BottleOfBlog

No Surprise Here

BAGHDAD — When President Bush convened a meeting of his National Security Council on May 22, 2003, his special envoy in Iraq made a statement that caught many of the participants by surprise. In a video presentation from Baghdad, L. Paul Bremer III informed the president and his aides that he was about to issue an order formally dissolving Iraq’s Army…

Colin L. Powell, the secretary of state and a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he was never asked for advice, and was in Paris when the May 22 meeting was held.

Mr. Powell, who views the decree as a major blunder, later asked Condoleezza Rice, who was serving as Mr. Bush’s national security adviser, for an explanation.

“I talked to Rice and said, ‘Condi, what happened?’ ” he recalled. “And her reaction was: ‘I was surprised too, but it is a decision that has been made and the president is standing behind Jerry’s decision. Jerry is the guy on the ground.’ And there was no further debate about it.”

We'll just add that to the list of national security and diplomatic events our former National Security Advisor and current Secretary of State was surprised by.

And, as always, remember: this clownish, horribly, comically, tragically, incompetent moron is the rock star of this administration.

You Can't Expect Good Gubment From A Party That Doesn't Believe Gubment Can Do Any Good

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Lawmakers grilled bank regulators Tuesday about why they didn't intervene as lax lending standards led to a meltdown in the mortgage market and a credit crunch that threaten the economy.

"Again and again the question has been asked over the past year as our credit markets have grown increasingly impaired: Where were the regulators?," said Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., chairman of the banking committee. "Why didn't they do more? Were they asleep at the switch? And when the alarm went off, did they merely hit the snooze button?"

Yes, why didn't the regulators do more? Where were the regulators? It's so hard to understand!

I mean, we haven't had a hundred billion dollar banking crisis, which will surely require a taxpayer bailout, in almost twenty years!

Not since Reagan and Bush I de-regulated the Savings and Loan industry, while brave, straight talking, ethical Congressmen like John McCain leaned on regulators to back off from doing more.

Because, remember, as Sainted Ronny Rotten used to tell us: government is not a solution to our problems, government is the problem!

So Reagan and the Reagan Republicans took that pesky ol' gubment out of the Savings and Loan industry and let the miracle of the Free And Unfettered Market work its magic. And within a couple of years, taxpayers had to come up with one hundred and twenty billion dollars--and those are 1980s dollars--as a solution to our problem.

So how could this happen again?

Gee, let me think...

Hmmm...what's similar...

Could it be that once again Republicans were running the gubment? And that Republicans not only don't believe in gubment regulations but actively thwart them?

There's a reason we have all these regulations--all this interminable red-tape the insane Bush clown posse is always whining about:

In the very distant past called the twentieth century, the American People suffered horrible catastrophes. And the People learned hard lessons from these catastrophes, and They made rules and regulations so that these awful events could never, ever happen again.

And after the People made these rules, everything was fine for four or even eight years.

Until another Republican got into the White House and told the People that these rules and regulations weren't solving any problems--they were the problem!

And then a bunch of limp-dick Democrats let the Republicans get rid of the rules and regulations, predictable catastrophe ensued, and then gubment had to spend an ungodly amount of taxpayers money to solve the problem.

Hundreds of Congressmen and Women do not vote to pass laws or create agencies which will be contrary to the interests of their corporate sponsors just because Congress likes passing laws. Congress does that shit at gunpoint.

Congress only passes regulatory bills when things get so unbelievably fucked up that a veto proof majority of them are afraid that if they don't do something they'll all be out of their phoney baloney jobs and lose their awesome Government provided healthcare and benefits.

That's it. They never do it before the fact. It's always after the fact. It's always too little too late. And it's always something that is and was desperately needed.

Your FDA, your EPA, your FCC, your SEC, your FDIC, your SSA--all of that shit--all of it--came in response to catastrophic disasters that Congress just could not ignore, no matter how many corporate dollar bills it cost them. The People were that angry.

And your modern Gee Oh Pee doesn't want to do anything with gubment except get rid of all the answers to all the problems we've ever had so we can have all those problems all over again.

The modern Gee Oh Pee is proud of our American heritage and they long for a simpler time--a time of bank failures, and burning rivers, poisoned food, fake medicine, soup kitchens, and exploding automobiles.

And the only thing between the American People and that Republican Utopia is your federal gubment.

