Maybe we shouldn't concentrate on bashing Bush so much.

[Lone Pawn]

Now, before y'all hit alert and scream Bloody Freeper on me, hear me out. I'm not saying we should play nice. I think we need to ramp up the rhetoric. But we should aim it at Congress, not Bush.

Bush is a lame duck now. He can't be re-elected, he's got low ratings, and he blew all that much-vaunted political capital on his failure of an SS plan. He's really no longer the driving force behind the Republican movement--note how DeLay and Frist are moving into the spotlight, taking a bigger role in the SS and TS cases. If anything is to happen now, it will happen with Congress. *Everything* that happens now will happen in Congress. And, now that Bush is on a weak foot, Senators are starting to break rank. They're weren't lockstep of Schiavo, and they're barely coherant on Social Security. It isn't Bush's Congress anymore--it's the RNC's still, but it isn't Bush's by any means.

And they're up for reelection every two years, whereas save calamity, Bush will be in office until 08 and a private citizen in 09 no matter what. Bush isn't the one we should be concentrating on now. Instead we should be focusing entirely on congressional Republicans.

Seriously. So what if we demonize Bush? So what if the entire nation thinks the man's the devil himself? As long as Congress stays in Republican hands, it's the same as it is now.

So I propose that we concentrate on making Congressional Republicans our Prime Evil. This doesn't mean that we should cut Bush slack--certainly not. The man's a whore and an asshole. But instead of talking about "Bush's plan to ruin SS," we should talk about the "Republican plan to ruin SS." Not "Bush's pandering to the religious right," but "the Republican congress pandering to fundamentalist extremists."

By fixating on Bush, we're letting Congress off the hook. We need to hold them--the ones with power--accountable.

[journalist3072]

1. It's not Bush Bashing....it's called speaking truth to power!

And we need to continue to speak truth to power! Otherwise, he will continue to be unaccountable for his actions. He thinks he had his "accountability moment" on November 2, 2004 (remember that infamous Washington Post interview) and so he's not accountable anymore. We need to show him otherwise.

[Lone Pawn]

6. Why?

We do we need to "get Bush?" So supposing we turn 90% of America against Bush. What does that mean? He's no longer a political powerhouse as it is. That won't hinder the Congress one bit--and they're the ones who are doing things.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

15. Why? We do [sic] we need to "get Bush?"

So that it never happens again.

[FreedomAngel82]

35. Whenever he does something

he's representing the country. Do you like having that fool represent YOU? I don't think so. Plus you know good and well the freepers continue to bash Clinton even though he's now a private citizen. So if I want to bash Bush I will.

[Dunedain]

56. So what never happens again?

I think the poster is saying he feels like Don Quixote', and he sees * as the windmill's.

[Lone Pawn]

64. Something similar...only

there are *actual* dragons about, but everyone just hates the windmills too much to concentrate on them.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

67. How many dragon scalps do you have on your belt?

[journalist3072]

19. Because

1. No matter what lame duck you perceive him to be, he's still President of the United States, and that makes him accountable to us, the American public. We are his supervisors. It would start a very dangerous slippery slope in this country if we were to take the attitude that we aren't going to question or challenge an incumbent POTUS, simply b/c they are in their 2nd term.

2. If we rise up against his extremist right-wing agenda, even the most conservative in Congress will see that there is no political will for Bush's agenda, and they will be less likely to push his agenda on the Hill.

3. If we can get the Congress back in the control of the Democrats in the midterm election, then they will have investigative power. We need to hold Bush accountable and say to the Democrats "If we give you back control of the Congress, we demand you put Bush's appointees under oath and investigate x,y and z......

Those are my reasons!

[Lone Pawn]

23. Okay,

1. I don't say let him off. I say use Republican whenever you would focus on Bush.

2. Congress is where his right-wing agenda lies, and is where it will move forward.

3. We're not taking Congress on Bush-hatred. We need to take Congress by making America realize how bad the Republican Congress is.

