Bright Lines

Floating a trial balloon, Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-TX, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee told Congress Daily President-elect Obama should keep Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell and CIA head Michael Hayden on for "continuity."

Trial balloons are floated to gauge reaction.

Allow me an opportunity to react.

Both domestically and internationally these two individuals carry the stain of the very worst aspects of the Bush regime.

Domestically, Michael Hayden came to the CIA from the NSA and is believed to be the architect of the illegal domestic wiretapping program and one of its chief defenders. He misled congress, telling them that any surveillance of persons in the United States was done consistent with FISA, a claim later refuted by Bush by claiming that FISA "doesn't work.

Internationally, as the head of the CIA, Hayden was chief defender of torture, quaintly called "harsh interrogation techniques", defended the destruction of videotapes of such "sessions" which seriously damaged American relations abroad.

DNI head Mike McConnell was the Bush point man in obtaining the retroactive immunity for the telecommunication companies, quashing several lawsuits forever sealing the ability to determine how rampant this illegal domestic wiretapping program was, and the creation of broad new sweeping powers of executive surveillance.

These are just a few of the main points of contention I have with these two individuals.

From the very beginning, President-elect Obama touted his opposition to the war, his opposition to teleco amnesty and his opposition to torture. As Senator, Obama voted against Hayden being appointed as CIA director due to Hayden's creation and defender of the illegal warrantless wiretapping program. His performance at the CIA has not been any better.

These two individuals represent a bright red line which Obama should not cross. For two consecutive elections, the policies of the Bush administration have been roundly rejected, most notably with the election of Obama as the next President of The United States. "Continuity" is not what is called for here--change is.

Get Over It

After the selection of Bush by the Supreme Court in 2000, many Americans were outraged. Even though Bush had lost the popular vote by a wide margin, the press joined the right wing by telling us to get over it.

W's reelection in 2004 by a squeaker margin of 3.5 million votes was labeled a "mandate" by all those within pickup range of a microphone. Couple this with all the voter suppression tricks the Republican party could muster, along with a campaign of "smears, queers and fears," was just one more indicator of the brand of conservatism served up by the current day leaders.

The elections of 2006 and 2008 have handed the Republicans the greatest humiliating losses since the Great Depression. As of this writing Republicans have lost 55 house seats and 11 senate seats as well as the Presidency in the last two elections.

The vote total for Obama is more than twice that received by W who claimed a mandate in 2004. By extension President Elect Obama now commands a double mandate, if such a thing exists.

Republicans whined about the strong headwinds of an unpopular President, failing economy, unpopular war and massive debt. These are all creations of Republican policies so whining about it is akin to the kid who murders his parents begging the court for mercy since he is an orphan.

The Democratic candidate suffered structural obstacles as well. A skinny black man with big ears with a name like some swarthy mid-easterner. Of course, the republican slime-dozer machine piled on with several metric tons of vile slurs. It seems the term liberal has lost the value to shock the populace, so now republican operatives throw out terms like "marxist" and "socialist," which also lost its punch as the Republican Administration is in the process of nationalizing banks and socializing the losses of investors.

So America is trending left. We have seen in very stark terms the result of Republican rule. Massive death, massive debt, massive layoffs, massive losses in health care, massive riches for the one percent and massive decline in wages for the lower 95 percent. The only hope I have is the far-right teevee, radio and bloggers insist on party purity, further reducing republican seats in the future.