Government is the problem!

And that's why the regulators didn't do anything.

And when the gubment has to poney up a couple hundred billion dollars to bail out the banks again, your modern Gee Oh Pee will insanely say that just proves what they were saying all along.

Please, Make That A Campaign Talking Point

It’s slightly counter-intuitive that Obama could sound more hawkish than McCain, but when it comes to Pakistan, that may be the case. Last night at his Wisconsin victory speech in Columbus, Ohio, McCain came out swinging against what he perceives as the Illinois senator’s naiveté of international affairs and world events.

Providing a potential sneak preview of his general election talking points, [McCain] asked, “Will we risk the confused leadership of an inexperienced candidate who once suggested bombing our ally, Pakistan?” The likely nominee’s comments referenced a counter-terrorism policy speech that the presidential hopeful gave in August in Washington, DC….

Obama at the time was talking about attacking known al-Qaeda terrorist targets, not suggesting mounting an attack on the country or government of Pakistan. Still, he caught flak shortly thereafter from some on both sides of the aisle for discussing the merits of attacking a sovereign ally.

And McCain saw no distinction, while speaking with reporters, today. “That’s still bombing Pakistan,” he said when pressed on the topic.

What an idiot Obama is! How naive can this rube be??? Obama clearly knows nothing about international affairs or world events or about fighting terrorism! He certainly doesn't know anything about national security or military matters--those are things which only Republicans know about!

And John McCain, who is not only a Republican--so he automatically knows everything about national security--but is also a former member of the military--so he, even though he was a pilot, automatically knows everything about fighting guerillas in the mountains of Pakistan--would never do anything as stupid as bomb Pakistan!

In the predawn hours of Jan. 29, a CIA Predator aircraft flew in a slow arc above the Pakistani town of Mir Ali. The drone's operator, relying on information secretly passed to the CIA by local informants, clicked a computer mouse and sent the first of two Hellfire missiles hurtling toward a cluster of mud-brick buildings a few miles from the town center.

The missiles killed Abu Laith al-Libi, a senior al-Qaeda commander and a man who had repeatedly eluded the CIA's dragnet. It was the first successful strike against al-Qaeda's core leadership in two years…

Having requested the Pakistani government's official permission for such strikes on previous occasions, only to be put off or turned down, this time the U.S. spy agency did not seek approval…

Officials say the incident was a model of how Washington often scores its rare victories these days in the fight against al-Qaeda inside Pakistan's national borders…

D'oh!

This shit is supposed to be one of McCain's strengths.

And he has no idea what he's talking about!

Gee, imagine how fucking stupid he is about stuff like economic policy which he admits he doesn't know anything about!

It's really amazing to me that, in the modern Gee Oh Pee, they can't come up with one single candidate--not one out of millions of party members--who isn't either a pervert, a criminal, undeniably grotesque, or an idiot.

Oh, Wow, Big Surprise

WASHINGTON - Telephone companies have cut off FBI wiretaps used to eavesdrop on suspected criminals because of the bureau's repeated failures to pay phone bills on time.

A Justice Department audit released Thursday blamed the lost connections on the FBI's lax oversight of money used in undercover investigations. In one office alone, unpaid costs for wiretaps from one phone company totaled $66,000.

What???

But, but, but I thought we could trust the government to conduct wiretaps without warrants!

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush on Sunday defended his administration's use of wiretaps on U.S. citizens without a court order…

Bush on Sunday described his program as "necessary to win this war and to protect the American people," and added that the program has been reviewed "constantly" by Justice Department officials.

What kind of constant review?

We also found that late payments have resulted in telecommunications carriers actually disconnecting phone lines established to deliver surveillance results to the FBI, resulting in lost evidence," according to the audit by Inspector General Glenn A. Fine.

It was being so constantly and carefully reviewed to make sure that the Fourth Amendment rights of American citizens weren't being violated and it was so necessary to our national security that no one noticed that they were listening to a bunch of dead phone lines? No one remembered to pay the fucking phone bill???

And the phone companies cut off FBI wiretaps of "suspected" al-Qaeda terrorists because the phone bill wasn't paid? Aren't these the same people who are now claiming they should get immunity for willfully and knowingly violating our Constitutional rights because they were being patriotic? They were doing their patriotic duty?

So these companies--these American companies--were willing to break the law and violate their fellow Americans' Constitutional rights for the sake of national security.

