Another Voice

Where There Was Smoke,Prosecutors were Fired!

It is true that U. S. Prosecutors are political appointees and that the President of the United States has the right to appoint and remove as he sees fit.  However, appointed U.S. Prosecutors are supposed to be able to do their jobs freely, and isolated from any political pressures.  For a handful of  U.S.  Prosecutors, this was certainly not the case. 

Eight U. S. Prosecutors were fired by the Justice Department, and there appears to be political reasons for them being fired rather than for performance which has been claimed.

According to the Washington Post, a  U.S. attorney in San Diego notified the Justice Department of search warrants in a Republican bribery scandal last May 10, one day before the attorney general's chief of staff warned the White House of a "real problem" with her, a Democratic senator said yesterday.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said in a television appearance yesterday that Lam "sent a notice to the Justice Department saying that there would be two search warrants" in a criminal investigation of defense contractor Brent R. Wilkes and Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, who had just quit as the CIA's top administrator amid questions about his ties to disgraced former GOP congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham.

The next day, May 11, D. Kyle Sampson, then chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, sent an e-mail message to William Kelley in the White House counsel's office saying that Carol Lam should be removed as quickly as possible, according to documents turned over to Congress last week.

David C. Iglesias of New Mexico and five other former prosecutors recounted specific instances in which some said they felt pressured by Republicans on corruption cases and one said a Justice Department official warned him to keep quiet or face retaliation.  Additionally, one Prosecutor was removed so that an aid for Karl Rove who he felt needed the position.

Iglesias's allegations of congressional interference have prompted a Senate ethics committee inquiry. Yesterday he offered new details about telephone calls he received in October from Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.) and Rep. Heather A. Wilson (R-N.M.), saying he felt "leaned on" and "sickened" by the contacts seeking information about an investigation of a local Democrat.

The article also points out that U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald was ranked among prosecutors who had "not distinguished themselves" on a Justice Department chart sent to the White House in March 2005, when he was in the midst of leading the CIA leak investigation that resulted in the perjury conviction of a vice presidential. Perhaps Fitzgerald would have been next to be fired.

Mary Jo White, who supervised Fitzgerald when she served as the U.S. attorney in Manhattan and who has criticized the firings, said ranking him as a middling prosecutor "lacks total credibility across the board."

Fitzgerald has been widely recognized for his pursuit of criminal cases against al-Qaeda's terrorist network before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and he drew up the official U.S. indictment against Osama bin Laden. He was named as special counsel in the CIA leak case in December 2003 after then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft recused himself.

Fitzgerald also won the Attorney General's Award for Distinguished Service in 2002 under Ashcroft

"He is probably the best prosecutor in the nation -- certainly one of them," said White, who worked in the Clinton and Bush administrations. "It casts total doubt on the whole process. It's kind of the icing on the cake."

The firing of these Prosecutors is just another example of how emboldened White House officials have been in manipulating  and withholding information, and blatantly attacking, and in the eight prosecutors' cases, removing anyone who voices differing views, or attempts to do his/her job. 

However, now is a new day.  The Congress should make sure that we have a transparent government.  It has been six years coming, and not one day too soon.  

 

Technorati tags: Loretta Perkins, U.S. Prosecutors, CIA Leak, Presidential Election, Justice Department, Washington Post, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Randy "Duke" Cunningham, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, Carol Lam, David Iglesias, Karl Rove, Patrick Fitzgerald

No Child Left Behind Law To Be Revamped

One of George Bush's proudest achievements as President is the No Child Left Behind Law.  This law, which had bipartisan backing, has had mixed reviews by proponents and opponents.

And now, according to the Washington Post, more than 50 GOP members of the House and Senate -- including the House's second-ranking Republican -- will introduce legislation today that could severely undercut President Bush's signature domestic achievement, the No Child Left Behind Act, by allowing states to opt out of its testing mandates.

Among the co-sponsors of the legislation are House Minority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), a key supporter of the measure in 2001, and John Cornyn (R-Tex.), Bush's most reliable defender in the Senate. Rep. Eric Cantor (Va.), the House GOP's chief deputy whip and a supporter in 2001, has also signed on.

The article goes on to report that some Republicans said yesterday that a backlash against the law was inevitable. Many voters in affluent suburban and exurban districts -- GOP strongholds -- think their schools have been adversely affected by the law. Once-innovative public schools have increasingly become captive to federal testing mandates, jettisoning education programs not covered by those tests, siphoning funds from programs for the talented and gifted, and discouraging creativity, critics say.

