Letters to the Editor
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Here we go...
The ante to this game of chicken just got upped.
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The sad thing is that
by this fall, many more Republicans will be calling for withdrawl because their re-election will be on the line. But for now it is politically expedient for them to allow our troops to continue to die.
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any GOP dolt
who voted no now and backtracts when the surge bites the dust, as it most assuridly will, should resign their position and take Chuck Hagel's advice to go sell used cars...
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Give 'em hell Harry
No retreat, no surrender. Make those sorry SOBS stand up and defend the veto (if indeed it comes...).
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That Veto
Did Bush, Cheney and Rove figure that, faced with a Presidential veto of this bill if it set a date for the beginning of troop withdrawals, Congress would blink, and spare them from having to deal with what might well become this Administration's worst crisis? That veto, in spite of having been declared a certainty, is also clearly not going to sit well with the majority of the American people when it happens. With the Republicans' little red wagon is still hitched to this Administration's past and present actions, such a situation will dash all of Rove's lingering hopes of (re)establishing a permanent GOP majority in Congress.
Guess they can take comfort in having set up a neocon Supreme Court.
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McCain's non-vote
In a non bizarro world, where a candidate's hair or mixed race didn't matter, McCain's abstention would be, should be, big news. In case you hadn't noticed, he's centered his campaign around the Iraq War. (anyone know his position on immigration? Tort reform? Greenhouse gases? Gays in the military? Thought not). So here is the most momentous vote in Congress since the war began, the point where Congress has effectively repudiated the President's own war strategy and seeks to supplement it's own and the man who wants to be king, or at least king of victory in Iraq is conspicously AWOL (yeah, harsh term for a former POW, but I'm feeling FOX-like on this).
McCain, to hear him on Jon Stewart two nights ago, wants victory, for the troops, for the Iraqis, for all of us. Now Bush and Congress are set for a major battle over how any plan for victory should be pursued and McCain stands on the sidelines with uh, no plan. He won't side with Bush. He won't side with the majority in Congress, and worst of all, he has offered no third way.
That is an act far more damning than his age, his rumored temper, his kissing up to Falwell, or even his Straight Talk Express jerking so far over the median of logic and common sense it would have been pulled over by a drunken Mel Gibson hallicinating he was filming for Lethal Weapon 4.
Actions do speak louder than words. This was not an inconsequential vote. It's one thing to miss some minor vote while campaigning, its another to avoid a vote on the very platform you are campaigning on.
Dead man walking.
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McCain: So many choices, so little courage.
We know what Tim Johnson is recovering from. What kept McCain from voting...recuperating from his Baghdad shopping trip, or his moving rendition of "Bomb Bomb Bomb Bomb Bomb Iran"?
Maybe I'm for it, maybe I'm not. Maybe I'm partly for it, maybe I'm partly not. You can't fool or please all of the people all of the time ...but maybe, just maybe, you can get away with not putting your vote out there on the line, and on the record. Think anyone noticed?
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Go to hell Harry...
If only your convictions to fight the enemy were as strong as your conviction to fight the President and appease our opponents.
My brother in law is in Afghanistan and he let me know that this won't make things easier for him or his fellow soldiers. In his words "Now they know they can break us".
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For the record, tiberius
Regardless of the public impression of progress or chance for ultimate success in Afghanistan, I dare say over 90% of the American public is (and has been) in favor of our intervention in that sorry country. It was accurately fingered as the immediate source of the al Qaeda infection that spawned the 9/11 attacks. I don't recall any significant resistance to THAT operation, except among true pacifists.
In fact, if you're honest, you KNOW that most informed observers bemoaned the fact that the Iraq distraction was criticized strongly for siphoning needed troops and resources to an unneeded war of choice in Iraq.
Your brother-in-law in Afghanistan ought to be upset at Dubya and his misguided policies in Iraq even more than the rest of us -- HE and THOSE POLICIES are a much greater threat to him and his fellow soldiers than Democrats and other Iraq war opponents.
Can you point to even ONE Democratic leader who has indicated he/she favors pulling out, or even winding down, operations in Afghanistan?
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Go to Iraq Ttiberius ...
and find out what hell you are promoting for others. In other words "Go walk your talk." Didn't think so.
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The Way Forward
The House has already scheduled an override vote, the Senate should do the same. While I don't believe that the overrides will pass, it will be the equivalent of asking those who voted against the appropriation "Are you really sure?". I suspect that this will make the vote closer than one might think as those who voted against the original bill look at their chances in November 2008.
Is this a political ploy? Sure it is. But then the reason we're in Iraq is because Junior and the rest of the Republicans were looking for an issue back before the 2002 elections that could be used to make the Democrats look soft on "Terrism". The entire war is a political ploy gotten out of control.
It would only be fitting for the Dems to schedule the override vote, have it fail, then send up a straight bill, without any guidelines or other extrraneous clauses and announce that the bill is being passed in the face of Dim Son's obstinance and willingness to let the troops twist in the wind rather than accept responsibility for his war of choice or to accept any measure of performance while the situation continues to deteriorate.
The Congress should then get on to other tasks, such as health care, education, global warming, or continuing to provide a window into the operations of an uttrely corrupt Administration via its investigations that also need attention.