But only if they got paid on time.

Any fucking Congressman votes for immunity for these mutherfuckers needs to get run out of Washington by a berserk crowd of justifiably angry citizens, carrying torches, tar, and feathers.

If we ever find out truly what these incompetent imbeciles did with this unchecked, un-Constitutional power, we'll surely all be appalled.

Again.

Though this? This comical mix of incompetence and greed, and laughable dishonesty?

Unless you're a moron, this isn't even interesting.

Though, It Is Surprising The Tallest One Didn't Win

MANCHESTER, New Hampshire (CNN) — New Hampshire voters turned out in higher-than-expected numbers to vote in Tuesday's presidential primaries, with a sizable chunk making decisions on who to support at the last minute, according to early exit polls…

A majority of Democrats said the issues were the most important factor in how they voted, while most Republicans said the candidates' personal qualities were most important to their decision.

Oh, those silly liberals! They're always so emotional!

Imagine being so unhinged that you would cast your vote based on the issues, rather than how you felt about a candidate. Personally.

Somebody's Got A Derangement Syndrome

But it's not liberals.

I was reading this today and I had a sudden flashback to the whole sad and bizarre Schiavo fiasco that right wing nuts forced down America's throat.

And pretty much caused real Americans to puke.

In case you've forgotten, or if the details have grown a little vague, this is just a sample of how spittle flying, deranged conservatives got at the time.

They wanted to overhaul our entire judicial system, impeach justices, and they bought and sold a lot of Cafe Press t-shirts involving ropes, trees, and judges. A very popular book with conservatives at the time was "Men In Black; How the Supreme Court Is Destroying America".

All because conservatives didn't get their way in a case involving a woman whose brain so irreversibly damaged it was, at the time of her death, about half the size of a normal human brain.

And for that singular tragedy, conservatives were ready--hell, they were eager--to dismantle an entire branch of our government. And it wasn't just any conservatives. It wasn't just some anonymous kooks on the internets. It was all of them. Right up to the Republican House and Senate majority leaders.

They wanted to start impeaching justices(if they couldn't hang them). They wanted to start dismantling the courts. They wanted to start limiting federal courts' jurisdictions. They wanted to bring on a full blown Constitutional crises that would so profoundly alter our form of government it, frankly, might have wrecked it entirely.

And they were comfortable with that.

They were, again, eager for the fight.

Despite the fact that they were totally, demonstrably, conclusively wrong.

Despite the fact that there had been only two Justices nominated by Democrats in the last forty years, Republicans were outraged by the out of control liberal bias of the Supreme Court, which was destroying America.

Our entire Federal judiciary is packed with conservative judges. Seven out of nine of our Supreme Court judges are conservatives appointed by Republicans. And yet, somehow, Republicans can still convince themselves that they're being oppressed by an out of control, activist liberal judiciary that doesn't represent Republicans.

Talk about deranged.

Can you imagine what these people would be like if seven out of nine Supreme Court judges were Democrats? Every oral argument would consist of ten seconds of questions and thirty minutes of clearing the building so the bomb squad could do its work.

As Bush's disastrous presidency winds down, as the hysteria and fascistic war fever of 9/11 fades, I find that conservatives want to pretend that they never acted the way they actually acted. They want to pretend that they were level-headed and cool, and open to bi-partisan reasoned debate.

But, for some crazy reason, liberals got so darn emotional! Liberals got so moonbatty out of control to the point where you couldn't even talk sense to them! You couldn't even figure out how or why they got so upset! After all, we're just talking policy here. It's just politics as usual! What are these liberals so excited about?

The only possible explanation is that liberals must be suffering from Bush Derangement Syndrome!

It couldn't be anything else!

[Sandra Day O'Connor] was appalled, for instance, by former Attorney General John Ashcroft, whom she considered extreme, polarizing, moralistic and — to use her favorite word — “unattractive.” She was appalled by how the Bush administration pandered to the religious right in the Terri Schiavo case. She was appalled by the nomination of Harriet Miers. And she’s been appalled, too, by Bush’s stances on affirmative action, the war on terror and the war in Iraq. And how did she feel when Bush brushed off the report of the Iraq Study Group, to which she belonged? She was appalled. And she was really, really appalled that the lower-court judge whose dissent in one crucial case she deemed “repugnant” — he’d have upheld a Pennsylvania law requiring wives to notify husbands before getting abortions — was the very man Bush picked to replace her: Samuel Alito.