Additionally, in extreme cases to protect test scores, some schools have even resorted to cleansing their student population of students who may bring the test scores down.  Such is the case for  Jasmine Boulware, a Myers Park High School student in Charlotte, North Carolina. 

 A Times Magazine article reported that because the student had some disciplinarian problems, and was not performing well in school she was told that she had to withdraw, and would not be allowed to return. When  Jasmine's mother went directly to the Charlotte Mecklenburg district office she learned the school had no legal basis to exclude Jasmine. Suspecting a pattern of forcing out minority students, Kennedy told school district officials that she intended to refer the matter to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Congressional Black Caucus. Jasmine was back in school within the week.

Jasmine is not the only struggling student who claims to have been pushed out or encouraged to leave Myers Park High. Another Myers Park mother, Susan Arnette, claims when she and her daughter Brianna Govan were living in a homeless shelter, Brianna was frequently late or absent. Anderson forced her to leave school, saying she was "not Myers Park material." Documents obtained by TIME and interviews with former students, parents and school employees strongly suggest that Myers Park has had an unofficial policy of ridding itself of underperforming students during Principal Anderson's tenure from 2002 to 2005 and perhaps beyond, by using tactics including listing dropouts as out-of-state transfers.

According to the Times article, like many other high-flying schools with a substantial minority and low-income population, Myers Park has been under increasing pressure to close the achievement gap between students that are white and black, rich and poor. In 2006, only 51% of its black students performed at levels III/IV — proficient and above — on state exams, compared with 90% of white. Under the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act, schools that fail to close such a gap are declared "failing schools" — no matter how well the majority are doing — and can face a loss of federal Title 1 funding for low-income students.

District Associate Superintendant Lloyd Wimberley sees a sad irony in the way current national pressures to close achievement gaps can actually work against the neediest students. "No Child Left Behind has resulted in increased resentment toward at-risk and exceptional-needs kids," he says. "It's sad that legislation intended to improve the outcome for these kids is backfiring."

As Congress considers reauthorizing the No Child Left Behind Act, the GOP rebellion could grow, conceded Rep. Howard P. "Buck" McKeon (Calif.), the ranking Republican on the House Education and Labor Committee and a key ally of the president on the issue. "It was a struggle getting it passed last time. It'll be even more of a struggle this time," he said.

 

Technorati tags: Loretta Perkins, No Child Left Behind Law, Congress, George Bush, Roy Blunt, Charlotte, NC., Myers Park, House Education and Labor Committee, testing, Title 1

The American Family..An Endangered Species

Maybe it is just me, but it seems that everything in this country is going haywire.  More and more we are being conditioned as a society to accept the demise of certain values that we have always held dear.

I pick up the newspaper and read about sexual orientation being taught in the classrooms.  It is nothing to hear about a famous actress or entertainer and her boyfriend expecting a baby with no mention of marriage. Music videos are abundant depicting women as objects, and women appearing to accept and enjoy the role.  Our little girls are becoming worldly years before their time. 

An article that I read today, added to my woes.  It was a little political in nature, however it resonated with me because it is something that I have observed myself.

Harold Myerson of the Washington Post reports that as conservatives tell the tale, the decline of the American family, the rise in divorce rates, the number of children born out of wedlock all can be traced to the pernicious influence of one decade in American history: the '60s.  He states that in Saturday's Post, reporter Blaine Harden took a hard look at the erosion of what we have long taken to be the model American family -- married couples with children -- and discovered that while this decline hasn't really afflicted college-educated professionals, it is the curse of the working class. The percentage of households that are married couples with children has hit an all-time low (at least, the lowest since the Census Bureau started measuring such things): 23.7 percent. That's about half the level that marrieds-with-children constituted at the end of the Ozzie-and-Harriet '50s.

Which may explain why the Ozzie and Harriet family -- modified by feminism, since Harriet now holds down a job, too -- still rolls along within the upper-middle class but has become much harder to find in working-class America, where cohabitation without marriage has increasingly become the norm. Taking into account all households, married couples with children are twice as likely to be in the top 20 percent of incomes, Harden reported. Their incomes have increased 59 percent over the past 30 years, while households overall have experienced just a 44 percent increase.

Myerson continues by stating that to be sure, the '60s, with its assaults on traditional authority, played some role in weakening the traditional family.

But its message was sounded loudest and clearest on elite college campuses, whose graduates were nonetheless the group most likely to have stable marriages. Then again, they were also the group most likely to have stable careers.

