Not the 'Real Vote'

Washintgon Post ^ | Feb 17, 2007 | WaPo Editorial

[edpc]

[Paragraph 1]

REP. JOHN MURTHA (D-Pa.) has a message for anyone who spent the week following the House of Representatives' marathon debate on Iraq: You've been distracted by a sideshow. "We have to be careful that people don't think this is the vote," the 74-year-old congressman said of the House's 246-182 decision in favor of a resolution disapproving of President Bush's troop surge. "The real vote will come on the legislation we're putting together." That would be Mr. Murtha's plan to "stop the surge" and "force a redeployment" of U.S. forces from Iraq while ducking the responsibility that should come with such a radical step.

[Paragraph 4]

Mr. Murtha has a different idea. He would stop the surge by crudely hamstringing the ability of military commanders to deploy troops. In an interview carried Thursday by the Web site MoveCongress.org, Mr. Murtha said he would attach language to a war funding bill that would prohibit the redeployment of units that have been at home for less than a year, stop the extension of tours beyond 12 months, and prohibit units from shipping out if they do not train with all of their equipment. His aim, he made clear, is not to improve readiness but to "stop the surge." So why not straightforwardly strip the money out of the appropriations bill -- an action Congress is clearly empowered to take -- rather than try to micromanage the Army in a way that may be unconstitutional? Because, Mr. Murtha said, it will deflect accusations that he is trying to do what he is trying to do. "What we are saying will be very hard to find fault with," he said.

[wewereright]

You are sooo right. The real question is why don't the republican fight back? I'm tired of being part of the wimpy party.

[lentulusgracchus]

They had a big hand in creating what's happening.

I saw an e-mail from Baghdad a couple of years ago, from a troopie (senior noncom, I think) complaining about the Wa Po's Baghdad correspondent and his reality-free writing about how badly things were going in Iraq. He had come out to a location where this senior enlisted guy was and been shown around, and then wrote a lip-pulling piece about how tough things were -- and it just wasn't true. I saw the same Post guy (he has a South Asian name, s'pose I could look him up but I just don't care) teleconferencing in on a talking-head show last year, laying down the same garbage for Charlie Rose or Jim Lehrer or whosever show it was.

You're right. The Wa Po has been at the epicenter of the media's furious undercutting of Bush Administration Iraq/GWoT policy.

[Amalie]

This is serious stuff. I think you are right about the plan, but these DEMs are going to have to see we are serious, too. Keep our mouths shut now, and we will live with th consequences. SCREAM at your congressman that this is BS; don't let them think we are not watching. Even if he/she is form teh right, we need to let them know that we are out here and that we are PISSED. They can't hate us any more than they do; lets give them one more reason - ie NOT ON MY WATCH!

[lentulusgracchus]

I'm tired of being part of the wimpy party.

As long as there are RiNO's, there will always be wimps.

Used to be called "Me-Too'ers" back in the 1950's. "Rockefeller Republicans" in the 60's and 70's.

They're the same guys who left Goldwater hanging out to dry when they couldn't beat him for the nomination, and they offered to do the same for Ronnie in 1980 if Ron didn't put "Poppy" Bush on the ticket and let Bush have alllllll kinds of appointive patronage in the Reagan Administration (which turned into "Pigs at the Trough" I, with epicene porkers like Charls L. Walker, the longtime National Association of Manufacturers lobbyist, getting an undersecretaryship at Treasury).

You're right, it's tiresome.

[lentulusgracchus]

BTTT.

[Alas Babylon!]

But how can this be!!!!????

Many folks here said they didn't vote last year because the Republicans were getting too liberal.

I was assured that letting the Republicans lose last year would bring out the TRUE conservative Republican Congress and President of 2008!!

They said there wasn't "one thin dime's worth of difference" between the two parties.

They even said the dems couldn't do any more harm than the past 12 years of Republican rule.

They claimed the lesser of two evils was STILL evil!

I want to know what happened to all that!

And they're going to do it again next year if Rudy is the nominee.

[Strutt9]

Well, some of us voted Repub all the way even tho we had to hold our noses. I believe most people on this board voted Repub and am disgusted by those that didn't vote or voted third party, letting in the Dems. So There!

[Amalie]

In the end, we all know the differences are very real. We are not even to the end of February yet, and this is what the last election has gotten us. However, don't just blame the non-voters; we can no longer sit around and b*tch into the ether. We need to let people know what we think and who we are, and WHY. Now is the time to SPEAK UP - we have two years of this to go, stand up and fight, regardless of who your representatives are. The First Amendment is STILL valid, but if we stay silent now, God help us - Eurabia is already helplessly adrift; we and a few international friends are all that now stand between freedom and the next Dark Age.

[jesseam]

I posted this once before, but it needs to be repeated. Cicero said it best "The enemy within poses a greater danger than the enemy at the gates"!

[edpc]

I'm supposing the Sunday talk show thread will be mainly concentrated around this subject.......

[Mount Athos]

thanks for posting this

[Alas Babylon!]

I read an analysis of the 2006 elections here... I'll try to look up the thread. It was based on Rassmussen after election polling.

In any case, it documented very well how Republican turn out was down 4-6% (depending on district, state, etc) from the 2004 elections. One can argue that non-presidential race elections always have lower turn out, but last year democrat turn out rose 2% over 2004.

Folks, we lost enough races by only 3-4% to lose the Senate and the House. Had our normal Red State get out the vote worked like the last three previous elections (2000, 2002, 2004) we would not be talking about Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. The numbers themselves speak to that.

