"It's a bit pathetic, as Paul Krugman notes today, to see a great American political party so bereft of actual ideas that its only strategy is to attack the other side for taking rational positions that it soon ends up agreeing with."

It pleases me to no end that this has become a running theme for the '08 elections; in the end, it seems the Defeatocrats actually knew what they were talking about in the first place. Vindication is sweet.

Please tell me the vindicatn is sweet line was posed tongue-in-cheek.  If trillions in debt, mismanaged wars,  collapse of the housing market, a culture of willful ignorance, rising inflation, rising unemployment -- if these are the wages of vindicatn, however sweet, I think I'll pass -- January can't come soon enough...

Guys, I hate it too, but it sorta had to happen this way.  Only through the extra 4 years of Bush idiocy could the "Cowboy President" myth finally be discredited.  It's time the Jacksonian's realized that Bush was at best a poser and at worst a counterfeit.  Had Kerry won we would've had 4 years of "Bring back the Cowboy!" every time something went wrong.

This way the Republicans and many democrats and independents (myself included, although by '04 I had seen the light and voted for Kerry) had to go through some difficult soul searching to rethink how we could have ever thought that a president like Bush could be good for the country.

Painful though it was in lives lost and economic malaise, it may have been a necessary exercise for our politics to grow out of it's immature "daddy's big and strong" posture.    

Yeah, GSpinks -- vindication ain't that sweet in the form of G-dub. It's more of a "NOW you tell us?!" vindication, which we've gotten plenty of from this administration.

Gavriel, I had a distinct moment of clarity about GWB in '05 when he came to Mar de Plata for the Summit of the Americas.  Not that I ever supported him -- in fact, I abhorred the man from the start.  But this was when I realized that, with Bush, we'd sunk to previously unfathomable lows.  I'd been living in Latin America a few years, and was, at the time, in Buenos Aires.  A cabbie noticed my accent, and asked where I was from.

"America?" he said w/ an eye in the rear-view.  I prepared myself for the usual:  some torrent of mindless anti-Americanism, based on Iraq -- that was par for the course then and probably still is.  Most of the time, I could parry well enough, state that I supported the Iraq invasion though I distrusted Bush-Cheney's commitment to nation-building.  That many Americans couldn't stand the two, they'd actually lost the first election, had, in the second, squeaked by Kerry who, in any case, was a weak candidate.

But he didn't touch that.  Instead, incredulous, he asked:  "Is it true that your president doesn't believe in evolution?"  I was dumbstruck.  Seriously.  I had nothing to respond with -- nothing.  And for the first time, I was distinctly ashamed of being American.

they should have never given the women the vote.  they whine, they complain endlessly.  they dont know how to lose.  take a few lessons from the men ladies.  watch some football.  hey, even watch the republicans and stay on message.  this is getting too easy for the other side.  rush and hannity are having a ball and they are beginning to make sense.  enuf with the womens issues in denver, and all the rest  that clinton so exploits for all our benefit.   i am fed up with the dems for not showing them the door.

OFF TOPIC:

Wow, what a post gupta - almost cinematic.  I've had more intense emotional conversations with cab drivers than just about anyone (and I'm a social worker).  

I was screamed at so loudly by a Russian cab driver in New York when Clinton bombed Serbia, that the cab next to us asked me if I was OK through the open window (I was, I thought the cabbie was too old to be truly afraid of).  

A month after 9/11, a Pakistani cab driver and I were both so choked up, we pulled over and simply sobbed together on 9th Avenue, he in the front and me in the back just looking up in the mirror at each other every now and then.  After 20 minutes or so, he quietly drove me home and we said nothing about it as I got out.  

In Amsterdam, a cab driver said "Miss, are you American?" me: yes "Well, I am so sorry to tell you but I think your Prince died in a plane crash today, you might want to call home.  Should I take you to your hotel?"  Me: Yes please.  It was John Kennedy Jr.

and on and on and on.  Someone should write a book on these tales, they are so oddly poignant and humanizing in a way almost nothing else is.

Check, those moron shock jocks you listen to whine for a frigging living.  Didn't your Mama tell your brains fall out of your ears if you listen to that stuff too long?  

I think it's showing already, but it might not be too late.

I am not afraid of Rush Limbaugh and Hannity, two bigger pussies have never been born.  Get them out from behind their microphones and their scared of their own shadow - especially fat soft Rush.  Turn that garbage off, fact is we ARE better than them and you should be proud of that, not licking their toes looking for forgiveness.  They'll only kick harder.  Man up.

I'm adding a permanent Wandrey exception to my general "Don't Feed The Trolls" policy.  That was awesome.

Thanks Ratner, coming from you, it almost makes me wish for trolls to post who don't think women should get the vote more often.

Well said, wandreycer1!

"If trillions in debt, mismanaged wars,  collapse of the housing market, a culture of willful ignorance, rising inflation, rising unemployment -- if these are the wages of vindicatn, however sweet, I think I'll pass" -guptatomic1

"Yeah, GSpinks -- vindication ain't that sweet in the form of G-dub. It's more of a "NOW you tell us?!" vindication, which we've gotten plenty of from this administration." -rozenson

I think Gavriel gave a pretty good answer. I would say that these are not the wages of vindication; more like the penalties and fines for stupidity, over-rationalization, underwhelming thought, self-absorbtion, and the myriad forms of intellectual dishonesty prevalent in today's politics.

The only improvement to the document I'd like would have been a sentence to the effect that the U.S. needs to fight "a smarter, more sensitive war on terrorism."