Thinking about why Hezbollah spent so much time "defending" during the Israeli incusions into Lebanon earlier this year I couldn't understand the why of defending and then I realized they were trying to escalate the conflict to have Isreal do the most damage to the Lebanaese government which was already weak.
I think Hezbollah and the PLO are going to have their own state, but it isn't going to be carved out of Isreal or Gaza...
Back in October, Pelosi said she'd "drain the swamp" as part of her first 100 hours of rule. By this, she intends to break the link between lobbyists and legislation. Sounds good on paper, but here's what's going to happen if she does anything other than remove a cup of water from the potomac.
There are over 37,000 paid lobbyists working Washington DC and they make quite a bit of money for their efforts. When she starts "draining the swamp", she's going to find things in the mud, long forgotten, that were put there by republicans and democrats. The only problem is that these things aren't necessarily dead. These 37,000 people you're going to make life hard on are used to being sleazy and they're going to turn on Nancy and her sump pump.
There's a reason Abramoff isn't being further questioned as he's sent off to prison even though federal prosecutors wish to do so. The knowledge in this guy's head could probably bring down 50% of congress with little effort and we ought to be exploting that knowledge. Hell, we ought to give him a medal and a pardon for that knowledge.
Be careful what you wish for Nancy. If you don't have the stomach for pain on both sides of the house, this isn't a road you want to take. Does it need to be traveled? Sure does. I just don't have any faith that congress will self-police; it never has before.
The democrat party has spent 12 years being the party of the opposition and they've gotten good at it. Not having a solid platform across the party has always been to their detriment in my opinion, but being that the repbulican party ran '06 without a message, "change" seemingly was enough to get out their vote.
Major fault goes to the republicans for lame candidates and negative campaigning, both of which stem from the lack of a unifying message. I knew the terrorism angle wasn't going to work long-term because if you're effective at your job, your lose your message. Why the republicans didn't spend any time on the strong economy is beyond me.
Dudes, you got beat buy candidates that sucked and you got beat across the board. Your only saving grace is that they beat you to a stalemate no matter which way the senate goes (at time of this writing, lawyers are on their way to 2 races that are too close to call). I think the DOW predicted it well yesterday, ending on an up-note. The markets don't like change, and what we now have is a log jam in our government. The house, now in democrat control is shy of the 66% (2/3 majority) required to override the republican votes. The senate, is effectively dead even either way it goes when the laywers get done and neither party will be able to move legislation through where a super majority of 60 votes is required let alone parlimentary proceedures where you need 60 votes to cut off debate on votes.
It'll be interesting if the republicans learn anything from '06. Your base stayed home because they were apathetic or they wanted to teach you a lesson. You need to understand that and deal with it.
Until '08, gridlock rules the day.