Do you remember what you were doing in the summer of 2001? More importantly, do you remember what your President and his Congress were doing in the summer of 2001? I do.

Just a few short weeks before 9/11 our President was perched at his Crawford, Texas ranch enjoying a very long vacation (5 weeks if I remember correctly). His attention was focused on the moral dilemma of stem cell research and how he could use the Christian cloth he had wrapped himself in to suppress promising research for curing diseases. This topic was so important that he took time away from chopping wood and barbecuing to address the nation in primetime.

If the Bush administration was so focused on terrorists (namely al Qaeda) why did he never once speak to the American people about the problem? After all, Bush knew that al Qaeda was responsible for the attack on the USS Cole in the Fall of 2000. Why did he not go on national television to the tell the American people that he knew who attacked our service men and women? Why did the President not speak directly and openly to the American people and our enemies alike and say that the United States was not going to take it and that he would develop a master plan for eliminating terror from the face of the Earth? Why was Bush and Company not more proactive in their approach to the war on terror?

This is the kind of questioning that conspiracy theorists love to hear, because it is so easy to say that the President wanted to be attacked. Personally, I just think the President was distracted with giving tax breaks to the most wealthy and in becoming our moral leader on deeply personal issues and that he simply could not be bothered with the big picture.

Five plus years is a long time ago for some of us. Perhaps our memories have been clouded over with more recent events. So I ask then, what were the Republicans (Bush and Company) concerned with in the Spring of 2005? Was it the war in Iraq? Was it Afghanistan? Osama bin Laden? Was it on protecting our borders? Was it beefing up security on freight shipments and cargo ships that enter our ports everyday? The answer is no. The Republicans were worried about the obviously brain-dead Terri Schiavo and having her feeding tube removed. They [Republicans] simply could not stand to have a moral and personal decision go with intervening by creating bogus laws for one specific case. Once again the GOP decided to wrap itself in the Christian cloth of morality in hopes of undermining the personal freedoms and personal relationship between an individual choice and their belief system.

How is that related to the war on terror? Does this demonstrate that the Republicans are the party of protecting the American people? Again, no. But as long as the “war on terror” is being fought, the Republicans know that they have a banner to wave that proclaims them as the gladiators that are going to save us all.

In 2004 the GOP pulled out all of the stops and forced the same-sex marriage debate front and center for the general election. The plan was to stir fear that the American family was somehow threatened by two loving people sharing in the same rights (not privileges, but rights) as everyone else. The summer of 2006 started out the same way. The GOP was down in the polls and it needed a boost, so twice the House of Representatives passed bills to amend the Constitution to ensure that same-sex couples never receive any rights at all, and twice the Senate rejected the same initiative. When that didn’t work, the GOP turned to protecting our borders. The President even went before the nation on primetime (something he likes to do for political reasons and seldom out of the collective interest of the citizenry) to spell out his plan for protecting the border with Mexico and to lay out his plans for immigration. But in the spirit of true Republicanism, the House has spent the entire summer touring the country talking about the issue but doing little else. Now there isn’t enough time to act on any legislation, so Congress has delayed the vote until after the election.

How is any of this serving the needs of this country in the war on terror? The Republicans are not about protecting anyone but themselves and their financial supporters. Good people with good common sense and the ability to think critically should remember all of this as they head to the polls in November.

Bill Clinton’s appearence on the Fox News Sunday program this past weekend did more than make for great political entertainment. It served as a rallying calls for Democrats to wakeup and start fighting the GOP and their spin control machines. Clinton’s appearence brings full-circle the role the once-President served within the party and our nation.

First it reminds us that the defeats we have suffered at the hands of manipulated elections, and whacked-out political strategies by Rove and friends does not mean becoming meek little lap dogs, it means fighting harder and louder than before. Second, not since the 1992 election have we seen “this” Bill Clinton. His actions as President offended many in the party due to his strange twist of bringing corporate-types into the party of FDR and LBJ with often dangerous results (NAFTA, welfare reform, etc.), so for the first time in many years it is time that the Democrats had a real candidate out front and center for the American voters.

Is Bill Clinton running? No, of course not. The Republicans made sure that no President could continue to serve the nation as long as FDR ever again. But Hillary Clinton is running in New York (a cake walk for sure), and may run in ’08 for the White House, and that means she will have the best political maestro in history working on her side. But more importantly, Bill Clinton has brought the terror issue out and said ‘hell no, we won’t take it anymore’, and for that Mr. President, we say “Thank You”.

John Dickerson at Slate says it best:

Bill Clinton wasn’t sandbagged, because he is a smart politician. He just spent several weeks fighting ABC over its interpretation of his administration’s hunt for Bin Laden. He knew the question was coming and he took advantage of it. Forty-three days before the election, he has provided a moment to rally party activists and attack the GOP at the heart of its perceived strength on handling terrorism.

If nothing else happens as a result of Clinton’s appearence, I hope that Pelosi and Reid learn a thing or two about being outspoken and larger than life in fighting the GOP. This party needed a wakeup call, and I think they just got it.

In the most recent polling in Pennsylvania, Rick Santorum is trailing his Democratic opponent, Bob Casey Jr., by ten-percent. According to CNN, a poll conducted September 14-20 by Temple University and the Philadelphia Inquirer, Bob Casey Jr. has 49 percent of the vote to Santorum’s 39 percent with 3 percent voting for the Green Party candidate.

Keep your eye on this race. The Republicants are desperate to keep this seat and we should see all of the stops pulled for this one. This race, and a few others, should give Democrats a taste of what 2008 will be like. I say that somewhere in the October 15-21 period we will see some mud flying from Santorum and Rove and that some bombshell revelation will turn the election upside down.

Anyone who believes that John McCain will maintain his stance of opposition to the President’s detainee legislative proposal to the very end is absolutely fooling themselves. This man has more desire to replace Bush in 2009 than anyother candidate, Republican or otherwise, and showing any sign of opposition to the President’s one single strength (fighting terriorism) is asking for trouble from the Republican base.

In the end, McCain and Company will fall in line and deliver to the GOP a victory and give America another moral black eye, simply because the devils (Karl Rove and George Bush) know that the soft spot for any politician is his ego and need for more power.

The Washington Post has an excellent editorial on this very topic today:

Substantively, the legislative battle will shape what limits the administration will face on its anti-terrorism policies in the final two years of Bush’s term. Politically, McCain’s willingness once again to confront Bush raises questions about how he will position himself toward the Republican Party’s conservative base, which he has aggressively cultivated over the past year as he pursues the presidency.

In a reprise of criticism showered on McCain during his 2000 campaign, some prominent conservatives are branding him a disloyal Republican and an unreliable conservative because of his assertiveness on the detainee issue.

Gee, that sounds a lot like “you are either with us or against us”.

In the meantime, Democrats have remained virtually silent on this issue, simply because they are hedging their bets that this is a wedge issue for the GOP and that by remaining on the edge of the debate they are less likely to serve as a unifying object within the GOP. Smart thinking for the Dems, but I hope they are prepared to lead with a cohesive message when this crap legislation passes.