsel, allow them to see the charges and evidence against them, try them, and if found guilty, sentence them accordingly.  What's the big deal?  If they're criminals, then treat them as such.  If they're prisoners of war, then establish an objective proceeding for determining what category of combatant they are and treat them accordingly.  I don't see what we gain by locking people up forever - for life, apparently - for something amorphous and undefinable as the "war on terror".  How the hell are we supposed to know when the war's over?  There's no territory to be gained and no surrender on the battleship Missouri.  How can we justify just detaining people forever without even allowing them a proper hearing to see if they ARE the bad guys we're trying to protect ourselves from?  The present system is a stain on our great, vaunted system of justice that should not be allowed to stand.  

As for the stolen elections, there's ample evidence of hanky panky in Florida and Ohio, and that the Republicans obtained the connivance of a friendly and apparently conflicted Supreme Court didn't hurt.  Scalia's son was employed by counsel for the Republicans and Scalia did not recuse himself from the suit.  The whole situation stank to high heaven.  

I say McGovern's a lot more right than he is wrong.  

...most people know that. There is a certain sector of the GOP (Neocons) that have no problem breaking the law--they believe in their cause so much they're willing to do anything to make it happen. The Neocons sided with Bush and helped him out.

And just who would these people be?  The New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Miami Herald finished the Florida recount that the Supreme Court halted and concluded that Bush won in 2000.  The 2004 disputes never even got to first base in the judiciary.

Again, bladerunner, if the neocons could do it in 2000 and 2004, why did they let the Democrats take control of Congress in 2006?

He was elected.
This reminds me of the Mirror headline at the time:
HOW COULD 59,057,082 PEOPLE BE SO STUPID?
Still pondering whether there's an answer to that question.

...., but I do believe there is a little luck and timing involved. By 2006 it was quite obvious that Bush was pulling down the GOP because of his foolishness. It is possible that the GOP is reloading now. They're planning for the future. They know they can't win--I also believe the real GOP insiders know that unless the stars lineup they won't win the Whitehouse in 08.

As far as the 59 million whatever voters who were misinformed enough to vote for Dubya in 04, you can look at the great state of Ohio, and see the mess they had in 2004 at the polls, in predomintly Democratic areas. You know, lines for hours so people leave and say "F" it. To me the GOP is very orgainized,  much more so than the Dems, and they could pull something like this off.

It's those little kind of things that I am talking about. Maybe using the word Neocons was wrong, even though they do exist. Of course I think everyone suspects funky stuff goes on on both sides. Take care.