Giving Thanks (Agnostic Prayer)

Thanks

To my family, for being there for me.

To my dogs, various and sundry, past and present, for being my pal. (cats too, more or less)

To my country, flawed though it be, for allowing us to enjoy the fruits of our labor.

To Mother Earth for letting us use you up.

To the scientists for telling us how it came to be.

To the mathematicians for showing us how to utilize the science.

To the historians for writing it down so we would not repeat our follies.(yeah right)

To the government..... no, never mind.

But most of all and this is meant non-narcissisticly;

To myself for believing in me.

Bruce Dalrymple 11/24/2011

REPEAT PERFORMANCE ELECTION

Remember 2004? Bush ratings were at his lowest yet, and there was an election coming up. What happened? The Democrats put up a candidate that had a great war record, and good economic record as Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor and Senator but not exciting or charismatic. Still he had more going for him than the current President. And he lost. Badly. Why?

The reason is the people we now call Tea Party members, got together and made the Swiftboat ads, making a three time purple heart and silver star medalist look like a traitor and a flip flopper. How did they do that? It is all in the sound bites. Howard Dean was killed by a sound bite as well although I am not sure who was responsible for that one.

So why do I call this a repeat performance? Well it is the other shod foot this time. The Dems have a sitting president with low ratings and the Republicans have the flip flopper former Massachusetts Governor as the probable nominee.

You had several Democrats vying for the nomination in 04 and the same is true now in the Republican side.

The difference this time is that if the economy does not recover better the Dems will lose the White House. The difference this time is that the Republicans will NOT pass any bill that the President wants done, if it doesn't benefit them more, like the recent trade agreements that were passed. This makes it more likely that the White House resident will change. The health care bill passed in Congress was a virtual duplicate of the bill proposed by that commie Richard Nixon and that socialist Ronald Reagan (and it is an exact duplicate of the bill made law by the Massachusetts governor, Romney):-; but the Republicans have made it, via sound bites, to sound like socialized medicine.

The 'bail outs' that were done were proposed by the previous administration and carried out by the current president under the advice from Bushes advisors and his own. The current guy is being blamed for ALL of them. The unemployment map shows a consistent loss of jobs from 2007 to 2009 and increases since, but the current guy is being blamed for them. Why?

SOUND BITES from the right are catchy and pleasant to the ear. Death Panels. And many others available to all who know how to surf the web.

So what is the upshot of this blog? The upcoming race between the Massachusetts politician and the sitting president really makes me have de`ja vous. The result is not as certain however.