Nutjobs Ranting About Politics.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Francis Fukuyama in the Financial Times
Under Bush, Iraq is going to shit.

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
It doesn't matter so long as Bush wins the election.

Andrew Sullivan, on his blog
In the last few days, close to 130 civilians have been killed by terrorists in a country occupied by coalition forces. If you adjust for population size, that's almost half the American death-toll from 9/11. I just scanned two of my favorite websites, Instapundit and NRO's Corner, and the only mention today is an honest piece by John Derbyshire calling for withdrawal after the election. That's telling, I think. And a sign of how unhinged and divorced from the real issues this election has become.

There's still lots of time left, something which should be scaring Bush.

eta: And it's not just Iraq. Since Slave's not around, I'll be the one to quote Sullivan here:

THREE TRILLION DOLLARS: It doesn't even sound better when Dr Evil says it. That's what George W. Bush's proposals for his second term would cost. Actually, that's just the cost of keeping tax relief in place and privatizing part of social security. It excludes the costs of the war or the other fast-expanding parts of Bush's Big Government. In terms of fiscal responsibility, it's way worse than John F. Kerry; and if the Congress remains in Republican hands, there will be nothing to stop the president from trying to spend or borrow all of it. Medicare alone is a nightmare:

• While Congress squabbles over whether the administration hid the new prescription drug benefit's 10-year cost - pegged by the White House at $534 billion versus CBO's $395 billion - the actual liability incurred by the new drug benefit is estimated at $8 trillion to $12 trillion.

I know I'm a broken record, but it seems to me that blogs should not only point out where mainstream media is wrong or blinkered, but also where leading politicians are being irresponsible. It is simply irresponsible either to propose vast new spending, while cynically knowing none of it will happen; or to mean it and have no good accounting for how we can afford it. I cannot understand how Bush is getting away with it: the destruction of fiscal conservatism for a generation.