Holmes,
I am going to post to site9 your response to the New York Times article I sent you all, and invite my brother and his colleagues to do the dissection, since you have obviously had time to learn some political facts, which if they are "true facts" are impressive. I forget that you were once advisor to a progressive mayor of one of our great American cities, New Haven. Good luck to you all. I am going to be impressed if I see the Congress wheel all the way around from the Democrat's cut-and-run "policy" to something resembling a troop increase, which is what should have happened years ago. Interesting to see that the "ostracized" and fired Sinsekei is being rehabilitated now. Anyway, if the Democratic ship of fools can be turned by reality, great. Otherwise, we are in for another liftoff from the embassy by helicopter a la Saigon-- excuse me, Ho Chi Minh City-- and a blood bath that should compete well with the partition of India and Pakistan. Although, who knows?, perhaps with US outof the way, they wil settle their affairs peaceably. Another interesting current going -- we are living through a transition in which many ideas are flourishing-- is the idea of a strongman for Iraq. I have felt since early on when things started going badly that the best going away present we could probably give them is Saddam Hussein instead of the government now installed. What ever happened to that great American tradition of putting tinpot dictators in place all over to protect our interests and those of Dole Fruit?
Dave B.
On Nov 16, 2006, at 8:15 AM, David L. Holmes wrote:
I’m not sure I “get” why you and (coincidentally, I’m sure) the Neo-Con/Likud policy wonks (not to mention the mainstream “liberally-biased” media) are so down on Murtha as some Pinko, cut-and-run, pacifist lefty.
He’s a long standing member of the Blue Dog Democratic Caucus. He opposes freedom of choice and any form of gun control. He has never opposed a military appropriation bill and has in the past – and I believe most recently – been a parrot for the uniformed services. He is a decorated war hero and adored by the military whose bidding he is doing right now with his calls for redeployments in Iraq.
Steny Hoyer has opposed and betrayed Pelosi for years, supported Bush in his Iraq adventure, and expressed disappointment about the recent apparent democratic “mandate.” Moreover, most of the whining about Pelosi’s embrace of that leftwing, MoveOn-loving Murtha and her abandonment of her one true friend, Hoyer, has come from precisely the same Amen corner that was outraged at the Dem’s treatment of Lieberman, piled on Howard Dean when he ran in the presidential primaries – and has not let up since and is suggesting that any Democratic investigation of war profiteering or giveaways of U.S.-owned real estate to resource extraction industries would be damaging to the Dem’s long term interests. And, oh yes, if the Dem’s have any sense, they will support Obama for president. That last one has me mystified and a bit on guard.
I think Dick Morris, David Brooks, Richard Perle, Bob Novak, Charles Krauthammer and William Safire – to name a few – have always been out for the best interests of the Democratic Party. I thin Pelosi and others should listen to their every burp.
On or about November 15, 2006 David A. Burack wrote:
The Senate should become interesting over the next few months. McCain will have to hold the fort for the Republicans. Maybe it is a good thing that he is not a Democrat. They would just steam roller him into a back room, where they should have held Murtha instead.
Democrats Push for Troop Cuts Within Months
"The White House said it is open to 'fresh ideas,' but rejected setting a timeline for withdrawing troops from Iraq."
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2 comments:
The rapid repudiation of Pelosi's hand-picked choice for Majority Leader, in my view, only reinforces the views of not only leading conservatives, but many noted liberals as well: namely, that Murtha was an awful choice for such an important post for many reasons, and that Pelosi was foolish to choose this as her first battle. As Mickey Kaus has noted in Slate, by bungling this process Pelosi may have elevated Hoyer above the obvious #2 Democrat post and created a new and powerful rival for herself. Not bad for a day's work!
Holmes,
The Amen Corner reporting in here. Holmes, why do you use this Neocon/Likud, Amen corner stuff? Likud? Likud does not even exist. The Neocons are mostly mad at Bush, except for the smartest of them all, Norman Podhoretz. So what's with you? Are you nostalgic for Pat Buchanan? I think you can find him on late night TV somewhere.
Anyway, Murtha! Murtha may be all you say. He is also an unindicted co-conspirator, mired knee-deep in the same muck that dragged the Republicans down. THe king of pork and earmarks, also, I understand. The ghost of ABSCAM. Perhaps this explains his rambling cut-and-runnism, a good way to woo the media and the left into embracing him anyway -- they love a guy in uniform, now, don't they? As long as he is behaving like a Frenchman in uniform.
Well, I am not at all downbeat, though your words and my brother's suggest I should be. I think the Republicans got a beating they deserved. I admit I did not see it coming as fully as it was coming. But they deserved it. Why? Hanky-panky with the pages (been down that road before, haven't we?) failure to do anything significant at all (that road, too), wasteful and arrogantly out of touch (gee, where have we seen that before?) -- AND, failure to stand by their president on Iraq. What, you say, but the public is AGAINST Iraq. Oh? I do not think this is nearly as big a deal with people as the media, for whom of course it is a big deal, wants everyone else to think.
My brother fears a new defeat and bloodbath. He forgets some things in his Saigon embassy rooftop reverie. He forgets that the nation was in a Constitutional crisis already by 1974, as deep a one as we've ever been in. Watergate. (And, PLEASE, do not embarrass yourself by bringing up Rove and Plame, okay?). Tear gas in the streets, long gas lines and price controls, Weathermen and the SLA, Jim Jomes. Soldiers coming home in body bags. or to contempt or neglect. No, no one actually did call them baby killers, but no one greeted them the way Iraqi vets are greeted daily now, as heroes. No, we are not in that sort of pre-revolutionary mood and none but the Ned Lamonties want us to leave and see Iraq collapse. Have you watched them sing the national anthem at baseball and football games. This is not a "Come Home, America" America. Nor would the bloodbath be neatly confined to Iraq and environs, but instead it would spread to Spain, Canada, Germany, all the nations that opposed us on Iraq, as well as to us and England. So, no, the Dems had the minimal sanity to pass on Murtha and keep their powder dry. I will enjoy watching Pelosi the next two years. She is off to fulfilling the Newt Gingrich follow-up act to a tee. That is the second of the TWO Newt Gingrich acts. First was the victory (1994, 2006). But don't forget how rapidly Newt squandered it all in arrogance and symbolism. And hence came 1996 (and 2008 soon enough). The vanity of the elites is spread across both parties, but in that department these days, even though the Republcans just got beat up for it also, the Democrats still shin and win the award running away.
Meanwhile, I do not know now any more than I ever have that we need more troops in Iraq. As Dave and McCain and others say. I sort of doubt it. But I agree with David that Bush is paying a price for not leveling with us all that Iraq was done because it had to be done (we were at war there already in 2001) and it was done to make it clear we were boss, not to bring milk and honey to the Iraqis. The reason for that mistake was the very self same clout of the international community types I spoke of in my other post (the UN and the stupid waste of time we went through with it in 2002-2003). I still think the democracy objective is vital, however, in that the region must be turned upside down. It's is proving very hard to do, I agree, but there is no other choice but to do it. The Democrats are about to learn this and will, I still hope, come back to their senses and begin to help make it happen. If they do, it may happen quicker than it would have with feckless and flinching and cowering Republicans in Congress. So that's why I am not unhappy -- or, to be fair, not THAT unhappy.
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