That's an old school Republican, appointed by the Sainted Ronnie Rotten, and she cast the deciding vote for Bush in the most embarrassing Supreme Court decision since the Dred Scott case.

Gee, must be something in the water.

Sandra Day might have run short of words to describe The Accidental President, but haven't we all? Appalling is about the only thing you can say anymore about the last seven years. A hundred years from now, historians will call this the Appalling Administration or The Appalling Years.

And, again, Sandra Day aided and abetted this presidential catastrophe. She's only being candid now in a desperate Hail Mary to somehow distance herself from the awful, awful events she helped unfold. Old people realistically imagining their places in history books with chapters titled The Appalling Years often feel the need to suddenly be brutally honest.

So don't let anybody tell you that you're deranged. The only deranged people in this country are the 24% dead enders who still think Bush is doing a heck of a good job and that anyone who disagrees must just hate Bush--because they're crazy!

Bush Warns Democrats To Stop Him Before He Creates Accounting Nightmare That Will Never Be Accounted For

WASHINGTON - President Bush sternly pressed Democrats to approve money to fund the Iraq war "without strings and without delay" before leaving town for the Christmas holidays, something congressional leaders have already indicated they will not do…

Bush said this will push the Pentagon toward an accounting nightmare and affect the military's ability to do its job protecting the country.

"The American people expect us to work together to support our troops. That's what they want," Bush said Thursday after spending two hours meeting at the Pentagon with military leaders. "They do not want the government to create needless uncertainty for those defending our country and uncertainty for their families. They do not want disputes in Washington to undermine our troops in Iraq just as they're seeing clear signs of success."

Goddam right! The American people have troops in the field. Those troops need to be funded. Their lives depend on it. Congress needs to send Bush a bill funding those troops, and Bush needs to sign it. And no political wrangling should get in the way. Why the hell hasn't Congress sent Bush a bill funding those troops so Bush can sign it?

The House has passed a $50 billion bill that would keep war operations afloat for several more months, but set a goal of bringing most troops home by December 2008. After Bush threatened to veto the measure, Senate Republicans have blocked it. In turn, Democratic leaders say they won't send Bush a war spending bill this year at all.

Oh. So the Democratically controlled House passed a bill funding the troops. But, because of a political dispute, Bush threatened to veto it. And then Republicans in the Senate, because of a political dispute, blocked the funding of American troops in the field.

And now Bush is sternly pressing Democrats to stop holding up the funding of our troops because of political disputes.

I guess he wants Nancy Pelosi to put impeachment back on the table so we can remove the biggest obstacle to funding our troops. Though, Democrats can't do anything about the obstructionist Senate Republicans until 2008.

In response, Pentagon officials began saying the military will have to take drastic steps next month if it doesn't get the money soon. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has ordered the Army and Marine Corps to begin planning for a series of expected cutbacks, including civilian layoffs, termination of contracts and reduced operations at bases.

Bush reiterated that theme at the Pentagon, backed by Vice President Dick Cheney and military leaders.

"Congress limits how much money can be moved from one account to the other," Bush said. "Secretary Gates has already notified Congress that he will transfer money from accounts to fund other activities of the military services to pay for current operations in Iraq and Afghanistan — and no more money can be moved."

That's a good point! No, that's a great point! Democrats who have voted to fund our troops had better "work together" with Bush and the Republicans who have blocked funding for our troops or else the Pentagon is going to have an "accounting nightmare"! If the Democrats don't "work together" with Republicans by giving the Republicans everything they want, the Pentagon will not be able to shift money from one account to another.

Because Congress won't let the Pentagon do that--just shift money around from account to account without any kind of accountability. And the Pentagon wouldn't even think about doing that because it's so meticulous about its accounting and keeping Congress appraised of just what exactly the Department of Defense is doing with the four hundred billion dollars a year Americans give it.

The last thing the Pentagon wants or needs is some accounting nightmare caused by Congress!

The Department of Defense, already infamous for spending $640 for a toilet seat, once again finds itself under intense scrutiny, only this time because it couldn't account for more than a trillion dollars in financial transactions, not to mention dozens of tanks, missiles and planes.

Oops!

