Rattle wrote:
Also, applying the term "regime change" to getting the Bush Administration out of the executive branch is downright _dangerous_, and basically asking to not be taken seriously. The "American Regime" has three branches, a legislative, executive, and judicial, plus a very powerful military and a myriad of agencies responsible for countless things we can't maintain our current level of society without. A "regime change" would require tossing out the leadership of all of those elements and replacing it. Currently, we are under a constant state of peaceful revolution. This process is far from perfect, as are all nation-state governments we've seen so far on this planet. Unless you have a better model, don't toss around language like that. You are using it improperly.

Actually I was applying it with irony/sarcasm. It was how we described what to do in Iraq which was a top to bottom snow job. Impeachment may be closer to the right line but doesn't work in this case. When you have pretty much the entire political part of the executive branch advocating torture, locking up people without trial, violating the laws on domestic spying (see the NSA mess) and conducting a foreign policy that amounts to "waging agressive war" impeachment doesn't work. Who do you replace them with?

When at the same time the leadership of the house is either currently under indictment, or under investigation relating to bribe taking in the Abramoff mess, that side of the fence isn't of help either.

Bluntly, the current administration has violated treaty agreements, among them the Geneva Conventions, violated domestic law (the NSA mess), done deliberate harm to the intelligence capabilities of the nation (the Valerie Plame fiasco which is still ongoing), violated their oaths of office to protect and defend the Constitution ("It's just a goddmned piece of paper!) and started a war with another country under false pretexts, which if someone else had used the same excuses for against an ally of ours we would be screaming for (or more likely shooting off the tops of) their heads.

Not only have they done all of these things, they have done so at best incompetantly and ineptly. Bin Laden is still out there. Last time I looked Mullah Omar was still out there. AlQ and the Taliban are making a comeback in Afghanistan and humorously enough to are herion exports. Iraq is an unmitigated disaster with the only bright side being that Saddam is out of power. The flip side of that of course is we've managed to create a second Shi'a theocracy in the middle east. In the meantime they have demonstrated that we are no better prepared for a disaster at home (Katrina) and turned what was looking like an opportunity to pay down the national debt into a few trillion dollars more worth of red ink further dismantling our abilities at home.

This presidency ranks right down there with Harding, Buchanan and Grant as the worst in the history of the nation. He has seized upon 9/11 the same way that LBJ seized on the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, and has managed to take the greatest outpouring of world opinion after 9/11 and turn it into a festering ball of hate across the globe.

I don't feel safer today than I did five years ago, and my wallet is thinner.

RE: What Hamas Is Seeking