They enjoyed financial stability; they could plan for the future.

Such was not the case for working-class Americans. Over the past 35 years, the massive changes in the U.S. economy have largely condemned American workers to lives of economic insecurity. No longer can the worker count on a steady job for a single employer who provides a paycheck and health and retirement benefits, too. Over the past three decades, workers' individual annual income fluctuations have consistently increased, while their aggregate income has stagnated. In the brave new economy of outsourced jobs and short-term gigs and on-again, off-again health coverage, American workers cannot rationally plan their economic futures. And with each passing year, as their level of economic security declines, so does their entry into marriage.

The right-wing ideologues who have championed outsourcing, offshoring and union-busting, who have celebrated the same changes that have condemned American workers to lives of financial instability, piously lament the decline of family stability that has followed these economic changes as the night the day.

American conservatism is a house divided against itself. It applauds the radicalism of the economic changes of the past four decades -- the dismantling, say, of the American steel industry (and the job and income security that it once provided) in the cause of greater efficiency. It decries the decline of social and familial stability over that time -- the traditional, married working-class families, say, that once filled all those churches in the hills and hollows in what is now the smaller, post-working-class Pittsburgh.

Problem is, Myerson points out, disperse a vibrant working-class community in America and you disperse the vibrant working-class family.

Which is how American conservatism became the primary author of the very social disorder that it routinely rails against, and that Republicans have the gall to run against.

Myerson ends the article by saying, "The party of family values? Please. If that's the banner that Republicans continue to wave, then they should certainly make Rudy Giuliani, who couldn't bestir himself to attend his son's high school graduation or his daughter's high school plays, their presidential nominee. No candidate could better personify the sham that is Republicans' and conservatives' concern for the American family.

So goes the party of family values.

 

Technorati tags: Loretta Perkins, Family values, family Life Education, Rudy Giuliani, marriage right-wing, Republicans, Harold Myerson, Washington Post, outsourcing

Bush Avoids Talk About Child Health Care

 According to an article in the Washington Post, governors from both parties appealed yesterday for the Bush administration and Congress to provide more money for a health-care program that insures millions of children.

State leaders met privately to discuss the State Children's Health Insurance Program at the annual winter meeting of the National Governors Association.  Georgia and New Jersey are among 14 states expected to run out of money for the program before the next budget year begins in October. In Georgia, a shortfall could happen as soon as March.

The governors want two things: enough money -- estimated at $745 million -- to keep the program float through October, and changes to President Bush's budget. Analysts say the president's spending plan would shortchange the program even if the number of people served does not grow.

Many governors said administration attempts to curb the program would undermine state efforts to offer universal health-care plans. Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) said that during their private lunch, many governors were "visibly frustrated" by the administration's approach.

The article further points out that at stake is coverage for 6 million people, overwhelmingly children, as well as the hopes of many governors in tackling the larger challenge of the uninsured. All governors rely on the State Children's Health Insurance Program, intended to aid uninsured working families.

Bush, welcoming the governors after they met privately with several administration officials, did not offer any comments about the children's health program, talking rather about his larger proposals.

Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) said that during their private lunch, many governors were "visibly frustrated" by the administration's approach.

 

Technorati tags: Loretta Perkins, Health Insurance, National Governors Association, children, President Bush, State Children's Health Insurance Program

Length of School Day Under Review

Many schools are looking at ways to boost students' academic progress, and test scores.  An important impetus for the debate around extending school hours is the federal No Child Left Behind law.

The five-year-old law requires annual testing in reading and math for grades three through eight, and again in high school. All students are expected to be working on grade level by 2014.

Schools that fail to meet annual benchmarks are labeled as needing improvement and have to take steps to address the problem.

A CNN news article reports that Robin Harris, school principal at Fletcher-Maynard Academy, a combined public elementary and middle school in Cambridge, Mass., is experimenting with an extended, eight-hour school day.

The school, which serves mostly poor, minority students, is one of 10 in the state experimenting with a longer day as part of a $6.5 million program.

While Massachusetts is leading in putting in place the longer-day model, lawmakers in Minnesota, New Mexico, New York and Washington, D.C., also have debated whether to lengthen the school day or year.

In addition, individual districts such as Miami-Dade in Florida are experimenting with added hours in some schools.

The article further points out that on average, U.S. students go to school 6.5 hours a day, 180 days a year, fewer than in many other industrialized countries, according to a report by the Education Sector, a Washington-based think tank.

One model that traditional public schools are looking to is the Knowledge is Power Program, which oversees public charter schools nationwide.

