Day: January 30, 2006

Wes Clark: Let Those Who Pay for Bush’s Mistakes Help Avoid Them

Trish

Check it out: General Wesley Clark (Ret.) is heading a PAC to elect veterans of the current conflicts who are running as Democrats in 2006. With the slogan, “Support the Troops, Send Them to Congress!” he has launched IAVA, the Iraq & Afghanistan Veterans of America PAC.

Of course the vast majority of the vets campaigning — nine out of ten — are Dems. Other criteria includes signing on to the PAC’s objectives, which include:

  • Demand from the administration a victory strategy for Iraq that includes hard success metrics which trigger American troop draw-downs so our forces can safely redeploy from theater.
  • Mandatory full funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs.
  • Thorough investigation of the failure to provide adequate armor for our soldiers, and that those responsible are held accountable.
  • Guaranteeing the exhaustion of diplomacy options by the President prior to approval for military conflict.
  • TRICARE (health care) for all members of the National Guard and Reserve and their families.
  • Lowering the retirement age for members of the National Guard and Reserve from 60 to 55.
  • An immediate 5% pay increase for our Armed Forces.

Clark points out a very good reason why these candidates should get our special consideration.

This is the start of a political movement to empower the people who pay the price for bad decisions in Washington: Our combat veterans.

State of the Union — Low Expectations

Buck Banks

Empty words: Besides a lengthy dose of fake Texas twang and rhetorical rope tricks to try and justify the failures of his administration, it seems few real Americans are expecting much from the State of the Union address tomorrow night:

The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted Jan. 4-8 among 1,503 adults, finds only modest public expectations for this year’s State of the Union address. Just 30 percent think Bush’s speech will be more important than speeches in past years, down slightly compared with last year and 2004 (34 percent each); roughly half (47 percent) say Bush’s address will be about as important as the speeches of recent years. In January 2002, a few months after the 9/11 attacks, 54 percent said Bush’s speech that year would be more important. And the following year, as the war with Iraq loomed, nearly as many Americans (52 percent) felt Bush’s address would carry greater importance.

Few of us expect a barn-burner like Bush delivered in 2002, just four months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. That speech was famous for a new term it gave us. Can you find it in this excerpt?

In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic. — G. W. Bush

Our second goal is to prevent regimes that sponsor terror from threatening America or our friends and allies with weapons of mass destruction. Some of these regimes have been pretty quiet since September the 11th. But we know their true nature. North Korea is a regime arming with missiles and weapons of mass destruction, while starving its citizens.

Iran aggressively pursues these weapons and exports terror, while an unelected few repress the Iranian people’s hope for freedom.

Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror. The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax, and nerve gas, and nuclear weapons for over a decade. This is a regime that has already used poison gas to murder thousands of its own citizens — leaving the bodies of mothers huddled over their dead children. This is a regime that agreed to international inspections — then kicked out the inspectors. This is a regime that has something to hide from the civilized world.

States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States. In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic.

One down, two to go …

God Considering Changing Parties

Trish

Columnist Tom Krattenmaker noted how far afield those who claimed they were God’s chosen have strayed.

The GOP was being cast as “God’s Official Party”

Just 17 months ago, President Bush and the Republican Party seemed to be riding a divine tide. At the GOP convention in the summer of 2004, religious rhetoric flew through the air like streamers and confetti.

The GOP was being cast as “God’s Official Party.” Typifying the spirit of the campaign season, one alternate convention delegate, Judith Manning, declared to the press, “President Bush supports God, and God supports President Bush, absolutely.”

As if God needed Bush’s support. Or that God could not accomplish His work without Bush. Puh-leaze.

Tellingly, the president and his political brethren aren’t invoking the divine as frequently or boldly these days…

The past year has been anything but triumphant for Bush. The president’s approval rating dipped below 40% this fall before rebounding somewhat. Criticism of the Iraq war is steady, along with doubts that the president has been completely honest with the American people both before and during the war. The Bush White House has found itself associated with cruel deeds such as torture and prisoner abuse…

The past year has brought a series of scandals involving prominent Republicans…

Along with these woes have come the president’s other debilitating domestic problems, chief among them his administration’s widely perceived failure to respond effectively and compassionately to the Hurricane Katrina disaster. The picture of the Bush administration that emerged from Katrina — one of indifference to suffering by New Orleans’ poorest residents — seems not to square with Christian ideals of loving and caring for the least among us.

Oh God, why hast thou deserted us Repugs? Haven’t we helped sort out the wheat from the chafe? Haven’t we leaped to expose as evil so many things we know you abhor, like gay people, unwed teen mothers, and husbands who want to take their brain-dead wives off feeding tubes, so they can at last be with you? Why have you turned your back on us? Where did you take the wrong turn, God?

Liberals Online Push Alito Filibuster

Jon Ponder

Once more into the breech: We’ve been having a discussion in the Pensito Review garret about the possibility of a filibuster against the nomination of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court.

Trish has come out in favor of it in rather big way, and is considering quitting the Democratic Party if something isn’t done.

Buck, a registered Independent, and I, the quintessential yellow dog Dem, are a bit squishy on it. My concern is that this battle ended on election day last November when voters picked President Bush over John Kerry.

On the other hand, our poor hapless Democratic representatives in the Senate have very little lose — and a lot to gain — by attempting to embarrass Mr. Bush by stopping this nomination.

Right now, C-SPAN is reporting that 90 senators have stated their position on the Alito nomination. There are 56 “yes” votes and and 34 confirmed “no” votes.

To move the vote forward, Republicans must have 60 votes. Sen. Lincoln Chaffee, the liberal Republican from Rhode Island, has said he will vote for cloture — in other words against the filibuster — and then vote against Alito in the floor vote on the nomination.

Undecideds as of 12:30 PST:

Democrats

  • Bayh
  • Cantwell
  • Dorgan
  • Landrieu
  • Rockefeller
 Republicans

  • Snowe

You can keep up with the progress of the push to filibuster at Democrats.com — along with contact info for undecided senators — here.

Update: Correction: Cousin Trish is not necessarily in favor of the filibuster, but wants the Dems to vote Alito down.

I omitted Sen. Robert Byrd, Democrat of West Virginia, above. He is also voting for Alito.

In the past couple of hours, the New Jersey senators, Lautenberg and Menendez, have announced they are voting against their homestate boy.

Republican Blue-stater Lincoln Chafee surprised me by indicating he’ll vote “no,” but he is canceled out by the fact that Democrat Red-stater Kent Conrad will vote “yes.”

At 12: 20 PM Pacific, there are 57 “yes” votes and 37 “no’s.”