Posted on 08/25/2007 2:47:57 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
INDIANAPOLIS -- As hundreds of Republican activists from a dozen Midwestern states gathered Friday to talk about the 2008 election, one of the more divisive topics amid the vendor booths and candidate tables was a senior GOP senator's call for President Bush to bring some troops home from Iraq by Christmas.
Many delegates were angry with Sen. John Warner of Virginia, a former Navy secretary and one of Congress' most respected military voices. They said he seemed to be undercutting Bush, selling short recent reports of military successes and pre-empting a mid-September report to Congress from top military and diplomatic officials.
"I assume he's sincere, but so what? He's a politician. He's not a general," said James Bopp, 59, a Republican National Committee member from Indiana. "It's apparent that the change in strategy that Bush has initiated through the surge is being successful," Bopp said. "So we should pursue it to victory."
Presidential candidate and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who visited the biennial Midwest Republican Leadership Conference, called Warner's stance disappointing and "premature."
"It's almost as if the food critic has judged the dish and written his column before the chef's brought it out of the kitchen," Huckabee said.
Warner made his recommendation Thursday after returning from a trip to Iraq, where he met with U.S. and Iraqi military and civilian leaders. He also was informed by a new National Intelligence Estimate that identified some improvements in securing parts of Iraq but projected worsening prospects for governance.
(Excerpt) Read more at contracostatimes.com ...
LOL... Warner has as much influence on the war in Iraq as my cat does, this article is written by a clinically delusional person.
Don’t be fooled by the Huckster. He runs as a conservative, then leads as a liberal.
Who writes these headlines? Withdrawing 5,000 of 160,000 troops hardly qualifies as a pullout.
Quotes from Mike Huckabee about immigration tend to bely his down home country intelligence. From KATV channel 7, Aug 5, 2007:
“Governor Huckabee says he’s not afraid of risking his political future by speaking out against a recent immigration raid at an Arkadelphia poultry plant...”
“He says immigration is a very emotional issue and people become irrational over it.”
“The raid drew the fire of Huckabee and many in the community because about 30 children were left behind when their parents were arrested.” (The children who were “left behind,” were being hidden by the illegal parents)
“The governor’s office has joined with the Mexican Consulate in Dallas, Catholic Charities and the League of United Latin American Citizens to ensure the well-being of the children.” (Meaning, he made sure that these children were properly groomed to become anchor babies)
“Huckabee, a Baptist minister, said his support for the state’s growing Hispanic population has to do with compassion, not politics.”
Mike Huckabee is more left-wing than Bill Clinton, and just as honest, and can be trusted just as far. He’s a tax-and-spend liberal, politically correct, soft on illegal aliens, and once pardoned a rapist, who only a year later, raped and murdered another woman.
But, boy, did he ever sound conservative when he was elected!
If he doesn't retire I don’t think there is any Conservative Republican that will challenge him and then I think any Democrat that runs against him (especially Mark Warner) will win.
Warner has no backing from conservative voters and although he has tried hard to attract the liberal crowd, they will never vote for him so he is toast no matter what.
Warner isn’t running again. He is thinking legacy, not party loyalty. He knows Bush won’t withdraw early and that his comments have no effect. He wants to retire and be OK with
the chattering classes.
Tyson Foods and other big time political contributors in Arkansas need the illegals to work in their plants hence the influence over politicians like Mike Huckabee.
Good ol’ Warner .. always willing to do the democrats’ bidding. Send this guy a white feather - coward is the only word for him.
Three explanations:
(1) We don’t expect completely accurate explanations from the media.
(2) The reporter quoted only one word. We don’t know the context of the word, the circumstances under which Huckabee said it, or even if he used that word (especially given the accuracy ratings for the media).
(3) Huckabee cannot blast the Congress because he will have no choice but to deal with their corrupt, haughty idiocies if he wins the Presidency. He must rely on the Congress itself to certify his election, something that might not come easily if the Democrats retain their seats.
I sympathize with the Governor here. Consider this situation from the vantage point of the child. You’re in first grade, and your parents work at the poultry plant, but your mother usually works a shift that allows her to meet you at home when you step off the school bus every afternoon. (We’ll assume for the sake of argument that you were born a citizen of the United States.) One afternoon you step off the school bus, but you cannot find your mother. You’re worried, and as the hours pass, your mother never returns. Then your father doesn’t come home from work either.
This situation is scares the child, who might not know how to react properly. Even if/when the child calls the police, they don’t know what happened to the parents either. Perhaps the child doesn’t even know where exactly the parents work; they just “go to work” to “make money.”
When the state arrests a parent, they must make some provision for the care of the children. When immigration authorities raid a workplace and deport a parent, they usually don’t bother even to notify the state of what happened and who might need attention en loco parentis. This situation also makes affected children vulnerable to predators “in the know” because the children simply may disappear without arousing suspicion given the chaos surrounding immigration raids.
The immigration authorities meanwhile evidently cannot deport serious convicted criminals from jail. Our jails in Oklahoma are overflowing with convicted criminals serving their sentences, and I doubt that Arkansas has much spare capacity. Even when criminal aliens get their final deportation orders, they seldom leave the country. Why can’t we get some help from Immigration and Customs Enforcement when we need it? The worst portions of the illegal-immigrant population don’t work at the poultry processing plant; they deal drugs, rape, murder, and pillage.
And given the general incompetence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement regarding convicted criminals ordered deported, I must wonder how many legal aliens and even citizens get deported wrongfully.
Warner is a weenie!
Its shameful that we even have Republicans and Libertarians willing to turn their backs on our troops mission due to fearing outcomes for the next election.
I don't think that America wants to consider keeping Democrats in office because they're right by any means about anything. I believe America votes out Republicans when they are seen as wavering on there principles and convictions.
Rather than Republicans joining our left-wing counterparts being passive aggressive because they believe President Bush did not defend our reasons for the invasion to their satisfaction enough maybe they should try defending him against the constant berating he received from a monolithic ideologically driven bias left-wing press that had an agenda to turn this war into another Vietnam.
If Republicans spent more time paying attention to why Al Qaeda was in Iraq before Operation Iraqi Freedom started then maybe they would have a better understanding of why the surge is working now and why we must convince the American public of the same information.
Very few Republicans are playing in the hands of the left and there are more democrats on the side of the President than Republicans on the side of defeat.
Maybe because I am around so many people from Massachusetts I am not seeing a fair representation of how the rest of the country thinks.
I am seeing many Republicans I have known for such a long time including family having anxiety over an end game strategy in Iraq. They tell me how concerned they are if we don't pull out within a reasonable period of time and will this effect the future of the Republican party in the next election.
Joseph
We have been presenting evidence of these al Qaeda connections between Saddam and Al Qaeda for a long time with only a small percentage of people actually paying attention.
I feel Republicans, Conservatives and Libertarians in regards to the Iraq war have neglected and abandoned President Bush while allowing him to be trashed constantly by the left.
Please tell you Republican friends that we cannot leave Iraq before we crush the terrorists there or else we will face consequences that are more horrible than any nightmare we can imagine, incredible horrors that will not only afflict the Iraqis and the Middle East but also the USA and the world.
“Senator’s call for pullout divides GOP”
That will end on 9-15.
The Radio Shows should be our top target for getting an earful. I will never give up Joseph. I’m just venting a little and Free Republic is my therapy.
“Don’t be fooled by the Huckster. He runs as a conservative, then leads as a liberal.”
Don’t worry, I have very little trust in any of them. I really don’t like having the choice of the lesser of two evils.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.