[Robbien]

2. My favorite term has been the corporate elites

and those GOPers who sell out America to them.

Bush. Who's that?

[Catherine Vincent]

3. No effing way!

:-)

[DebJ]

Santorum First, please! Oh please!

[blm]

4. #1 talking point for 06 must be: Should ONE PARTY control every branch of

government?

Should ONE PARTY push their agenda on the entire country?

Should ONE PARTY represent our entire nation?

[FreedomAngel82]

36. And also

should one party be able to spy on you and butt into your life? As in the Patriot Act and what happened with Schavio. The only way we're going to get that back is if we are the majority again.

[Demit]

57. I'd phrase that differently. You're only inviting them to say "yes" :)

[blm]

61. nah...I'm inviting them to engage their hearts and brains.....

they KNOW that the founding fathers wanted a somewhat divided government.

I believe that only a minority of fascist control freak types would answer yes. Then we point fingers at them. heheh

[Old and In the Way]

5. I agree....time to turn our focus on the rubber stamping enablists

that have allowed Bush to carry out this agenda. Bush is the lightening rod, but the real enemy is a Republican Congress that shares his agenda.

It's the Republican "Contract on America" we need to be shedding light on.

Take back Congress and maybe Dimson will have his own Carla Faye moment.

[doublethink]

7. We need to keep him down .........

knock him completely off his pedestal. He is a lame duck president but still a very dangerous man in my opinion. All he seems to care about is his 'legacy' how history will judge him. No I will not let up whenver the truth presents itself about the criminal aspects of him and his administration. Peace. :)

[Lone Pawn]

10. Why? No seriously, why do we need to keep him down at

the expense of hindering the Congress that will ACTUALLY DO THINGS? Bush, Bush's administration...these aren't as important as Congress is. And, while we're stuck with him for three and a half more years, we can take back Congress and remove his power entirely in 06.

[doublethink]

24. Look this game ain't over ........

it's like your looking to the next game, before winning this one WHILE HIS APPROVAL RATING is down to 43% .... I've seen this administration get away with so much IMPEACHABLE shit the last 4+ years it's amazing. And now we just give up? Move along nothing to see here. We can still win all we need to win in 2006 but still need to keep this administration in check and RANT about every little thing they try and pull !!! Keeping him down will only help the overall cause of the TRUTH any candidates we want to support in 2006, and then maybe we can have the power to finally IMPEACH this a ....hole. Lastly before we get on all these 2006 candidates bandwagons anyway we need to do something about DIEBOLD. Peace. :)

[BuyingThyme]

8. I don't buy the lame duck talk.

He and those around him are insane and just as dangerous now as in 2001.

I'll be concentrating on bashing Bush well past 2008.

[Lone Pawn]

13. Why on Earth would you bash Bush in 2009?

That's obsession. It does the Democrats no good to denounce a powerless Republican.

But yes, he is more or less a lame duck. He's just as insane, but far less dangerous. The RNC isn't in his pocket any more--if anything, he's beholden to the RNC now. And Congress is now the RNC's principal agent.

[BuyingThyme]

17. Why on Earth wouldn't you bash Hitler in 2005?

[Lone Pawn]

22. If we were a German political action group, it would be madness to run

ads denouncing Hitler if our aim is to promote the Social Democratic Party.

[BuyingThyme]

25. How did you happen to see the the ads I'm running?

You must have satellite.

[Lone Pawn]

27. I have a crystal ball.

:P

[UTUSN]

9. O.K., Let's Hit "Alert" Now n/t

[buckup]

11. Well, hot damn!

Aren't you smart? I agree with LonePawn. Although Bush is a great danger, he is not the ONLY danger. Our use of language should reflect it. "The REPUBLICAN plan to screw up social security."