Those schools typically serve low-income middle-school students, and their test scores show success. Students generally go from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. during the week and for a few hours every other Saturday. They also go to school for several weeks in the summer.

That amounts to at least 50 percent more instructional time for students in such programs than in traditional public schools, according to the report.

Up against such a tough requirement, extending the day makes sense, Harris said. "If you want kids to read, and you want to teach them how to read, they have to have time reading," she said

U.S. Sen. Democrat Edward Kennedy, chairman of the Senate committee overseeing education, is considering allowing schools that fail to meet annual progress goals to extend their day as a possible solution.

The idea of extending the school day appears to be catching on.  Lawmakers in Minnesota, New Mexico, New York and Washington, D.C., also have debated whether to lengthen the school day or year.

In addition, individual districts such as Miami-Dade in Florida are experimenting with added hours in some schools.

 

Technorati tags: Loretta Perkins, Education, Senator Edward Kennedy, Knowledge is Power Program, test scores, No Child Left Behind Law, Fletcher-Maynard Academy, Massachussets

26% Increase In Poverty..Correlation or Coincidence?

President George Bush was elected as President of the United States in November of 2000.  Since taking office, the number of severely poor Americans has risen 26%.

According to an article in the USA Today, the gulf between rich and poor in the United States is yawning wider than ever, and the number of extremely impoverished is at a three-decade high, a report out Saturday found.

Based on the latest available U.S. census data from 2005, the McClatchy Newspapers analysis found that almost 16 million Americans live in "deep or severe poverty" defined as a family of four with two children earning less than 9,903 dollars — one half the federal poverty line figure.

For individuals the "deep poverty" threshold was an income under 5,080 dollars a year.

"The McClatchy analysis found that the number of severely poor Americans grew by 26% from 2000 to 2005," the U.S. newspaper chain reported.

"That's 56% faster than the overall poverty population grew in the same period," it noted.

The surge in poverty comes alongside an unusual economic expansion.

"Worker productivity has increased dramatically since the brief recession of 2001, but wages and job growth have lagged behind. At the same time, the share of national income going to corporate profits has dwarfed the amount going to wages and salaries," the study found.

That helps explain why the median household income for working-age families, adjusted for inflation, has fallen for five straight years.

"These and other factors have helped push 43% of the nation's 37 million poor people into deep poverty — the highest rate since at least 1975. The share of poor Americans in deep poverty has climbed slowly but steadily over the last three decades," the report said.

It quoted an American Journal of Preventive Medicine study as having found that since 2000, the number of severely poor — far below basic poverty terms — in the United States has grown "more than any other segment of the population."

"That was the exact opposite of what we anticipated when we began," said Steven Woolf of Virginia Commonwealth University, a study co-author.

"We're not seeing as much moderate poverty as a proportion of the population. What we're seeing is a dramatic growth of severe poverty."

U.S. social programs are minimal compared to those of western Europe and Canada. The United States has a population of 301 million, but more than 45 million U.S. citizens have no health insurance.

Now I don't know about you, but the timing in which this increase in poverty has occurred, is interesting.  Since George Bush has been in office, we have seen tax cuts for the rich, millions of jobs being outsourced to overseas work forces, cut backs of Federal programs developed to assist lower income people, billions of dollars being spent in a questionable war, and millions in U.S. dollars, designated for Iraq, missing.    All of this under George Bush's watch.  Correlation or coincidence?   

 

Technorati tags: Loretta Perkins, poverty, George Bush, tax cuts, Iraq War, United States, McClatchy Newspaper, Presidential election, economic expansion, worker productivity

Hillary Clinton, Let's Keep It Real!

It appears that the Presidential campaign has begun,along with the mud slinging and character assassination that muddies the waters in selecting the truly most qualified candidate.  From Bill Clinton's impeachment, to Barack Obama's questionable real estate deal, and his supposedly attending a radical Muslim elementary school in Indonesia as a child, attempts are being made by Media and others to shift the American people's focus.

A Washington Post article, Clinton Fights to Keep Impeachment Taboo, reports that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has a new commandment for the 2008 presidential field: Thou shalt not mention anything related to the impeachment of her husband.

With a swift response to attacks from a former supporter last week, advisers to the New York Democrat offered a glimpse of their strategy for handling one of the most awkward chapters of her biography. They declared her husband's impeachment in 1998 -- or, more accurately, the embarrassing personal behavior that led to it -- taboo, putting her rivals on notice and all but daring other Democrats to mention the ordeal again.