The analysis that was discussed and debated here was the cause of these changed numbers. The article said that just enough republican/conservative voters stayed home, apparently over disgust with the Republican party, to cause us to lose Congress by the thinnest of margins.

My previous post was based on all the reasons I personally was told by certain folks why they weren't going to vote Republican. I argued that if the democrats got control, we'd have all kinds of terrible legislation passed that would be far, far worse than that which RINOs were contributing to. Now, the results are coming in, such as this vote and the Pelosi/Murtha plot to defund our troops. I'm not clairvoyant, but it's clear that I for saw the future better than the 3 percenters.

[Alas Babylon!]

Oh, and what I forgot to say at the end....

They're prepared to do it again. In 2008, 21 Republican senators are facing re-election, versus 12 democrats. Those numbers don't look good. It will take a determined effort on our part to keep all of those seats, let alone gain a couple back.

Already, many have said that if Rudy is the nominee, they're not voting. Many mean they'll vote for their republican senator or representative if that legislator is conservative enough, just not for a President Guiliani. My question is, what will be the percentage that won't vote R at all because of a Rudy nominee, and what will this do to our uphill battle to retake Congress?

Then, if the Dems take all three branches, what kind of backstabbing, troop-hating legislation will we see then.

I'm not even supporting Rudy. It's far to early for me. But I will support the nominee, whoever it is. We cannot, in our lifetimes, afford to ever sit out a vote. EVER. The stakes are too damn high!

[ReleaseTheHounds]

They had a big hand in creating what's happening.

You know, there is an important story that should be researched, written and published by someone and that is:

- How the mainstream media has opposed this war virtually from the start;
- How public opinion was changed and managed throughout this struggle against Bush and the American objective;
- How the insurgents took solace and sustenance from the breaking of US public opinion against our effort;
- How the terrorists adjusted their tactics to magnify what the Dems were saying and trying to achieve; and
- If we ultimately lose this "battle" (we will never lose the war) in the War on Terror, it will be thanks to the coordinated efforts of the Democrats (or is it Democratics?), the MSM, the UN, the cowardly European nations who refused to join this effort, the leftist Hollyweird glitterati, and the terrorist all of whom have coordinated their efforts in the name of defeating George W. Bush.

If that should happen, I hope they'll be happy, because they're going to have lots and lots of blood on their hands -- and not just Iraqi blood, but the blood of US soldiers and thousands of innocents in the Middle East, in Europe (get ready Old Europe: here comes the WOT!) and in the US. And Dems: maybe you can ride this defeat to victory in 2008 but the day of reckoning will be coming quickly. Enjoy your moment in power because it may be the last for a very long time.

[ReleaseTheHounds]

And they're going to do it again next year if Rudy is the nominee.

Alas Babylon! I agree with everything you've said in this reply and especially this last point. And the thing that angers me most is: despite his "liberal" social points of view, he is the best leader (or best prospective leader or best DEMONSTRATED LEADER) this party has had since the great Ronald Reagan... and there will still be "Republicans" who will stay home in spite. When what this country needs more than anything and more than ever before is LEADERSHIP to prosecute the War on Terror! Talk about RINOs!

[benldguy]

You're right. The Wa Po has been at the epicenter of the media's furious undercutting of Bush Administration Iraq/GWoT policy.



Coup by media!

[anglian]

"If that should happen, I hope they'll be happy, because they're going to have lots and lots of blood on their hands...."

LEFTIST DENIAL

The Nov. 15 edition of the left-wing radio show "Democracy Now" featured former Sen. George McGovern debating whether we withdraw troops from Iraq or increase them.... He was asked by the host, "You were one of the earliest people speaking out against the U.S. attack and U.S. involvement in Vietnam. What happened? How did the U.S. pull out? What were people saying then?"

McGovern's reply was nothing short of delusional. He said, "... they were saying the same thing they're saying about Iraq. We were told all during those long years when I and others were trying to terminate our military involvement in Vietnam, an intervention that the chief architects now say was a dreadful mistake. ...that if we pulled out - maybe it was a mistake to go in, but if we pulled out, there would be a slaughter of people in Vietnam of indescribable dimensions, that Ho Chi Minh and his people would just slaughter everybody in the country that disagreed with him. We also were told that the countries next door would start toppling into communism, if we left Vietnam. None of that happened."

Why would they deny?

The answer may be found in a 1995 essay written by the newly elected Virginia senator, Democrat James Webb. A veteran of Vietnam, Webb wrote an essay titled, "Robert McNamara, the Anti-War Left, and the Triumph of Intellectual Dishonesty," for the Fall 1995 edition of Strategic Review.

Webb wrote, "The reason ... was stated most honestly and directly to me by George McGovern ... while taping the "CNN Crossfire' show ... the antiwar candidate who had once promised to go to Hanoi on his knees if he were elected President turned to me and announced in his emotionless monotone, 'What you don't understand is that I didn't want us to win that war."

http://www.thebulletin.us/site/news.cfm?newsid=17844409&BRD=2737&PAG=461&dept_id=580169&rfi=6

[mware]

bump to the top

[Strutt9]

Good Analysis. I think now that those folks that didn't vote Rep to teach them a lesson are now completely aware of what they did and probably sorry that they did. Considering what the Dems are now attempting to do.

[Strutt9]

I think the sitters realize now the consequences of throwing away thier votes. I'm very hopeful that they will vote Repub even tho they don't like a particular person.