Posted on 05/25/2007 6:05:37 PM PDT by GOP_Lady
Et tu, Sherrod, Zack and Charlie? (And more: a Kucinich aide leaves) Posted by Sabrina Eaton and Stephen Koff May 25, 2007 13:00PM Anti-war bloggers and web site activists are fuming over yesterday's congressional vote to keep funding the Iraq war without requiring a pull-out date. They say they feel betrayed by Democrats -- including Sen. Sherrod Brown and Reps. Zack Space and Charlie Wilson -- who won office opposing the war, then voted to keep sending money that, activists say, merely keeps the war going.
Off with their heads, say some, including Democrats.com, a progressive group seeking defeat of Democrats who supported the war-funding bill. Its web site has posted calls for "aggressive progressive" candidates to mount primary challenges against several dozen Democrats including Space and Wilson.
The site's entries on Wilson and Space were penned by none other than David Swanson, a media consultant who sends out press releases on behalf of Cleveland Democratic Rep. Dennis Kucinich's presidential campaign. Or who did until a few minutes ago, anyway. After we asked him and Kucinich's congressional office about the propriety of soliciting primary opponents to run against Kucinich's Democratic colleagues, Swanson sent an e-mail saying he is "taking a leave of absence from the Kucinich campaign."
"Democrats who are supporting the occupation of Iraq should not be re-elected," Swanson said by telephone earlier today. "The thought that Democrats need to be careful to win swing districts, to please Republican voters, is nonsense and is what has been dragging the Democratic party down for years."
Swanson said he believes swing voters "almost do not exist," and that fewer than 5 percent of voters in the 2004 presidential race wavered between Bush and Kerry.
"The Democrats won a majority in 2006, not because they got a lot of quasi-Republicans to run as Democrats, but because the American people are outraged at the war and the conduct of the Bush administration," he said. "The Democratic party will succeed when it stands for something different from the Republican party."
Matthew Thornton, a spokesman for Space, said the bill his boss voted for would change U.S. policy in Iraq, as his constituents want.
"Congressman Space is holding the president accountable for the benchmarks that he himself has laid out so that we can return our brave men and women home as quickly as possible and not further destablize a very volatile region of the world," Thornton said.
As for Sen. Brown, he said last night that he wants to support troops but will keep working on ways to end the war. Brown was attacked constantly in his Senate race last fall by then-incumbent Republican Mike DeWine for failing to "support our troops in the field." Brown of course swung back and won, and the war today is even more unpopular, but no one who follows politics can ignore that backdrop.
So where does that put him with the anti-war movement?
"I know that people are angry with him" for yesterday's vote, said Sue Udry, a spokeswoman for United for Peace and Justice, a national coalition of anti-war groups. "A lot of people in the anti-war movement endorsed him, worked for his campaign, and thought that he was going to be an advocate for ending the war in Iraq, not for continuing the war."
But she knows of no plans to protest against Brown personally.
Her coalition's leaders "realize he's got another 5-1/2 years in office, so this won't affect his reelection. But they are angry and have written him a letter about it."
Liberal blogger and author David Sirota, who has supported Brown on other issues, likewise is unhappy -- with all 39 Senate Democrats who voted for the spending bill. Sirota will not comment on Brown specifically but told us via e-mail, "I have absolutely no idea why any U.S. Senator who says they oppose the war would vote to give George W. Bush a blank check to continue the war."
Brown's communications director, Joanna Kuebler, said, "Sen. Brown shares in the anti-war activists' anger." That is, the anger that President Bush vetoed an earlier measure that would have set a withdrawal timeline, and anger over the fact that there were not enough votes to override Bush's veto.
"However, Sen. Brown would not take his anger out on the troops," Kuebler said. The spending bill will provide money for four months, she said, and provide food, water and armor.
Brown "will not stop," Kuebler said, until he reaches his goal of ending the war.
UPDATE: What would anti-war bloggers have had Congress do, given that Democrats tried it their way already and, they say, couldn't get past Bush's veto pen? Here's Sirota's answer:
"Continue to send George Bush back bills with binding timetables or troop readiness standards, further and further isolating him. I've written this before. I've heard legislators say that 'it's up to the president to come up with a plan to get us out' -- as if they have no way to make him come up with a plan. Sending him a funding bill with a timetable that says funding cuts off after a certain date forces him to come up with a plan to withdraw by that date.
"The 'cutting off the money denies money for the troops' is an argument made by dishonest politicians and media zombies -- it's a fabrication of the highest order. Stopping money for the war after a set date in the future uses Congress's constitutional power of the purse to force the White House to come up with a plan for redeployment. To spin it any other way is just that: spin."
PING! Another interesting article from the Cleveland Plain Dealer for you. :-)
If he had a blank check, he would not have to go back to Congress begging for money every six months.
The dems sure know how to choose words, don’t they? LOL.
PING! (NE OHIO PING LIST)
Sadly, many of them are.
If I did not have a decent job, kids and all my family here I would leave OH in a heartbeat.
I long for the hills of TN!
I left Ohio anyway, although there was no reason for me to stay in the first place.
Las Vegas Dave, us NE Ohio Freepers need a “meetup!” :-) No excuses for us this time.
I have lived in the Cincinnati area for 4 years. If not for having a job I love, I would leave Ohio tomorrow!
For how many more years is Kucinich going to be in office do you think?
As long as the morons keep voting his weak a$$ in office, sadly.
LOL...a progressive group.
It never ceases to amaze me how most newpapers can not bring themselves to say, "left wing" or even "liberal"; it's like the words are not in their dictionaries. I suspect the spell check on their computers sounds an alarm when these words are used.
Now it’s “aggressive progressive.” LOL.
Its web site has posted calls for "aggressive progressive" candidates
Pretty soon it will be extreme progressive!
Until he retires.
All of you are sure a hoot!
I beat your aggressiveness by 10 seconds there, I see. LOL.
Hola OCC!!
Good to “see” you again. (That would be the figurative “see”)
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