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Let us review where we've just come from....and ask what a "liberal" agenda might look like....so we can recognize it, if it rears it's "ugly" head.

Nov. 1992: After 12 years of republican party presidents, democrat is elected.

Feb. 1993: Terrorists planted and detonated a massive bomb in a basement level of the WTC in NYC, seven died and a signifigant number were injured. Law enforcement investigated, made arrests and several convictions in US federal court resulted. The cases were successfully prosecuted by asst. US Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald.

Fall, 1993: Democratic controlled house and senate pass democratic president's rollback of republican era tax cuts that had focused on signifigantly cutting
the taxes of the wealthiest.
<b>Reagan reversed some of the drastic 1981 tax cuts that he had sponsored in the first days of his presidency, Clinton sponsored a much more modest tax increase that targeted primarily, the wealthiest taxpayers.</b>

Sept. 30, 1993. Last republican president's budget year ends. Treasury debt has increased, year over year, by $360 billion. Treasury debt has increased, since last democratic president, in 1981....from $1070 billion, to $4200 billion.

Nov. 1993: Republicans take control of the house in mid-term elections on the strength of new speaker of the house, Newt Gingrich's "contract with America".

May, 1995: Murrow federal building bombed by terrorists in Oklahoma City, 169 killed....arrests made by law enforcement, convictions in US federal court resulted, lead conspirator/bomber later executed.

1998: In a highly partisan charged atmosphere, conservative house republican leaders mount a campaign to impeach president Clinton for lying in a deposition taken under oath in a civil suit, financed by conservative republicans who have hounded the Clinton administration in 5 years of investigations conducted by a special prosecutor. The impeachment process moves to the senate, where republicans fail to obtain a conviction. At the end of Clinton's presidency, in 2001, the eight years of investigation of Clinton and his wife have cost $70 million, resulted in no findings of wrongdoing against the Clintons...and an X-rated report on Clinton's extra marital relations, before and during his presidency. The special prosecutor, highly partisan Kenneth Starr, is rewarded for his efforts with an appointment by the principle financier of the eight years of harrassment against Clinton, Richard Mellon Scaife, to the dean's chair at Pepperdine law school, on Malibu Beach, CA.

Jan. 2001: Clinton leaves office during a budget year when the $360 billion annual debt increase of the 1992-1993 republican budget has been reversed to a surplus in 2001. The surplus ended when SCOTUS installed president Bush pushed through a tax cutting program that included the mailing of tax rebate checks to taxpayers that totalled $39 billion, in summer, 2001. On sept. 30, 2001, the last Clinton budget year ended, with a total annual treasury debt increase of $18 billion. (This equates to a $21 billion surplus, without the tax rebate checks, and it would have been a signifigantly larger surplus, if not for the immediate effects of Bush sponsored tax cutting).

We cannot be sure of the position that the US would be in today, as far as the support that it would enjoy from other countries if the 9/11 attacks had been treated as a law enforcement problem, instead of with an aggressive, military, CIA, and DIA response.

We do know that the 2001 budget surplus had been reversed to a new accumulation of $3000 billion in treasury debt, in just five years, including a debt increase in the last year of $570 billion....including a budgeted $300 billion and supplemental appropriations of $270 billion for GWOT operations and Katrina disaster relief.

The US military is mired in wars in both Iraq and in Afghanistan, with little hope of accomplishing "the mission" in either country. When the US attacked Afghanistan in 2001, in response to the 9/11 attacks, the ruling taleban, ousted in the US led military operations, had eradicated the Afghan opium crop, the largest in the world. Opium from Afghanistan now floods the urban streets of the west, and the taleban is poised to retake control of Afghanistan. US forces are suffering their highest rates, yet, of casualties in Afghanistan, along with increasingly resentful, foreign NATO sponsored troops. In Iraq, US forces are suffering their highest rates of KIA in two years, with no relief in sight.

Perhaps the most alarming consequence has been the undermining of the constitutional rights formally guaranteed to all US residents and those subject to US authorities treatment under the provisions of the Geneva conventions. US official policy with regard to respect for human rights and treaties and laws related to those rights have also eroded alarmingly.

The purpose of recalling where we've been, and where we are now, is to ask how a "liberal agenda", if one emerged....if such a "thing" existed...could be even slightly as harmful as the reversals from former fiscal, diplomatic, and military stability, that we've just experienced...in less than six years' time.

Could we afford this "liberal agenda"? Do the suspected "architects" of such an agenda, come into power, this week, with a past reputation for the kind of fiscal irresponsibility and mismanagement that would be required to impelement such an agenda, in today's period of federal treasury, fiscal crisis?

Please point to examples of such a record...of these "liberals". Please describe how America would be better (or worse...) off today...and the world....if the US had continued the pre republican control, pre 9/11 policies of progressive taxation and responding to domestic and foreign terrorist attacks with law enforcement, and surgical military strikes instead of with massive military operations, and occupations of foreign countries that include unilateral replacement of existing foreign regimes, in their entirety.

We don't seem any better, any more secure, any wealthier, or certainly....any free---errrr, from the shift to an intensely militaristic, intensively tax cutting, political policy emphasis. Nor do we enjoy a better relationship with the rest of the world, or a reputation as a diplomatic, "honest broker", in the ME, or anywhere else.

So....tell me....what have we gained from a signifigant shift to the right, that began with "the contract", in 1994, and ends today, with these election results. <b>If a shift away from "the right", is shifting towards</b> a "liberal agenda", given the past achievments of "liberals"....of control of military spending "creep", and increases in non-military federal employment....along with respect for the constitution and a record of judicial appointments of "mainstream" judges who reflect the tenor of the times and the sentiments of a larger majority....what have we to fear....from "liberals", hobbled by the yoke of a newly racked up, $3000 billion deficit and the wasting effect of a military mired in two major eastern fronts, a newly empowered Iran, stronger due to the destruction of their former enemy regime in Iraq, and in Afghanistan, empowered by lack of any signifigant US energy conservation or alternative development.....and by the Bush administration dismantling of the UN north Korean nuclear inspection program that would have postponed the current bomb development, by at least a decade?.... <b>IMO....if that is a shift towards a "liberal agenda"....away from the failed "conservative agenda.......bring it on!</b>
Have I missed anything?