Good job, buddy. *thumbs up*

[NAO]

12. We need to bash "Bush and the Repub Congress" - use "Coat-tail" effect

When a popular presidential candidate runs, there is a "coat-tail" effect that boosts the outcomes of everyone in his party across all local and national races. This was very pronounced in 1984 with Ronald Raygun.

I think we could utilize this effect to leverage Bush's unpopularity to help drag down and take down the GOP in general. Even though Bush (as of now) cannot run again, the more unpopular he becommes and the more we can link "Bush and the Republicans" in people's minds, the worse ALL Republican candidates are going to do in 2006 and 2008.

Every time his ratings go down in the polls, which is often, it can help us turn the American Public against the Republican Party and all of their candidates. So let's keep bashing, and exposing, and criticing Bush, but let's say, "Bush and the Republicans".

[Lone Pawn]

16. Good point. Though, if Bush, Heaven forbid, were to somehow regain

popularity, that could actually hurt the Republicans. But since he's pretty down now, linking them isn't a bad idea by any means. We just need to be certain that whenever we begin attacking the evil ones, we don't let Congress off the hook by fixating on Bush.

[FreedomAngel82]

39. Exactly

There are some republicans who are at the hip with Bush no matter what. Like with McCain for example. He endorsed him this last election and campaigned for him. If he is the canidate in 2008 for them we can easily get him for everything with Bush because he helped to bring Bush back into power.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

14. You have a point:

He is just there to sign the things that Rove wants him to sign. Clearly the agenda power is in the hands of Rove, K Street and Congress. They should be the clear focus now.

[in_cog_ni_to]

18. I disagree. We need to bash him MORE and include the Congressional

loonies when we do it. They all suck! The Fundamentalists are going down with Delay and hopefully a bunch more repukes from Congress go with them.

[Lone Pawn]

20. Realistically, we only can occupy so much of the public's consciousness.

And Democrats can only get so much airtime. We need to fill every synapse allowed us with distate for the Republicans. They may all suck, but if talk about too many things, the public loses interest. It's how they do propaganda.

One point at a time. Drill into your audience's head. One point. One hour about one point is far more effective than even two hours about two points. I'm serious. Focus. Laser-sharp focus. Razor-sharp focus. Congressional Republicans. They're the ones we need to get people pissed off at.

[Tux]

21. Exactly

Let's focus on the Republician party and try to bring them into the Light of Truth that burns away Ignorance. Maybe we could get less of them re-elected in 2006 and we can have our nation back.

[FreedomAngel82]

40. Yes

We have to show that they are not for the people. Just out for themselves and for corporations that work with them. You may think they are for you but really aren't. I wrote my Congressman about the Schavio ordeal and he is a republican and wrote back some really crappy Email that you could tell was a bunch of shit. He was saying how he would always side on the "er of life" and all that nonsense. Of course I wrote him back and really let him have it. They're all responsible.

[demgurl]

26. I can see what you are saying.....

but I respectfully disagree. The reasons?

1) Do you realize it is years later and the right wingers are still talking about that damn blow job? God I hope that was the best blow job he ever experienced. I hope she sucked like no person had ever sucked before. Lord knows they have gotten all the mileage they could out of it. All the mileage they could and it lasted maybe ten minutes? Give US a break!

OK, enough with the pettiness.

2) We can not just ignore Bush. We need to announce and shout every little wrongdoing he does. The deaf and blind need to hear about their leader so they may come to know the truth.

Does this mean we can not focus on Congress? Absolutely not. Just as we should not ignore Bush, we need to put the pressure on so they will abandon him and throw him to the wolves.

3) That being said, I agree we should incorporate our Bush bashing with the congress pressure. The right has a great, make that amazing, media machine. They have made the liberal media such a buzz word that no one in the media even reports anything remotely liberal.

They made Michael Moore a buzz word and made people want to distance themselves so that you were not a Michael Moore yourself.

Look at how they are painting judges right now and look at how well that is working. People are totally worked up about the judges in our system.

