REPUBLICAN CONGRESSMEN TAKE IT TO BUSH (Iraq war - RINOs join the Dem coup attempt)

TIM RUSSERT, NBC NIGHTLY NEWS: Brian, all eyes on the Republican party. How long will they support the president's position on the Iraq War? Yesterday may have been a defining, pivotal moment.

At two-thirty in the afternoon, in the private quarters of the White House, the Solarium Room, eleven Republican congressmen had a private meeting with the president, the secretary of defense, the secretary of state, the chief political advisor Karl Rove, and the White House Press Secretary Tony Snow, and others.

This delegation was headed by Mark Kirk of Illinois and Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania. It was, in the words of one of the participants, the most unvarnished conversation they've ever had with the president.

Another member has said he has met with three presidents and never been so candid. They told the president, and one said, quote, "My district is prepared for defeat. We need candor, we need honesty, Mr. President."

The president responded, "I don't want to pass this off to another president. I don't want to pass this off, particularly, to a democratic president," underscoring he understood how serious the situation was.

Brian, the Republican congressmen went on to say, "The word about the war and its progress cannot come from the White House or even you, Mr. President. There's no longer any credibility. It has to come from General Petraeus.

The meeting lasted an hour and fifteen minutes, and was, in the words of one, " remarkable for the bluntness, and no holds barred honesty and the message delivered by all these Republican congressmen.

BRIAN WILLIAMS: And Tim...how did the president react and how did this then affect the instructions for VP Cheney heading off to Iraq?

RUSSERT: One congressman said, "How can our daughters and sons spill their blood while the Iraqi parliament goes on vacation? The president responded, "The Vice President is over there to tell them, 'Do not go on vacation.'"

Sorry but I am on the side of the 11 GOP Congressman.

How many more Senate and House seats is this board prepared to lose? How many Governorships? The White House too?

Is this war really worth a permanent Democratic majority?

The war was a noble cause but it was totally screwed up. We’ve had 4 years of our boys getting picked off over there. When are we gonna see improvement?

In my opinion, you win the War on terror with aggressive use of the Patriot Act, aggressive use of wire tapping and spying, aggressive use of racial profiling of young muslim males, AND strict enforcement of immigration laws and border secruity. These are ALL winner for the GOP and is what has stopped more attacks from happening. Going into a Muslism nation by ourselves and being bogged down in a civil war with a bunch of sub human maniacs is not preventing anything. And if it is, GW Bush needs to get out there everyday and make the case for it. Seeing he can’t give an articulate speech, that simply is not an option.

How many more good men and women should the GOP lose for the Iraq war? We lost Rick Santorum, JD Hayworth, Jim Talent, Melissa Hart, Anne Northrup and many others last November. Just how many more do we lose for this war?

As flawed as the GOP is, I dont want to lose it. Not with the verminous traitorous left in this country. I dont want to lose a war either but thats the position the bungling of it put us in. It’s a lousy position to be in. But anyone who thinks these 11 Congressman arent saying what EVERY GOPer is thinking is crazy. The stake of this party is on the line here. I do not want this country to go back to 1 party rule, especially with the enemy we face.

We either win this war or get the heck out.

Kirk is my Congressman. 10th District - Illinois. He use to work in Intelligence while in the Reserves. I think our district is pretty much behind the President, so this comes as a surprise to me. In the last election, he clobbered his opponent. Perhaps I should call his office and hear what the deal is.

He didn't clobber his opponent Dan Seals. The Democrats sent out all their troops to defeat Kirk. They had Obama and Durbin out the eve of the election with Dan Seals (Kirk's opponent). Rahm Emanuel poured in millions of millions of dollars into the campaign to defeat Mark Kirk.

Kirk may oppose Bush's policy on the war, but you know what? Kirk is a vet, and actually has military experience. He is well respected at the Pentagon and is a historian to boot. It is easy to bash the guy from afar, but if anyone on this website had a chance to sit down and talk with this man they would know that his heart is 100% devoted to this country and our troops overseas.

Congressman Kirk doesn't want to see our troops handcuffed overseas. Everyone here knows the disgusting rules of engagement that our troops have to deal with. I have dear friends of mine who have fought in Iraq and they have to fight with both hands tied behind their back, that isn't fair to them.

And before you call for my banishment from FR, take a look at what I've written here. If President Bush got rid of the Rules of Engagement that are handcuffing our troops, Congressman Kirk and millions of others would support the President and the surge. But if we are stuck under these same nonsensical rules, then what is there to support?

Based on the majority of these whiny,unbelievable hand wringing, defeatist posts on this thread and from observing the tone here the last few months, I am almost convinced that FR has been infiltrated & compromised by RAT posers.

I haven't seen any long time Freepers post any "defeatist" posts. I have friends over fighting in Iraq who have had their hands tied up by the rules of engagement.

