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# After the election, questions about the war remain
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/after-the-election-questions-about-the-war-remain/
- Published: 2006-11-17T16:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T23:07:27.000Z
- Author: Jack Neworth
- Tags: Opinion, Santa Monica, #archive-import, Homeless, Homelessness

*LAUGHING MATTERS BY JACK NEWORTH*

The election is over, and none too soon. The worst part were the computerized phone calls. In one day, I received 12 voicemails. I wish I had that many friends. I even got one from Robert Redford. For years, I’ve been trying to get him to read my script, and when he finally calls, it’s about Proposition 87! Oh, well.

Locally, SMRR swept the school, college and rent control boards, and returned two council members. The schools got $268 million for renovations, and Prop Y now makes marijuana enforcement a low priority. The measure to upgrade the storm drains is still too close to call. But despite the hotels’ $400,000 worth of ads attacking him on homelessness, Kevin McKeown was the top council vote-getter. The homeless issue merits serious debate, but attack ads merit serious scorn.

The election put a crimp in President Bush’s “stay the course.”After six years of “my way or the highway,”finally some sanity has been restored. As Dan Meredith used to sing, “Turn out the lights, the party’s over” — the spending party, the missing $9 billion party, the one party rule party. Nancy Pelosi is the new sheriff in Dodge, and let’s hope she’s quicker with the truth than on the draw.

The whole country is waiting for the Iraqi Study Group report (Not to mention updates on ELECTION END, from page 4 Tomkat’s wedding and how many babies Madonna is going to adopt this week). In the buildup to the war, Bush was asked if he had gone to his father for advice. “Oh, no, I went to a higher father,” he boasted. Yet three and half years later, W’s lower father has to bail him out once again. But this isn’t college grades, frat house pranks, National Guard service, failed businesses or a DUI. Forget the station wagon, junior has dinged the country, maybe even the world.

Maybe it was Katrina or Limbaugh’s mocking Michael J. Fox’s Parkinson’s disease, but on Nov. 7, the people finally woke up. Bush, with that “what, me worry?” look, has said, “In history, Iraq will only be a comma.” But now the administration is so desperate they should have a nationwide contest — “In 25 words or less, how do we get the hell out?”

But I still want the truth about how we got in. The families of the fallen deserve no less.

Junior has compiled quite a record for six years: historic deficits, the environment at the tipping point and our standing in the world has never been lower. Of his axis of evil — North Korea has the bomb, Iran’s trying, and Baghdad’s morgues can’t keep up with the dead (Iraqis get addresses tattooed on their bodies so the next of kin will be notified).

Was the Iraq war ever necessary? Was it worth the treasure and lives? Has it made us safer? If you answered “no” to all three you go to the bonus round. But Junior the Decider, incapable of listening to anyone who disagrees, had to show the world. Hopefully, on Nov. 7 the keys were taken away. As it’s turned out, father knows best, even the earthly one.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on November 17, 2006.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/111706.pdf?ref=smdp.com)