and the RATS, take another one in the...............HA ha!!!
Posted on 08/15/2007 2:55:13 PM PDT by crazyhorse691
Town hall meeting - Sen. Ron Wyden takes heat for Congress not bringing the troops home
Although few senators can match U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden's long record opposing the war in Iraq, it didn't protect him from being thoroughly roasted Tuesday by angry anti-war activists at a town hall meeting in Portland.
The noontime event at Portland State University attracted more than 300 people, many of whom charged that the Oregon Democrat hasn't done enough to end the war. The senator was also repeatedly verbally flayed for not supporting the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.
"Do you have any idea how angry we are at the Democrats?" Joe Walsh, a Vietnam War veteran from Portland, asked Wyden as many in the crowd loudly cheered and applauded. Walsh noted that the death toll continues to rise while the Democratic majority in Congress fails to cut off money for the war. "How do you sleep at night?" he asked.
Wyden repeatedly cited his own record of opposition to the war, starting in 2002 when he was one of 23 senators to vote against authorizing the president to use force against Iraq. And he noted he was one of just 14 senators who voted against a bill to finance the troops this May after Bush vetoed an earlier funding measure that called for a troop withdrawal.
"Every single day I try to find additional ways to generate support for our cause of a timely, safe withdrawal" of the troops, said Wyden. "I try every single day to find another way to push that rock up the hill."
The meeting was dominated by a wide variety of anti-war groups -- from Military Families Speak Out to the Peace Action Committee of the First Unitarian Church -- that have begun to turn on the new Democratic leadership of Congress as being insufficiently tough enough in taking on the Bush administration. While polls show most Americans oppose the war, many Democratic lawmakers have worried that abruptly cutting off military funding would expose them to charges that they are endangering the safety of the troops in a war zone.
When Wyden talked about how the Bush administration had gone "way over the line" in taking the country into the war, several interrupted him by shouting, "Criminals!"
The senator also received a skeptical reaction when he argued that trying to impeach the president and vice president would only divert Congress from other work and fail to gain enough votes anyway. And when Wyden insisted that Iran was responsible for supplying some of the roadside bombs that have killed many U.S. troops, several people booed.
"You've been listening to Cheney too much," one woman shouted.
No one spoke up in favor of the administration's policy in Iraq.
Some speakers did praise Wyden for being a consistent critic of the war and asked what they could do to build support in Congress for cutting off money. Wyden said he thought pressure would build to withdraw the troops after Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, delivers his report on the war in mid-September.
Wyden said he doubts Petraeus will be able to show much progress toward a stable government that is unifying the country, and he said there should be a "national mobilization" of anti-war critics to put pressure on Congress.
After his town hall, Wyden met privately with 10 of the anti-war activists and they talked more about how to bring pressure on Congress, according to Wyden's chief of staff, Josh Kardon.
Kardon said he thought many activists were so angered by the war that they were failing to realize how few members of Congress are willing to simply cut off military funding.
Wyden "gets up every day trying to end the war," Kardon said. "But he can't change the law of physics."
Still, several activists said they thought Wyden should do more to pressure Congress and the administration to end the war, including raising the threat of impeachment.
"What Bush and Cheney have done is criminal, and they should be prosecuted," said Marlene Schaffer, who has a son, daughter and husband serving in Iraq. When asked after the meeting if she was satisfied with Wyden's explanations, she said: "I think it's more lip service."
Jeff Mapes: 503-221-8209; jeffmapes@news.oregonian.com
Good grief. In a family full of hero’s, I guess someone had to be a complete zero. Way to go mom.
You know what makes me laugh, is the FReepers who complained about the “cut-and-run” conservatives (which is a lie, because many still voted for Republicans) supposedly staying home and giving Congress to the Dems. “Now the Rats will cut off funding and pull the troops out,” they whined.
MFSO and PACFUC ???????!!!!!!!!
Do these guys think 1-second before naming their groups?
No oil for pacifists!
So she shouldn't be upset whatsoever a good part of her immediate family is over there. Rather she should just be proud and be at the front of the flag wavers line. Gotcha. (Note I don't agree with the lady, I don't disagree with the lady. Her opinion probably has a lot of feeling behind it. And BTW it's a family full of heroes, not family full of hero's)
It doesn't really matter how long US Armed Forces are over there anyway. The end result will still be the same as it was everytime in history before.
I agree. It is time for a “Conservatives for Nader” campaign.
Democrats: Fighting against America at home so the enemy does not have to.
I imagine that the Clinton crime family has already let it be known what will happen to anyone who even thinks about running as a third party candidate for the Kooks.
Great news for California!
Yes they do
(see “log” and “cabin” in the homosexual (aleged) republican group name)
I hope all the moonbat beholden congressmen and senators are being completely roasted by their constituents. They’ll come back to Washington with a renewed determination to end the war and impeach Bush and Cheney. That’s exactly what they need to be doing——to ensure they lose the next election.
what we are seeing develop in the far west is a tyranny of the majority. We are seeing the marxist roots of liberalism. What you can’t get by reason, take by force. They are not setting a good example if this is what we can expect with a national liberal majority. Of course that’s why people will get mad and vote conservative again at some point. Over time this incessant tide in tide out thing becomes tiresome.
Of course by then, they'll change their tune to something along the line that it isn't our fault we have to have troops in far off lands... it is all the Republican's fault.
Here's an idea Oregon moonbats... it is the terrorists' fault... they started it and we're (the good guys/gals wearing red white and blue) going to finish it.
what we are seeing develop in the far west is a tyranny of the majority
—The Oregonian ^ | August 15, 2007 | JEFF MAPES—
Related to Mary Mapes of RaTHergate infamy?
These are their heroes, along with Marxists like Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales. About 60 were split between three intersections here in Roseburg, OR on Saturday with signs demanding immediate with-drawl from Iraq and Afghanistan and the Impeachment of Bush and Cheney. These are the very same individuals responsible for our defeat in Vietnam. They cheered Jane as she posed on the AA guns in Hanoi, laughed as the embassy was evacuated in Saigon and they hope for the extermination of Israel in a one Palestine victory today. I have hated these SOB's for almost 50 years now.
“(I have my doubts about her claims of 3 family members being in Iraq).”
The b!tch is lying!
LLS
Now the sand fleas and maggots are crawling all over him and biting without mercy. And he thought these blood-suckers would be in his camp forever.
Hah........I love it!
Bon apetit, Ron, baby.
Leni
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