If it weren't so sad, it'd be funny (Bushisms)

[perc-o-prince]

Seriously. I do love when Doonesbury (Garry Trudeau) does this, but it's a very bittersweet laugh. Isn't this enough reason to want to make a 360 degree change???

Chuck

 

[rickr]

So sad, but I am afraid it is not enough for some people to want a turnaround.

Have you seen this?

 

[nurdlinger]

Unless you're talkin' temperature

A 360 degree change leaves you right where you started.

 

[rickr]

You right! We don't want that! <:

 

[perc-o-prince]

What a dumbass. I meant a 180!!!!!

Chuck

 

[goatfarmer]

180, 360, as long as there is a change of some sorts at 1600 Pennsylvania.....

 

[Unimatic1140]

Letters to the editor -

Sir, If, as Gallup says, the majority of Americans believe the president culpable but overwhelmingly oppose impeachment, that is a sad commentary on the complexity of modern life.
If he is indeed guilty and arrogantly refuses to resign, then he is a threat to the liberty of every American. In such a case, impeachment is the only recourse the Constitution provides. The process is fraught with uncertainty, and it is reasonable that people should fear it. But it seems strange that a nation quick to war against imagined enemies abroad should be afraid to protect its freedoms against subversion by its own leaders.
Don B. Wittenberger, Seattle

Sir, The U.S. appears to have come full circle. The president implies that he is not answerable to the people as represented by the Senate investigating committee. He answers only to God. This was and is the answer of all dictators, tyrants and absolute monarchs. What a sad and sobering thing to see in a modern democratic state.
John Blais
Ottawa

Just these two samples of outrage might lead you to believe they are written to the editors of an ultra-left leaning tabloid or website but in fact, they are letters written to the editors of Time magazine, published August 13, 1973. It is sad commentary that some in the country are incapable of learning from the past and gaining any sense of history. We have survived a revolution, a Civil War, two assassinations, two World Wars a major economic depression among other horrors along the way and I have no doubt that our nation will survive these neo-con idiots but it's time for Americans to wake up, turn off the TV and get involved in their own destiny. Finally, we may be starting to see that happen but it is coming very slowly.

 

[jeffg]

Robert, except (arguably) for the Civil War, I believe the rise of neoconservatism represents the greatest threat to our nation in our entire history. In some key respects our free society has already been destroyed. Look at FISA. Look at "immunity" for our telecom companies. Look at what all three branches of our government are doing. And on and on and on.

The U.S. House impeached Bill Clinton for lying about a blowjob for christsakes, and our media gave us daily coverage, page after page on the issue every single day for two fucking years. And since then, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney misled us into an illegal and immoral war, are responsible for the slaughter of 4000+ American troops and 70,000+ Iraqi civilians, flushed a trillion dollars down the toilet and have been trampling on our Constitution every day for nearly seven years and they've been absolved of all accountability by both Congress and our media.

Why? Because America's mass media is the Third Person in this most unholy Trinity: a corrupt two-party political system bought and paid for by multinational corporations which don't give a flying fuck about America or its working class.

We've now reached the point where nearly all major sources of traditionally reliable news and information, from the Washington Post to CNN, are now editorially controlled by the exact same tiny group of neocon mouthpieces for the corporate fascist right. As a result Americans are abysmally ignorant of what's going on in their government and the rest of the world. Not only ignorant, but far worse, we no longer even care.

In case you haven't guessed I am not at all optimistic about the future. Ben Franklin predicted the present course of events over 200 years ago, when speaking in favor of passing the U.S. Constitution:

"I agree to this Constitution with all its faults, if they are such; because I think a general Government necessary for us, and there is no form of Government but what may be a blessing to the people if well administered, and believe farther that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in Despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic Government, being incapable of any other."

-- Benjamin Franklin, speech to the Constitutional Convention, September 17, 1787