If they want to destroy something, or make it unpopular, they come up with a buzz word and get it out for all they can. And you know what? It works!

We need to use the same tactics so that people do not want anything to do with Congress or the president. I wouldn't want to leave anyone out so rather than choose one over the other, we need to include both. Let both sets feel the love of the democratic party. Use their own tactics against them. Fight fire with fire.

[Lone Pawn]

30. I think we mostly agree. Two points, though.

1) Yeah, it's pettiness, but more than that; RWers look stupid when they talk about the Clenis. People just turn them off.

2) If they were going to drop Bush based on facts, lord knows they've had enough of them. It's not like the last four years didn't happen. People just don't care about minute facts, even if they're not minute and there are thousands of them. We need better rhetoric and better framing. But then again, anyone who's read Lakoff thinks that :)

But mostly I think we agree. If you look at the content of my post, I don't think that we need to stop bashing Bush. We just need to stop doing so at the expense of Congress, because they're more powerful, and we can remove them. And we both agree on that.

[doublethink]

31. Why on earth can't we bash both?

Where on earth does it say that bashing Bush is taking away from us also yelling about the corruption's of the Tom Delay's of the world? The truth will speak for itself BUT WE HAVE TO YELL that truth to the general public because they don't have the attention span between work, consume and sleep. I don't see the conflict here in being capable of sinking the whole ship, Bush, the republican controlled congress and senate. Peace. :)

[beam me up scottie]

32. Yeah, I'm not sitting back while they

elevate him to sainthood and rewrite history. This son of a bitch needs to come down, hard or he'll be having a funeral like the pope or ronnie in a few years.
Can you guys stomach that?

[FreedomAngel82]

43. Ew

No way! I'd throw up for sure!!

[beam me up scottie]

48. I know, I made myself sick with that one. nt

:puke:

[demgurl]

50. lone pawn....

Yeah I do think we agree for the most part. I will comment on your second thought though. I agree that 'they' have not taken note of the facts thus far but it almost feels like the tide is turning a bit. I feel slightly encouraged by Bush's ratings or lack thereof. I feel great about how many people thought Bush and congress were way off on the Schiavo situation. I think Ken Delay made them all look bad with pulling the plug on his father. I can see slight things happening where people are moving away the admin a little. It is kind of like sitting next to a person and all of a sudden you smell something - you don't say anything, you just shuffle over and away from the person. I think the tides just may be turning. Either that or call me Don Quixote!

[FreedomAngel82]

42. I think that's a good idea

We can use a lot of their ideas I think to help us as well. Buzz words seem to do very well.

[demgurl]

51. Angel....

They seem to have really studied this and their tactics work - we have seen that. We honestly need our own think tank to study what tactics people like Rush Windbag use and then we need to incorporate them into our strategy. I hate to get down and dirty but now is not the time for a clean fight.

[applegrove]

28. He is the neocon. We aim at neocons and Rovbots and socipathic

tricks. We aim at the overall pattern of the elites buying power and the people getting gypt out of their democracy and economic policy that helps them.

We aim at saving the democracy. We aim at the Rove "Brand". We say no thanks.. we measure a man by the contents of his heart and we always will.

[Tactical Progressive]

29. Dude!!!

Good idea!

[leesa]

33. I'm not letting him off the hook. I want him brought to trial for treason

murder and war crimes. Most of the rest of Congress needs to be tried for the same thing.

[FreedomAngel82]

44. Yes

I agree. And I want John Kerry to trial him. Imagine his place in history for that. *sigh*

[bloom]

34. You are welcome to bash the Republican congress...

So what's the big deal if some other people want to Bash B**h? :shrug:


It's not like people can't do both.

[bvar22]

37. I agree.

I have been using the combo bush*/republicans for a few years.