But that was years ago. I'm sure the CEO styled management Dream Team of the Bush Administration fixed that!

WASHINGTON — A soon-to-be-released audit will show that at least $8.8 billion in Iraqi money that was given to Iraqi ministries by the former U.S.-led authority there cannot be accounted for, FOX News has confirmed.

D'oh!

(02-16) 04:00 PST Washington -- More than $10 billion of the money paid to military contractors for Iraq reconstruction and troop support was either excessive or unsupported by documents, including $2.7 billion for contracts held by Halliburton or one of its subsidiaries, Congress was told Thursday.

What?

Ten years after Congress ordered federal agencies to have outside auditors review their books, neither the Defense Department nor the newer Department of Homeland Security has met even basic accounting requirements, leaving them vulnerable to waste, fraud and abuse…

And the Defense Department, with a $460 billion budget this fiscal year, has never even come close to passing. Because that department makes up at least 20 percent of all federal spending, the entire federal government also has failed its audits since the congressional mandate took effect…

Robert Dacey, chief accountant for the Government Accountability Office, characterized the financial affairs of the two departments as “a pretty consistent mess…”

At last count, accounting at the Defense Department is performed in 4,000 different business systems, Jonas said. And in its most recent audit, the department acknowledged that it had more than $270 million worth of unsupported accounting entries.

Jonas noted that there also have been what she called “significant successes.” In 2001, the Pentagon had hundreds of inoperable accounting systems and no data standards. This year, she said, it received a clean audit opinion on $215 billion, or 15 percent, of its assets and $967 billion, or 49 percent, of its liabilities.

That's right. Fifteen percent of the DOD's assets and nearly half of it's liabilities have been properly accounted for.

And President Deficit N. Bankruptcy wants to argue that strict Congressional oversight of the Department of Defense is a bunch of red tape in the way of our troops receiving the funding he threatened to veto if Republicans didn't block it.

I almost wish Bush could re-select himself for another four years. It would be horrible. The cost to our country in money, prestige, and progress would be inestimable.

But, after four more years of this cretin, not only would the despicable, immoral, and perverted modern Republican party be ground out of existence, but Americans might finally, fifty years after they were told by an honest to God military hero on live television, realize that they are getting ripped off, year in and year out, by the very people they put unquestioning trust in.

And they might also realize, once again, why the people who founded this country put all that shit in the Constitution about never trusting your gubment.

In English It Means "Magic Eight Ball"

JERUSALEM, Nov. 10 — The American-sponsored Middle East peace conference expected by the end of the month looks to be thin on content, mostly serving as a stage to begin formal negotiations on a peace treaty between Israel and the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas.

Israeli and American officials have been so busy dampening expectations that they are not even calling the event a conference anymore, instead referring to it merely as a “meeting”…

The long buildup to Annapolis, together with Ms. Rice’s many trips to the region, have given birth to a new verb in Israeli government circles: “lecondel,” meaning, to come and go for meetings that produce few results. The word is based on Ms. Rice’s first name.

And, once again, she's the rock star of this administration.

Well, I guess a bunch of lecondels are better than a "lebushel", meaning to come to Washington and produce appalling results.

And Ye Shall Not Know The Truth As The Truth Isn't Really All That Fucking Important To The March Of Freedom Or Having A Fabulous Freedom Institute

Nov. 8, 2007 | Conventional wisdom has it that George W. Bush became a "born-again" Christian in the summer of 1985, after extended private talks with Reverend Billy Graham. As recounted by Bush himself in "A Charge to Keep: My Journey to the White House," a ghostwritten autobiography prepared for the 2000 presidential campaign, one evening at Walker's Point, the Bush compound in Kennebunkport, Maine, Graham, spiritual confidant to Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan and a close friend of the Bush family, sat down by the fireplace and gave a talk. "I don't remember the exact words," Bush wrote. "It was more the power of his example. The Lord was so clearly reflected in his gentle and loving demeanor…"

"Over the course of that weekend, Reverend Graham planted a mustard seed in my soul, a seed that grew over the next year," [Bush] continued. "He led me to the path, and I began walking."

There's just one problem with Bush's account of his conversion experience: it's not true. For one thing, when Billy Graham was asked about the episode by NBC's Brian Williams, he declined to corroborate Bush's account. "I've heard others say that [I converted Bush], and people have written it, but I cannot say that," Graham said. "I was with him and I used to teach the Bible at Kennebunkport to the Bush family when he was a younger man, but I never feel that I in any way turned his life around."

