Vichy

Historical reference:

Vichy France was established after France surrendered to Germany in 1940, and took its name from the government's capital in Vichy, southeast of Paris near Clermont-Ferrand. While officially neutral in the war, it was essentially a Nazi puppet state that collaborated with the Nazis, including on the Nazis' racial policies.

How does the "opposition" party respond to Senator Feingold's motion to censure President Bush for breaking the law so flagrantly with the illegal wiretaps?

In America, at least, you never want to be referred to as "French-like" during wartime.

"I'’m amazed at Democrats, cowering with this president'’s numbers so low. The administration just has to raise the specter of the war and the Democrats run and hide."

You'd think the difference between now and back in Watergate, back when Cheney and Rove were cutting their teeth working for the soon-to-be disgraced President Nixon, is that there aren't any principled Republicans in government, no Howard Bakers or Lowell Weikers.

Turns out there are too few Democrats with blood flowing through their veins. Hell, even 78 year-old Senator Sam Ervin kicked ass on that crooked Chief Executive. What the hell are Harry Reid, Diane Feinstein and Ted Kennedy thinking?

This is some sort of focus group foolishness, the kind of inside-the-Beltway scleroticic party thinking that the GOP rid themselves of with the Conservative Revolution that started with Barry Goldwater's devastating defeat by Lyndon Johnson and has paid off twice, once with Ronald Reagan in 1980 and again with our current dirtbag (a police term for a criminal so far eluding justice) twenty years later. I give them credit. I hope some smart, feisty young progressive Dem is reading Richard Viguerie's book to get a clue how they did it and maybe there's hope for, like, 2016.

You win on emotion, plain and simple. Real emotion. You can manufacture some pump up on that emotion, but there's always a very real feeling at the core.

Right now that feeling, from 66% of Americans (that's a 2:1 margin of citizens), is that President Bush is incompetent, debilitatingly cronyistic, and probably doing something illegal. And he lied us into an unnecessary, misdirected, and now disastrous war by shady political means.

Two-third of all Americans would be glad to see him replaced tomorrow, if only there were someone in line we could pretend to trust. But since America's Vice President seems insane, all we can really do is censure the boy wonder.

In the face of such obvious moral and intellectual decay in our nation's highest Administration, we need fighters like Feingold, Dr. Dean (don't believe the smears) and, hopefully again some day, Paul Hackett.

What we don't need are weak-willed collaborators, apologists and serial losers.

When it's wartime and things are starting to look bad for your enemy, that's when you want to put the pressure on. You don't want to soften up and let your enemy get away with something that might lead to their re-strengthening. In the kitchen it's different, in the bedroom okay, but on the battlefield you just don't want to be compared to the French.

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