Political Backpeddaling: The Year in Rewind- Part 2

Well, for all you nay-sayers (yes Kemp that includes you..) I present highlights from the last six months of the year 2005. Oh, and what an exciting year it was!

This year had it all, lies, intrigue, lies, suspense, lies, stupidity and what else, more lies…..

Enough of me spouting off, I present the 2nd half of 2005.

July

Heckle: During a White House press briefing Scott McClellan begins the long process of administration tail dragging (think dog scooting across the rug dragging his ass on the carpet) on the CIA leak scandal by saying 23 times that he could not comment because there is an “ongoing investigation” (Sorry Scott I don’t think we quite got the message…what was that you said?)


Heckle: Eight days after the terrorist attacks on London’s bus and underground systems, conservative leaders of the Senate repeatedly beat down attempts to increase funding for mass transit protection. The end result was a $50 million cut to funding. ( I guess the Senate doesn’t get CNN, MSNBC, Fox or Basic AM radio news stations.)

Applaud: John Roberts is nominated to the SCOTUS to fill the vacancy of retiring Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. He seems like a fair and honorable guy and a knowledgeable jurist.

Heckle: Normally to George W. Bush on principles alone. However, a CNN/Gallop poll showed that for the first time a majority of Americans , 51% (yes Katherine Harris that is a majority !) believe that the Bush Administration deliberately mislead the public about WMD in Iraq.

August

Heckle: After a long partisan battle in the Senate, Bush uses the power of a recess appointment to name John R Bolton as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. Senate democrats moved to block Bolton’s nomination on a number of fronts including but not limited to his previous derogatory remarks about the U.N. as well as his rumored nature of being an abusive bully with colleagues. (Just what we need to help keep up our image in the world community, the kid that used to push you down on the playground and steal your ice cream…)


Heckle: On August 2nd (the day after the Bolton appointment), Clueless George evidently had thought he had done enough work for the month as he departed for his Crawford ranch kicking off the longest Presidential vacation in 36 years.

Heckle: After having made repeated statements over the years against Pork Barrel spending, Bush signed into law a transportation bill that contained a record 6,371 ‘pet projects’ placed into the bill by members of both parties. (Evidently large quantities of high-fat pork is only unhealthy for us common folk, members of congress must get immunized yearly…)

Heckle: FEMA and the rest of the administration royally screw up the response to Hurricane Katrina. Tens of thousands of residents of the Gulf Coast region are without homes and basic necessities. It will take weeks for the situation to begin to turn around, and even now many of those people are still without homes. (What happened to ‘compassionate’ conservatives?)

September

Applaud: A grand jury in Travis County, Texas issues indictments against the ‘Texans for a Republican Majority Political Action Committee’, a PAC founded by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. (Excuse me I need to go rinse with SCOPE, it seems that referring to any republican as being in the ‘majority’ leaves a bad taste in my mouth)


Applaud: Chief Justice of the SCOTUS William H. Rehnquist dies following a more than year long battle with thyroid cancer. The court under Chief Rehnquist seemed to be fair and balanced. His wisdom will be missed.
(Following the death of Chief Justice Rehnquist, the nomination of John Roberts was changed to Chief Justice instead of replacing Justice O’Connor.)

Heckle: ‘Brownie’ resigns from FEMA. After leading the agency into the biggest case of mismanagement in history, Michael Brown resigns as head of an agency who function is to assist and co-ordinate management of emergencies and disasters. (As if this wasn’t enough, ‘Brownie’ later announces that he will be starting a consulting firm to advise companies/government agencies on how to prepare and handle what else…disaster management…….those who can‘t do, teach…..sorry to anyone who truly is a teacher, including my cousins)

Applaud: The SEC officially launches an investigation into stock sales made by Senator Bill Frist.

Heckle: Tom DeLay himself is indicted on charges of Money Laundering and Criminal Conspiracy and steps down as House Majority Leader.

October

Heckle: The administration rolls out one of the biggest screw-ups of it’s tenure, the new Medicare Prescription Drug Plan. Touting it as a boon to seniors looking for relief from the ever rising cost of prescription drug costs. Unfortunately, the plan is set up with guidelines that allow for a myriad of plan variations and is bound to confuse your average financial expert let alone your average senior citizen. (I work in the insurance industry and I am still trying to figure this out for my grandparents who are in thier mid 80's....)

Heckle: Harriet Miers is nominated to the SCOTUS to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O’Conner. Harriet is a nominee without any prior judicial experience, this is the beginning of her downfall.