The article further states that as Clinton aides spent several days batting down insults made by David Geffen, the Hollywood mogul who raised questions about the former president's personal behavior and praised Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) in a provocative interview, the intra-party brawl suggested that the scandal remains something of a tripwire for Clinton.

Although she has spent the past seven years establishing her own identity as a public servant, Clinton has been embracing the more popular aspects of her husband's presidency more widely as she mounts her own campaign, with frequent references to their time together in the White House and their joint legacy.

The turmoil of the later Clinton years has been a theme of national politics since it occurred: George W. Bush ran in 2000 on a promise to "restore honor and dignity to the Oval Office," while Vice President Al Gore campaigned as a solid family man, distancing himself from the impeachment ordeal.

However, on the Clinton side, one adviser expressed confidence that "attacking Bill Clinton is a losing strategy," borrowing a phrase from the 1990s. The adviser noted that Clinton remains highly popular among Democratic activists. Close supporter James Carville said that mentioning the impeachment would be tantamount to political suicide. "Nothing is off-limits, but it would be awfully stupid," Carville said. "What do you think attitudes among Democrats are about impeachment and Ken Starr? This is not a Washington dinner party here. This is an election, a nominating process, among Democrats."

It is unclear to me why Hillary Clinton would run away from any aspect of her husband's terms in office.  She was not President, her husband was.  Bill Clinton's personal misconduct is not her burden to bare.  Ultimately he will have to pay the price for it.

I would be willing to wager that if most Americans had a choice of having the days of Bill Clinton back, or the present day George Bush administration, there would be no contest. In the scheme of things, Bill Clinton's impeachment was purely political. Lets weigh the facts. President Clinton had an inappropriate relationship with an of age intern. He committed adultery. He has to answer for that very personal display of poor judgement.

Now look at President Bush. Giving tax breaks to the rich, welfare to the big corporations, manipulated intelligence to justify the invasion and occupation of Iraq, billions of dollars in resources, over 3000 Americans dead, over 20,000 injured, thousands of Iraqis dead, an entire country destroyed,  a whole region in perilous danger, and eroded standing in the world. Which Presidency has had the most negative, and most serious impact on the American people? When you weigh the facts, it is a joke.

Hillary Clinton should be elected or not elected based on what people believe she can bring to the table, and how well she can project that to the American people.  Nothing else!

Technorati tags: Loretta Perkins, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Presidential Election, Barack Obama, Democrats, Republicans, Impeachment, Iraq War, Muslim, David Geffen, George Bush, American People

Much Ado About Nothing

Well, the Presidential campaign has barely begun, and we are mired in a slug fest between Senators Hilary Clinton, and Barack Obama.  With all of the serious issues that this country is facing, the media is focusing on words exchanged between two candidates vying for the Democratic nomination.  Neither one of these candidates has a lock on the Democratic nomination, much less a sure ride to the Presidency.

According to E.J. Dionne of the  Washington Post, the petty feud was started by big-time producer Geffen's brutal remarks about the Clintons, which appeared after he helped raise a ton of Hollywood money for Obama. The grudge match revived those depressing cliches about the Democrats: their affection for circular firing squads and their habit of never missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

Dionne goes on to give us a historic perspective of this battle, and something that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama should consider. 

He states, "You wonder what Clinton and Obama will learn from this. Both might study the long Democratic nomination fight that began in 1987, well in advance of the 1988 election.

There was an obvious front-runner named Gary Hart, a smart, young former Colorado senator who promised to lead his party out of the 1930s into the 1990s. There was a young Delaware senator named Joe Biden, the same guy who's running this time. Biden wasn't the clear No. 2 that Obama is now, but he got some good early reviews.

Before election year dawned, Hart and Biden were knocked out of the race, because of their own mistakes for sure, but also because of whispering campaigns and subterranean attacks by their opponents.

By the fall of 1987, the Democrats looked like ineffectual dwarfs, to use the word popular back then. A Republican operative named Haley Barbour -- now Mississippi's governor -- happily declared: "At the beginning of this year, the American people questioned whether the Democrats had the first team on the field. I think everything that's happened has confirmed that it's a real amateur hour. It's been a confirmation of people's idea that these aren't the big boys."

Obama and Clinton lieutenants and their full-of-themselves fundraisers: Read Barbour a few times and remember that the Democrats blew the 1988 election. Today, the party has its most talented collection of candidates since 1960. That could change fast.

