What Bush Threw Away (washingtonpost.com)

Anxiously awaiting 4pm PST, when results start pouring in.

Voted yesterday via written ballot (the Oregon system). Dropped the envelope off at the local library branch. No lines. Felt strange to just walk in and put the ballot in the basket without signing anything at the time or identifying myself.

The box looked like a blue recycling box with a ducted tape on lid and a whole cut out of the center. It was placed at the entrance of the library, just past the shoplifting sensors.

It would've been remarkably easy to run in and steal the ballot box. Half of me wants to drive out to rural Oregon and start taking away evil evangelical votes. I know it's wrong, but still...

What Bush Threw Away (washingtonpost.com): "George W. Bush once had a chance to be looking forward to a landslide victory today and a nation committed to standing together in defeating terrorism...

In the days after Sept. 11, Democrats put aside their suspicions of Bush and rallied to his side. "We will speak with one voice," Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle declared on that awful day. "All of us stand with the president," said Sen. Joe Biden. And stand with the president we all did...

For several months, Bush, too, stood above party. In assembling both a domestic and international coalition to wage war against the Taliban in Afghanistan, the president put aside his critiques of unilateralism and "nation-building." As I wrote at the time -- yes, even I admired Bush that fall -- the president "grafted the language of Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman to the martial rhythms of Ronald Reagan." He sought broad support, not narrow majorities, for the Afghan war and his emergency spending proposals...

Back then I thought Bush had an enormous political opportunity that matched the nation's interest: to build a wide, sustainable, Eisenhower-like Republican majority. The country was waiting for a call to service, sacrifice and solidarity. It didn't want the old ideological politics...

But Bush interpreted his prodigious approval ratings not as an opportunity for something new but as a chance to push the same ideological agenda he was pursuing before Sept. 11...


It's a shame, really. Bush could have been a great president. He was for several months. He chose instead to be the leader of a party and a faction. However this election turns out, that's what he'll still be on Nov. 3."