Posted on 08/24/2007 3:12:55 AM PDT by Stajack
The following letter was sent to Senator Warner after his comments urging President Bush to start an Iraq troop withdrawal:
Senator Warner,
It wasn’t that long ago when I saw you and a whole bunch of other Senators sitting around the table at the confirmation hearing of General Petraeus. One after another, you and others uttered your “words of wisdom” and wished the General “Godspeed” I wondered what the General was thinking at that moment, whether he shared my suspicion that he was being sent there TO FAIL, thereby giving you and others a Get Out of Iraq Free Card. Well, I guess he didn’t quite cooperate, did he? I’ll bet you and your colleagues never guessed back then that he just might turn things around. I suspect that the Brookings report about changing tides in Iraq came as an unwelcome surprise, complicating the issue, and raising the stakes for the upcoming report to the Congress by General Petraeus. So I’m not surprised at your “preemptive strike” on the General. Home by Christmas? What soldier in combat wouldn’t like to be home by Christmas? What a shallow, insincere piece of political bait. Well, General Petraeus is constrained from expressing his true feelings about the knife you just stuck in his back. But I’m not. So let me state in all earnestness, THE SENATE IS NOT WORTHY OF OUR SOLDIERS IN IRAQ, AND YOU’RE NOT WORTHY OF GENERAL PETRAEUS. The soldiers and he deserve better.
Stanley Jackson
Lawton, Oklahoma
I wrote: “I call for the immediate withdrawl of Senator Warner from Washington. Reason: Poor leadership”
Sad day.
Agreed. He does not see how lost he is. Age plus ambition to be relevant, no matter what.
President Bush’s speech on Tuesday was so demoralizing to the Demmedia that they breathed a huge sigh of relief at Senator Warner’s timing.
I will call, write, and email him once again.
Leni
No, sir, with this much proof in evidence, the time has clearly come to remove the "apparently" qualifier.
John Warner is among the many, who no longer understand military honor.
HF
>The people of Virginia seem to have a very poor track record in picking their US Senators.<
e
For what it’s worth, we get stuck with John Warner because of a clause that allows the candidate to choose whether he gets picked by a party mass meeting or by a general primary (election), which is open to the voting public.
Guess which method J Warner has consistently picked. Our local leftist newspaper adores him, because he appeals to the public.
He would get steamrolled if his primary was only open to republicans.
Oust ALL who are up for re-election. That's the only message that will get through.
I stand corrected.
The definition of the “senior” SINO from my state: Warner = Stupid, senile old fart. The last time I wrote him was when he voted for 2007 Shamnesty (he later flip-flopped when his phone lines melted). Told the scalawag I would be voting against him when he was up for re-election. All I got was a standard “thank you for writing, I’m always happy to hear from my constituents” form letter! Feh! I hear he is retiring so I won’t have the pleasure of voting against him in 2008. When I was a kid, Northern VA was probably purple, but it has been bluer and getting more so for the past 15-20 years.
Exactly. Warner is tolerable to the left. The only serious challenge he had was from Mark Warner, the rest of the time the left has either run token candidates or no one at all.
Along the way, we've held our noses and voted him back in. He was good for the state when he was chair of the Armed Services Committee. But he's way past his prime.
IF he's foolish enough to run again, he'll lose.
Yes, Warner has lost his mind.
Tell him to quit bashing Bush and forcing surrender:
btt
I dislike him, but the press has largely twisted Warner's statements to make him appear much more hostile to the current Iraq policy than he is.
I still fault Warner him for voting against Robert Bork 20 some years back and, worse, for actively helping defeat Ollie North's 1994 Senate bid. However, Warner has not joined the surrender caucus, YET.
Per the AP story with emphasis added by me:
[Warner] said Bush should bring some troops [he suggested 5000, but said that Bush gets to decide] home by Christmas. Doing so, he told reporters Thursday, would send a powerful message that the U.S. commitment in Iraq was not open-ended.Warner says the president should get to decide when and how many troops should leave. Bush has opposed setting a date to pull out troops and contends that conditions on the ground should dictate deployments. [THIS IS THE IMPORTANT FEATURE, SURRENDER ADVOCATES CAN'T COUNT ON WARNER.]
Warner is soft, but won't put his softness into implementation. He makes a suggestion to withdraw a few thousand troops as a message to the Iraq govt, but will not vote to force their withdrawal, at least not unless he changes his mind. Thus, those pushing surrender won't have his vote. Moreover, Warner does NOT want the U.S. to withdraw all its forces at this time.
Good question. I've heard the staff corrals the incoming mail and just summarizes the predominant sentiment to the Senators, so they can tailor their message accordingly.
I'll be surprised if I do.
Although I've been living in Oklahoma for a long time, I was born and raised in West Baltimore. The city is NOTHING like it was in the 60's and 70's. Like you said, there's been a mass migration of folks southward into the Maryland and Northern Virginia 'burbs. Along with the exodus from D.C., the end product is that the political color of Northern Virginia has changed from red to purple to blue. From what I've heard, even the more southern areas like Manassas and Woodbridge are undergoing this demographic shift.
Well stated, indeed.
Great observations. And as a constituent of Warner's, you should know.
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