The American people are ready for a change.  Our country is in desperate need of a new direction.  My only hope is that the Democrats don't drop the ball on this one, and self destruct! 

 

Technorati tags: Loretta Perkins, Presidential campaign, Democrats, Republicans, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, nomination, Joe Biden, Gary Hart, Haley Barbour, fundraiser, David Geffen

You Can Run, But You Sure Can't Hide!

John McCain was bombarded with questions regarding his stance on the war and support for escalation during his hour long town hall meeting in Iowa.

According to an article in the Washington Post, it became clear from the opening minutes of his first meeting of the day just how much the presidential aspirations of the senator, who is one of the leading advocates of President Bush's troop-increase policy, may be tied to events in Iraq.

McCain drew questions about the cost of the war, the prospects for success, the dangers of failure, the treatment of veterans and the new threats from Iran.  He could only respond by saying, "I know how tough it is for the American people," he told an audience of several hundred people. "I know how frustrated Americans are. I know how saddened we are when we lose our most precious treasure. I understand your frustration. But I also want to tell you that I could not be honest with you without telling you that I believe if we fail, the consequences of failure are catastrophic and there would be genocide and chaos."

"We raised people's expectations -- 'mission accomplished,' 'few dead-enders,' 'last throes' -- all of those comments that made Americans believe that we were on the verge of getting this thing done," he said. Instead, he added, the war has been a "long, tough struggle that we should have told the American people about."

McCain said he has no fallback plan if the policy of sending an additional 21,500 troops to Iraq fails. "We live in a democracy, and when the American people don't support -- as we learned in Vietnam, as we learned in Beirut, as we learned in Somalia -- then we are not able to maintain a foreign endeavor. I can give you lots of options, but I'm hard-pressed to find one that will have the support of the American people."

At least McCain is honest, however, it is a sad commentary on just where our country has found itself in this war.

One thing is for sure, just as President Bush's legacy is going to be tied to Iraq, McCain's Presidential hopes will be tied to the success or failures there as well. 

 

Technorati tags: Loretta Perkins, John McCain, Iraq War, Iran, troop escalation, Presidential campaign, Republicans, Democrats, Veterans

Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid!

Have you noticed how bitter Republicans sound when they speak of Hillary Clinton?  They become almost rabid when her name pops up.  Such hate...its amazing.   Everything that she does and says is scrutinized by conservatives, and tv pundits alike.  They even claim to want her to be the Democratic nominee, that is in public they do.  What lies!  Behind closed doors, they are shaking in their boots. 

President Bush's numbers are so low, that it is going to take someone very dynamic to beat Hillary Clinton in the Presidentional election.  And so far, all of the Republican candidates are "duds".

According to Politico.com, what many conservatives regard as the nightmare scenario -- President Hillary Rodham Clinton -- is increasingly seen by veteran Republican politicians and strategists as a virtual inevitability.

Many Republicans are realizing that the party needs good luck, including a change of fortune in Iraq, and a revival of organization and leadership in the conservative movement to avert another Clinton presidency.

Further more, the article quotes Tom Delay as saying in an interview last week, "If the conservative movement and Republicans don't understand how massive the Clinton coalition is, she will be the next president."  Clinton will win, he added, "if we don't use everything available to us and motivate our base, the people that believe in us."

In his closed-door comments to conservative House members, DeLay warned of the wealth and political potency of the Clinton fundraising network.

"We do have to get our act together, and I'd agree with Tom DeLay on that," said Rep. Steve King of Iowa. "At this point, short an inspirational Republican nominee, then I would agree that it's going to be very difficult to beat Hillary if she wins the nomination."

Additionally, some Republicans say a Clinton presidency might even be good for Republicans. "If Americans actually have to witness and live through a Hillary Clinton presidency, it will remind us why we are fundamentally traditional conservatives in America. We believe in hard work, strong families," said Rep. Tom Feeney, R-Fla.

I don't know about you, but I believe that the U.S. was in better condition when Bill Clinton was in office than the country is in now.  Times for Middle Class Americans have definitley gotten harder, and the divide between the haves and the have nots has grown tremendously. 

After having 8 years of the Bush Administration with lies, deceit, arrogance, scandal and corruption, a Clinton Presidency is just what the doctor ordered.  And personally, I don't believe anyone will ever want to go back to the awful days of the Bush Administration.

Technorati tags: Loretta Perkins, Hillary Clinton, Bush Administration, Republicans, Democrats, Clinton Coalition, Presidential Election, Tom Delay, conservative movement, Steve King, fundraising, Americans, Iraq War