it seems that you think all the graftersand lobbyist are Republicans or Bush devotees. I do not recall any strong condemnation of a Democrat or perhaps I missed it.
Oh politicians of all colors are grafters, without a doubt. However, see my notes above for who I must, in good conscience, hold accountable for the current state of affairs we find ourselves in.
I blame REAL conservatives for not standing up to Bush when he hijacked the party of "no nation building" and "fiscal conservatism" and turned into their worst "liberal" nightmare. They've started jumping ship now...like 5 years too late.
I blame Democrats for lacking the backbone to call Bush a LIAR in 2004, when we all already knew it.
I blame Pelosi for not actively SHOWING Americans why they've been unable to recall the Iraq war graft, due to Bush's veto power and not having veto-proof majorities in the senate and house.
I blame Clinton for not keeping it in his pants. He gave hypocrites like Bush the "in" they needed to lie their way into office.
I blame Phil Gramm for using Clinton's desire to see more home ownership to open these floodgates in 1999.
I blame Greenspan for naively believing that men whose entire lives are about gambling and greed could be trusted to keep the interests of the nation as a whole in their hearts. 200 years of laws and regulations came about because it is a truth that such men cannot be trusted completely.
I blame the Supreme Court for intervening in 2000, when we needed to just wait and count...no matter who won. Their actions delegitimized our entire electoral process and removed forever the perceived infallibility of the Judicial branch.
I blame every state and local official who approved non-paper trail electronic balloting just to save a few dollars on paper - opening the possibility for voter fraud on a massive scale.
I blame everyone who voted for Bush in 2004. You KNEW he lied in 2000 to get the job and then did everything he said he wouldn't once in office and yet you still bought his bullshit malarkey out of FEAR - fear that he placed there in the first place!
I blame states like Iowa who pre-filter our most interesting and capable candidates out of the electoral process leaving us to vote year after year between a choice of two nigh-dufus milquetoast candidates for high office. Kerry, Gore, Bush (both), McCain?! Really?! These are the best men to lead the greatest nation on Earth?! Puh-lease.
I blame Ted Turner for turning the fourth estate into a ratings driven, corporate advertising whore, which thereby lost the ability to provide the country's much needed check and balance on the powerful. Fear sells air time and thereby ad dollars, so the fourth estate suddenly served the same masters as the politicians and the critical thinking of the vast majority of the American population went down the shitter as a result. It's good to see some of that coming back, but the root cause remains.
I blame Bush for letting his own ego believe it when his handlers said he was qualified to be President. He was, and always has been, a smiling affable face man for Dick Cheney. No one would pick Cheney as a running mate if it wasn't the only way he'd be allowed to win the White House (via the money, always follow the money). The same goes for Palin. She's not qualified, everyone knows it, and if McCain won and didn't tow the line, she'd be the proxy President in a heartbeat. And who do you think she'd be getting her "wise counsel" from? Rove, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and, as always, lurking in the background of ALL of this for 30 years...George Herbert Walker Bush.
I blame all Americans for letting a tragic, yet dramatic, terrorist attack shut us down emotionally in FEAR, even though our NATION was NEVER in jeopardy (not like PEARL HARBOR or the war of 1812, when the British burned down Washington D.C.!), and none of the fearful were ever personally in jeopardy. Terrorism is about TERROR, and our leaders let them succeed by feeding us fear - the politician's traditional road to power. During the intifada, the Israelis were suffering a 9-11 level loss of life (as a percentage of population) every friggin THREE MONTHS. And for decades, the British lived in daily, REAL fear of IRA bombings. Yet, we, the greatest and most powerful nation on Earth, cowered in fear...and the criminals responsible have STILL not been brought to JUSTICE - because there are too many cronies profiting on the fictitious "war on terror".
And I blame the neocons for taking advantage of and feeding that fear to serve their own self-destructive national agenda - undoing 200 years of moral certitude that made our nation a shining beacon of prosperity and freedom. They are the true TERRORists, having used your fear to further their own political agenda.
I've never been afraid of Osama bin Laden. He's just yet another mentally ill, disenfranchised asshat. They've been around for hundreds of thousands of years and will be with us until the end of time.
But what I am afraid of is that Obama may not be able to undo all the damage that's been done. He will come into office with unlimited executive power...granted Bush to himself via unprecedented executive signing statements. Can Obama, given the greatest of temptations, at the helm of the most powerful nation in the history of mankind, with a monumental mandate from the people...will he return that power to the people, via upholding the checks and balances intended by the Constitution of the United States?!
I hope that he has the moral certitude and intellectualism to do just that.
And, yeah, I'm afraid some ignorant white trash Nazi skinhead is going to shoot him. 