Heckle: Clueless George acknowledged that his top domestic policy endeavor for his second term, restructuring social security, is basically dead in the water as he is unable to gain any public support . (Wow, thinking that you are going to get the public to jump on the idea of restructuring ‘aka: screwing with’ their future retirement income and then being surprised that they are not….just another reason why we call you clueless)

Heckle: In the wake of the administrations bungling of Hurricane Katrina, the Department of Commerce announces that all media requests for information from NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) are to be collected in a standardized format and forwarded to the DOC for response approval. (So should we submit our request for information on bad weather 3 or 4 weeks before it ‘actually’ occurs?)

Applaud: Harriet Miers voluntarily (yeah and we all believe that one) withdraws her nomination for SCOTUS.

Heckle: An absolutely huge and unforgivable Heckle to the administration for the 2,000 U.S. Military fatality in Iraq. (Come on George lets come clean and show some back bone on why we are there in the first place and don’t tell us it was to fight terrorism, or WMD’s as we now all know that these did not come from Iraq)

Heckle: I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby (nice nickname putz) is indicted in connection with the CIA leak investigation.

Heckle: The Department of Defense was found to be holding back 824 new armored Humvees from being sent to Iraq until January when the 4th division is sent to replace 3rd division units currently serving in Iraq. (That is like giving troops bullets, but telling them they have to wait 3 months for the guns.) Hey, here is an idea, why not let the military experts run the military instead of the politicians.

Applaud: Ben Bernanke is named to replace Alan Greenspan as Chairman of the Federal Reserve. Someone being appointed to a position that actually has the qualifications to perform the job, someone in the administration must have fallen asleep on the job!

November

Applaud: Clueless George’s approval level is at 35% (just 8% above Nixon’s lowest approval level) Since Bush is second to Nixon in vacation time, it seems only fair that the should also be that close in approval levels.


Heckle: Clueless George nominates Appellate Court Judge Samuel Alito to the SCOTUS to replace Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. Yippee, this guy is a huge step up from Harriet Miers! Let’s all get set to get a subscription to the ‘Puritan Times’ and set our clocks back 50 years!

Applaud: On election day, the Democrats bitch-slap the RNC in elections all over the country……is this a harbinger of things to come? We can only hope!

Heckle: Once again senate Republicans introduce a provision to a spending bill regarding Artic Drilling.

Applaud: Due to pressures from Democrats and moderate Republicans, the Arctic Drilling provision is removed from the spending bill.

Heckle: The White House admits that it did not have accurate information on the issue of WMD’s in Iraq, basically that admitted they were wrong, made a mistake, an error, a major blunder. (Finally joining the real world, taking off the welding goggles and looking at things in the clear light of day….wow things really do look different from the perspective of the real world don’t they!)

Heckle: White House Spokesperson Scott “Screw up” McClellan (and basically Republicans at large) in responding to the attack on Rep. John Murtha, basically accused a majority of Americans of being traitors since a majority oppose Bush’s personal police action in Iraq. (Nice going Scott….)

Applaud: After accusations of detainee torture, the administration gives the Red Cross access to the detainee facility at Guantanemo Bay.

Heckle: FEMA announces that they will stop paying for hotel rooms for residents displaced/uprooted by the Gulf cost hurricanes. (Wow not only do you screw up the initial response, but now you are going to screw up the after care of thousands) After much public outcry, FEMA extends the deadline.

Applaud: We at TBWA are proud to have had our first guest post.

December

Heckle: While the administration is busy announcing that 200,000 jobs were created in November, they fail to disclose that the unemployment rate remained the same and that the number of people unemployed actually increased by almost 150,000 during the same month.


Heckle: Bill ‘The Tool’ O’Reilly starting a panic surrounding ‘Happy Holidays’ replacing ‘Merry Christmas’. (Hey Bill, we thought it was your job to report the news, not try to create it.)

Applaud: The 9/11 Commission did it’s job in a fair and non-partison way and issued a report stating that the administration was failing in it’s efforts to protect the country against further terrorist attacks. (Now that the terrorists all over the world know that our security is still woe-fully lacking maybe we should speed things up a bit, hmmm?)

Heckle: Bush continues spouting his ‘We can win’ rhetoric to whoever will listen or believe him. (Excuse me, but don’t you need a well thought out plan or strategy in order to win?)

Applaud: Prosecutors investigating former Lobbyist Jack Abramoff were in discussions with Jack that would lead to his pleading guilty to fraud charges and cooperate with investigators in the ongoing investigation of congressional officials, both Democrat and Republican. (It’s about time we get things moving forward and cleaned up…..we can be hopeful can’t we?


You know doc that didn't hurt a bit....whoa, you using the whole fist there doc?

Just kidding folks. Let's hope that 2006 is a lot better than 2005. (Seriously, it needs to be!)

Be good, stay informed.....Later