• Sep. 8, 2003
• By Shawn
• In Politics
• 6 Comments
• 0

Ah, the 2004 election. I have no idea where it’s going. It’s kind of like watching two shitty teams in the Super Bowl. Who’s going to lose more?

I would like to think that if W. keeps on the same track he’s been on, his competition has to basically not whore/dope it up, and W. will hand the seat over to the Democrats. Last night, the cowboy in chief told the nation he wants $87 billion (on top of the $79 billion already spent) to rebuild Iraq. “We will do whatever is necessary, we will spend what is necessary, to achieve this essential victory in the war on terror, to promote freedom, and to make our nation more secure,” Bush said.

You’d think for $79 billion, we’d already have something that resembled one of those three agenda items. However, there has been zero evidence that this invasion was tied into the “war on terror”, the liberated are attacking their liberators, and last I heard, the only thing to come out of our homeland security was the Gestapo inspiring Patriot Act. Persian Gulf 1 cost us $9 billion. It looks like PG Redux is going to run us 18 times that, and only $20 billion of the new scratch is going to actually rebuilding the Iraq.

And before I go off on that rant, how much money has Jr. asked Congress to rebuild this country? Last Friday, when a lot of people (the White House especially) were about to make happy fist kabobs over the turnaround of the economy, the Dept. of Labor peed in everyone’s Cheerios when it announced that 93,000 jobs were actually lost in August. This marks the longest stretch (22 months) of jobless growth since World War II, bringing the total to (drum roll please) 1 million jobs lost since November 2001.

That said, let’s look at Bush Sr. At the top of 1992, the thought that anyone could beat his reelection campaign was laughable. He was still sailing on PG1. He had one of the highest ratings ever. Then people realized the man of the people had never seen a barcode scanner at a grocery store. Then our attention turned to his attention on domestic affairs. Turns out there wasn’t any domestic attention. Actually that’s not true. They built their platform on the concept that everyone domestically who didn’t conform to the 1950’s idea of the nuclear family unit was an immoral heathen, right up there with homos and darkies – probably not the best idea in a nation that (back then) was batting .500 on divorces.

Now, we have the new [sic] Bush. He followed the same plan – laughed at the environment, laughed at North Korea, and landed U.S. GI’s on Iraqi soil. Hell, he even finished what the old man started. He routed Saddam Hussein. And, just like the old man, he left too much time on the clock. The party’s over, the smoke’s lifted, the hangover is hanging over us, and we’re wondering what the hell we were celebrating in the first place. Turns out, the Bushes know how to party, but they don’t know when or how to leave one. We’re still in Iraq. Why? Probably the same reason we went in the first place, and that reason is…?

While you’re chewing on that one, lest we forget the battle is far from won. The Democrats have to get their heads out of their rectums and find someone who doesn’t look like they’ve had their head up their rectum (e.g. Mondale, Dukakis.) And when I say look, I literally mean look. If all the options are in fact available, I promise you can pick the Democratic primary right now, just on that shallow, potentially educated, hick “charisma” that we love in our leaders. If I had to guess right now, I’d say Dean. I haven’t even heard the guy speak (Graham is the only one that I’ve heard speak). Last week, I saw a picture of all the (current) candidates, and Dean looked like the one that creeped me out the least. So, if I had to bet now, I’d say Dean pulls the Democratic primary.

Unless of course, a late horse comes into the gate. His name doesn’t rhyme with bore by coincidence. However, whether he shows up depends on how badly both parties do between now and, let’s say, February.

As for the election, no one apparently knows where anyone lies yet. According to pollsters Zogby International, Bush’s positive performance rating dropped: 54% of likely voters rated Bush’s job performance as fair or poor. A Time/CNN poll showed that 63% of Americans believe going into Iraq was the right policy and 71% said the U.S. has done a good job since major fighting ended. A good job at what, I don’t know. I’m just quoting what was quoted to me by someone who quoted it from the sources.

BTW, when was the last time you were polled by a major national polling group regarding a national, political or government issue?