Douche and the Future of the DNC

Last week I, perhaps foolishly, thanked George Allen for being a duplicitous Republican in actually criticizing the President. Well, allow me to retract that. Yes it is cool when the President’s own party shallowly criticizes him on a point of common decency, but here we see George Allan’s complete detachment from reality. All cool points withdrawn. He’s back to being a first class hypocrite. Thank you TPM!

I nominate George Allen as douche bag of the week.

In other news, I watched Meet the Press yesterday and Russ Feingold was on. In his introduction, he was mentioned as a possible contender for the Democratic Presidential nomination. The only things I know about the guy are that he is from Wisconsin (go Packers!) and that he and John McCain (one of the few Republicans I genuinely respect) teamed up to reform campaign finance.

For as much press as the McCain Feingold bill got, this is the first time I have seen Russ’s face. This to me is, initially, encouraging. Here is my reasoning: There are two types of politicians, those who want the limelight and are out amidst the press constantly promoting their agenda and ideas. Then there are those who work diligently on legislation and actually do most of the leg work that makes the legislative world turn. My impression is that Senator Feingold is the latter type of elected official.

So, perhaps Russ Feingold is humble. This would be an asset that would set him apart from Hillary Clinton or John Edwards. I am not against either of those two seeking the nomination, nor do I think they are arrogant, but baggage and disenchantment linger from years and elections past. Senator Clinton has a lot of bad blood with the Republicans from when she was First Lady. And, she has Bubba in tow (both a massive target and a killer advisor all in one)! Edwards is still Mr. Charm and has good ideas, but the sore memory of a losing ticket combined with his general relative lack of legislative experience might be a an Achilles heel.

It is both my hope and my sincere worry that Senator Feingold might be another Bill Bradley candidate. In the 2000 election, Gore blew it, without question or doubt. Bradley would have blown Bush out of the water. That is pure conjecture, but I feel that it would have been the likely outcome. So, I hope that Feingold is as substantive as Bradley was. My worry is that the Democrats will make a similar “go with what we know” kind of choice and select Hillary or Edwards. However, with Dean as the DNC chair, all establishment bets are off. I entreat you, the reader, to share your thoughts on the Democratic hopefuls.

What is Bush thinking?

I mean, seriously. The Bush Administration’s choice to not meet with Cindy Sheehan regarding getting our military forces out of Iraq defies all logic. One would think that in light of gravely floundering support for the military effort, Bush, nay, Bush’s advisers would see this as an opportunity to do a bit of positive PR and have our Chief Executive appear to be the compassionate conservative he originally professed to be by granting a meeting with her and providing some semblance of an explanation to why American forces will “stay the course.” Talk about missed opportunity

To aggravate (much to my pleasure) the situation, the Republican leadership is even calling for the President to meet with her. This will be the only time I will ever publicly express thanks to Senator George Allen of Virginia. (And, indirectly, thanks to Frank Rich for hipping me to it.)

When your “base” is telling you it would be common decency to meet Cindy, in elected office, shouldn’t it be logical to maybe take that hint every once in a while? Again, I am loathed to call George Allen a representative of the Republican base, but he sure professes to be. And, since it suites my argument, he is most certainly base. Please allow the double entendre to wash over you fully.

The Bush Administration has been really enigmatic. Either they are oblivious, i.e. they are just completely clueless as to how to intelligently handle this situation, or, slightly more likely, they are the epitomes of hubris incarnate and will not deign to show any fallacy in their governance. It is really hard for me to tell. Certainly the allusions to Vietnam will increase with the increased protest/peace movement. We already have the class A quagmire ready made. Hippies in the 60’s got blamed for lots of society’s ills down the line, but right or wrong, they were spot on when it came to Vietnam.

On the other hand, Bush and crew do have a lot on their plate and could just be flustered and not thinking clearly with regards to Ms. Sheehan’s protest. There is Plamegate, North Korea, the Sudan genocide, skyrocketing fuel prices, and global warming all to consider. The White House claims to have already met Cindy Sheehan, but this is, as yet, remains unconfirmed.