The New Way Forward...NO MORE BLANK CHECKS! 
I'm going to admit it. I'm prejudiced. They say you should never judge a book by its cover. I say you don't have to eat the whole apple to know its bad. And once you've had a bad apple, you know what to look for so you don't have to go through that again. You know the old saying... "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me repeatedly for three and a half years and I'm just asking for it."In the reality-based world, anticipating future events based on past experience is considered prudent risk management. If you look at it from an evolutionary standpoint, it is a positive survival characteristic. Here's why that's important...
Soon to be extinct primate: Look at those footprints! Let's follow them.
Hominid forebear: No way! Last time I saw an animal with feet that big, it was carrying a guy in its mouth. He didn't look too happy.
Soon to be extinct primate: Who? The guy or the animal?
Hominid forebear: The guy. The animal ate him. You know what they say, "Big teeth, big appetite."
Soon to be extinct primate: That is so prejudicial. Don't be a wussy. Come on!
Hominid forebear: You go ahead. I'll keep your woman warm until you get back.
Soon to be extinct primate: Suit yourself. But when I come back with dinner, I'm gonna be the most popular guy in the cave.
Hominid forebear: Waves good-bye.
Scene II: Five million years later
Kid: Dad, can I borrow the car?
Father: No way! Last time you borrowed the car you got drunk and plowed into a school bus after leading the police on a high speed car chase. From now on, if I want to see The Fast And The Furious I'll rent it.
Kid: That is so prejudicial. Things will be different. I promise.
Father: Tell you what. Get a job. Get your own money. Buy your own car. Pay your own insurance and then you can drive to your heart's content.
Kid: Stomps out screaming I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!
Father: I can live with that.
Scene III: Sometime Wednesday evening
Dubya: My fellow Americans...
yadda yadda yadda blah blah blah....
terrism... mo' money, mo' money, mo' money....
nuculer... mo' money, mo' money, mo' money...
promises, promises, promises... mo' money, mo' money, mo' money...
September the eleventh... mo' money, mo' money, mo' money...
Same old, same old, same old... but we call it something new...
Victory!
Me: There's gotta be something else on TV...Ohhh... Seinfeld's on!
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Face it, no matter what the president says Wednesday night, the best he can do is offer more of the same. And he's going to need more money to do it. We've seen how well that worked. We went from "Mission Accomplished" to "dead enders" to "last throes" to "Long War" to "We're not losing."
I don't know about you, but I'm getting tired of pretending we don't know why he has a "special assistant" who follows him around with breath mints. It's got to the point I hope he is drinking. Otherwise I don't know how to explain his persistent refusal to at least visit the reality-based world.
Now I'll be the first to admit the bloodletting has gotten way out of control, but I'm not even going to get in to that. As far as these folks are concerned, that's the cost of doing business. Speaking of which, ever since the Decider decided to take the focus off OBL and invade Iraq, we have been chewing through money at a ridiculous rate. I hate to bring up ancient history, but when he took office we had a surplus of about 300 Billion dollars. As everyone knows, we now have a deficit of about 300 Billion dollars. And that is going to last for as long as they can project.
That's a problem if we were just going to "stay the course" but it's an even bigger problem if he is going for "double or nothing" and seriously thinks he can attack Iran without Russia, China and a whole host of other countries deciding to put our economy out of its misery.
Let's take a quick review of some of the financial highlights we've seen in the last 3 or 4 years. It's sobering. I can understand why people don't want to argue about the past. It's ugly. But I said at the top, I'm prejudiced .... I believe that past experiences have bearing on future events. So here's a quick review:
October 2002 Lawrence Lindsay fired for projecting cost of Iraq war at $100 to $200 billion.
April 2003 USAID says rebuilding Iraq will be 1.7 billion.
April 2003 Bush gets an emergency appropriation of $79 billion.
October 2003 World Bank estimates rebuilding Iraq $56 Billion.
November 2003 Bush gets another emergency appropriation of $87 billion.
February 2004 The Pentagon admits the war in Iraq is costing $1 billion per week.
January 2005 $9 billion disappears in Iraq.
May 2005 Bush gets another emergency appropriation of $76 billion.
August 2005 Hurricane Katrina destroys New Orleans in one of the worst natural disasters in American history.
February 2006 Bush gets another emergency appropriation of $120 billion
June 2006 Fox News reports the total bill so far $320 billion for the war in Iraq, $89 billion for the war in Afghanistan.
November 2006 Midterm elections are a shut out for Republicans.
55% of Americans voted against Republicans running for Congress.
59% of Americans voted against Republicans in Senate contests.
62% of Americans voted against Republicans running for governor.
There is overwhelming agreement that in this latest "accountability moment" the people have spoken clearly. They are not happy with the war in Iraq. Discontent is so high that Republicans are getting beat everywhere.
January 2007 Rumors start floating that Bush will ask for another emergency appropriation of about $110 billion for the next fiscal year.
It should be painfully obvious to anyone paying attention that Bush is not going to listen to anyone other than the voices in his own head. He won't listen to James Baker or his own father for crying out loud! He has made it clear that troops will not be leaving Iraq on his watch. He has made it clear that he believes he will be vindicated by history. Unless his dog starts talking to him and tells him otherwise, George is going to pursue this white whale with all the tenacity of Captain Ahab and all the wisdom of Captain Queeg.
He has also made it clear that he is above the law so he is not going to answer to any other branch of government. As far as he's concerned the treasury is his personal piggy bank and the hell with accountability or oversight. When you look at the numbers it is painfully obvious that he is plundering the treasury and spending the Social Security trust fund to help finance this war.
If any self-respecting banana republic found itself in this situation, you could bet the military would have staged a coup long before things got this far out of whack. It is testimony to the honor and integrity of the US officer corps that they have maintained their respect for constitutionally mandated civilian rule. We need to support the troops and pull the plug on this madness. It's stealing our future.
Introducing the NEW new normal.
To paraphrase Andrew Jackson,
"Dubya has his decision, let him finance it."
Here's the plan:
No more blank checks.
If Bush wants to steal the family car and run it into a ditch, I say let him buy his own damn car. The new congress has got to exercise the power of the purse if it wants to regain any control at all. Simply put, Congress has to demonstrate that "oversight" and "overlooked" are no longer synonymous.
If folks are waiting for someone else to do it, they can stop waiting. There is no cavalry coming. We have to let our representatives know that we worked to put them in power so they could use it. The time to fight is now.
Even before we invaded Iraq I said the Bush Doctrine was flawed because it:
a) Discounted the economic impact of protracted global warfare.
b) Disregarded intelligence that didn't fit the ideology.
c) Disdained diplomatic relationships in a nuclear world.
d) Dismissed professional opinion from seasoned military commanders.
But what do I know? I said at the start I'm prejudiced. I realize everyone else is more open-minded. So in the interest of fairness I suggest we wait to hear what the President has to say Wednesday evening and then we tell our representatives the time has come for them to take a stand and put an end to the madness of this American Nero.
NO MORE BLANK CHECKS!
CHECKS & BALANCES ARE BACK!
KEYWORDS: iraq war, new democratic majority, budget, supplemental bill, appropriations, government waste and fraud, quagmire, mything the point
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