I want to drive a stake through the cold black heart of the Conservative Republicanism, not just get rid of bush*.

bush* is just the puppet, not the source of the evil. The failures of his administration need to be hung around the neck of each and every republican in our government, and each and every one of their supporters in the CorpoMedia.

[Laurab]

38. I can multi-task

and bash 'em all, but as long as I have to look at the smirky chimp and see what he's doing to this world, I think I'm going to have to continue to bash him. He IS our fearful leader.

[ConsAreLiars]

41. "We" ??? If the "we" you refer to can only do one thing at a time

then you all have a problem. Every war is fought on many fronts, and the suggestion that "we" (meaning those who work for peace and justice) should reduce our fight to one small front is absurd, to put it in the kindest possible terms.

[Lone Pawn]

62. But we're neglecting the most important front

and concentrating on a diversion, to continue your metaphor.

[Trajan]

45. False Dilemma

There is no need to limit our criticism of ANY republican who deserves it .... Bar none ....

[Lone Pawn]

54. But frequently we make it so.

We go on and on about what BUSH is doing to SS, BUSH is doing to Medicare, BUSH is doing in Iraq. Instead, we should be talking about what REPUBLICANS are doing. Because while there's certainly no limit to what we can say, there equally certainly is a limit to how long people will listen.

[Octafish]

46. I wanna see Bush in jail.

So, let's do both.

Ramp up the heat on Congress.

Win the House and Senate.

Meanwhile, we keep clobbering Bush.

See that he gets impeached and tried and thrown in jail.

Then I can be happy, again.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

47. Just curious, but what would you think if Herr Busch declared himself.....

....President for Life sometime before 2008? Would you regret turning your focus onto the GOP at that point in time? I know I would.

And what would trigger such a move by Herr Busch? How about another "terrorist act" like 911 or worse? Plausible? You bet it is.

Still want to ignore Herr Busch?

[Lone Pawn]

55. Yes, but it's not going to happen.

That's patently ridiculous. Bush is a tool, not a demigod. He obviously isn't the puppetmaster here. Any other Republican idiot would serve the RNC just as well.

[Melynn]

49. Bush is the head of the Republican party

So by bashing Bush, you are hurting the members of the Republican party who are associated with Bush, whether they want to be or not.

[Lone Pawn]

59. That would be Ken Mehlman.

And bashing Bush is *not* the same as bashing Congress. People loved the hell out of Clinton, but voted for Republican congressmen just the same.

[cry baby]

52. can't...stop...

can't...stop...trying...it's a no go...must bash b*sh...can't stop...

[lonestarnot]

53. HELL NO! I've got to make sure he gets what's com'n to him! Congress

is also in my sights!

[shanti]

58. yes, he's a lame duck

more reason to be wary of anything he does! at this point, he will do anything and stop at nothing, and it appears that he's doing just that. he doesn't give a fuck, because it's all in the "plan".

[kentuck]

68. I agree but....

why does it have to be one or the other? We should tie them together and criticize them equally.

[Telly Savalas]

60. Who's this Bush guy? I thought it was the Mexicans...

who are destroying this country. At least that's what a lot of posters here seem to believe.

[lonestarnot]

63. I like concentrating!

[spanone]

65. So lets get bush* & congress. No one off the hook.

Govt of the people by the people for the people....

[bpilgrim]

66. if * didn't FUCK UP daily

there wouldn't be so much noise.

maybe it would be easier to get the chimp to change his ways :evilgrin:

peace

[Lone Pawn]

69. But, you see, Congress fucks up worse,

And Congress is replacable, whereas we can't do shit about Bush.

[bpilgrim]

72. NIXON

happened before... and everyone knows * got the record :evilgrin:

peace

[MoonRiver]

70. Interesting. They might use * as a lightning rod to defelect damage

away from their sorry scumbag selves.

[Bridget Burke]

71. We can concentrate on the more urgent matters...

Like 2006 elections & whether the votes will count at all.

But we can still Bash Bush in our spare time. It's easy & fun!