Even if one doesn't accept Graham's candid response, there's another good reason to believe that the account in Bush's book is fiction. Mickey Herskowitz, a sportswriter for the Houston Chronicle who became close friends with the Bush family and was originally contracted to ghostwrite "A Charge to Keep," recalled interviewing Bush about it when he was doing research for the book. "I remember asking him about the famous meeting at Kennebunkport with the Reverend Billy Graham...." Herskowitz said. "And you know what? He couldn't remember a single word that passed between them."

Herskowitz was so stunned by Bush's memory lapse that he began prompting him. "It was so unlikely he wouldn't remember anything Billy Graham said, especially because that was a defining moment in his life. So I asked, 'Well, Governor, would he have said something like, "Have you gotten right with God?'"

According to Herskowitz, Bush was visibly taken aback and bristled at the suggestion. "No," Bush replied. "Billy Graham isn't going to ask you a question like that."

Herskowitz met with Bush about twenty times for the project and submitted about ten chapters before Bush's staff, working under director of communications Karen Hughes, took control of it. But when Herskowitz finally read "A Charge to Keep" he was stunned by its contents. "Anyone who is writing a memoir of George Bush for campaign purposes knew you had to have some glimpse of what passed between Bush and Billy Graham," he said. But Hughes and her team had changed a key part. "It had Graham asking Bush, 'George, are you right with God?'"

In other words, Herskowitz's question to Bush was now coming out of Billy Graham's mouth. "Karen Hughes picked it off the tape," said Herskowitz.

Only Karen Hughes and George W. Bush could tell a lie about finding the truth.

And don't forget: George W. Bush sent Karen Hughes, who happily lied about Billy Graham to a largely Christian country, to Muslim countries to convince those people of America's honesty.

These people could only exist in real life.

Writers of parody and satire, and ridiculous fiction would be too embarrassed to ask their readers to believe that such horrendously stupid and incompetent, and dishonest, and malevolent characters could actually impossibly wind up in The White House.

Good Gawd

WASHINGTON, Nov 7 (Reuters) - The U.S. Treasury Department said on Wednesday publicly held U.S. debt breached $9 trillion this week for the first time ever, just five weeks after Congress had raised the statutory borrowing limit…

The increase in the debt limit is the fifth since Bush took office in January 2001. The U.S. debt stood at about $5.6 trillion at the start of his presidency…

The Greatest Tax Cut Evah!

Seven years ago, the government was running a 230 billion dollar and growing surplus. By 2012--only four years from now--our national debt--our entire national debt--would have been paid off. Each and every American taxpayer would have enjoyed a tax cut from getting rid of the 300 billion dollar plus interest payments on our debt.

Instead?

After eight years of doing our part, working hard, paying our taxes, when Bush leaves office, each and every American taxpayer is going to be rewarded by owing nearly twice as much as when Bush literally took office.

That's some tax cut.

In approving the debt limit increase, Congressional lawmakers said the $850 billion increase should be large enough to allow the government to continue borrowing into 2009, well beyond next year's presidential and congressional elections.

Oh, thank goodness! I'd hate to think our elected representatives would actually have to answer questions about the trillion dollars they just borrowed in our name during an election year! That would be so distracting from the more important issues of taxing whores, burning flags, speaking English, and making little children recite a pledge they don't even understand.

The modern Gee Oh Pee is horrendous. It's a nation wrecking machine. There's no denying that.

But you've got to admit: the modern Democratic party is weak and lazy, and either too dumb or too scared to fight.

In eight years of fiscally conservative leadership, the Gee Oh Pee added four trillion dollars of debt to American taxpayers. Those were eight years under a "CEO" styled fiscally conservative Republican president. Six out of eight of those years were under a fiscally conservative Republican House, which, under Bill Clinton pretended to want a Constitutional Amendment to balance the budget. And four of those eight years--the four record setting deficit years--were under a Republican House, Senate, and President.

The Gee Oh Pee, given total control of our government, answered in red and red for once and for all the age old question of which party can taxpayers trust more when it comes to their money.

And Democrats, quite helpfully, took that issue off the table until after next year's Presidential and Congressional elections.

What a bunch of weak sucks.