The United States cannot fight a politically correct war. If we are trying to fight a war in a way not to offend anyone, then we should surrender now.

In World War II the city of Dresden was obliterated, and Hiroshima and Nagasaki were nuked. There were no rules of engagement in World War II.

In 2007, a soldier must follow a 10 page protocal before firing on a terrorist.
That is not how you win a war...

I know this may be controversial, but this is the truth from my buddies who are actually in the deserts of Iraq bravely fighting for this country.

No comparison. There has never been a war like this one. We can’t nuke Iraq to obliterate the coward terrorists who will not fight us in the open. I don’t fully buy the ROE argument anymore.

From Iraq The Model

Don’t bury your heads in the sand.
I had said it over and over again that some of us in Iraq and America are sending wrong messages to the terrorists and the dictators behind them; in fact I wasn’t surprised when I saw Zawahiri appear on al-Jazeera to announce America’s defeat, not long after Reid did.

Zawahiri claims al-Qaeda has won and Reid claims America has lost but I see only a war that’s still ongoing and I see no victory for al-Qaeda or any other entity. On the contrary I see that al-Qaeda has the shortest stick.
We are going through a fierce war and sending more wrong messages could only further complicate an already complicated situation and create more mess that would be exploited by Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia for their own purposes—more iron-fist control on the peoples and treasures of the region and pushing the middle east to crises and confrontations with the world not forgetting spreading their dark, backward ideologies.

The American forces should stay in Iraq and yes, reinforcements should be sent if the situation required. Not only that, these forces should be prepared to expand their operations whenever and wherever necessary in the region to strike hard on the nests of evil that not only threaten the middle east but seeking to blackmail the whole world in the ugliest way through pursuing nuclear weapons in a feverish desire to destroy themselves along with everyone else. It’s a delusional obsession with power derived from the false belief that only they possess absolute justice while denying the right to exist to anyone who disagrees with them.

We must keep fighting those criminals and tyrants until they realize that the freedom-loving peoples of the region are not alone. Freedom and living in dignity are the aspirations of all mankind and that’s what unites us; not death and suicide. When freedom-lovers in other countries reach out for us they are working for the future of everyone tyrants and murderers like Ahmedinejad, Nesrallah, Assad and Qaddafi must realize that we are not their possessions to pass on to their sons or henchmen. We belong to the human civilization and that was the day we gave what we gave to our land and other civilizations. They can’t take out our humanity with their ugly crimes and they can’t force us to back off. The world should ask them to leave our land before asking the soldiers of freedom to do so.

The cost of liberating Europe was enormous in blood and treasure and thereafter it took half a century of American military presence to protect Europe’s nations from subsequent threats—now if that made sense during a cold war, and it did, then I don’t understand why would anyone demand a pullout from Iraq (and maybe later the middle east) when the enemies are using every evil technique, from booby trapped dead animals to hijacked civilian aircrafts to kill us and destroy the human civilization.

Yes my friends, I will call for war just as powerfully the bad guys do and I must show them that I’m stronger than they are because those do not understand the language of civilization and reason. They understand only power, and with power they took over their countries and held their peoples hostages. Everything they accomplished was through absolute control over the assets of their nations through murder, torture, repression and intimidation.

The policy of the United States and her allies needs to adjust to make better use of the energy God-or nature or whatever you name it-blessed them with. We need to see a firm policy not afraid of making tough decisions replace the Byzantine debate of withdrawal. This became America’s destiny the day it became a superpower. A destiny to show responsibility toward her own people and toward the world, and running away from this responsibility won’t do any good.
Otherwise those who prefer to bury their heads in the dirt today will be cursed forever for abandoning their duty when they were most capable. I don’t understand why someone who has all the tools for victory would refuse to fight the enemy that reminds us every day that it’s evil with all the daily beheadings, torture and violations of all humane laws and values.

Some will keep on blaming America and her policies and they will consider anything America did and does wrong whether America stayed or left, fought or ran away, negotiated or boycotted. There will always be those who blame America for everything that goes wrong in this world but that doesn’t mean America has to listen to them. America instead should listen to the spirit of America and what it stands for.
Reaping the fruit won’t be today, it will be in the future after patience and great fighting.

In the interests of hard data indicating why people voted as they did in November:

http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2006/nov/07/cnn_exit_polls_corruption_national_issues_dominating_vote

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/11/07/election.exitpolls/index.html

It wasn’t immigration. It wasn’t taxes. AND IT WASN’T IRAQ.

It was corruption scandals. Run squeaky clean candidates, generate explicit indictments against Democrats, and the seats reverse.

You guys really need to be aware of how well funded and organized the wackos are. They planted this story. They said 3 days ago they were going after particular, specific GOP seats that were vulnerable.

If you want to stop this, you have to implement an equivalent effort to go after shaky Democrat seats.

Oh, and start ignoring the paid DU activists here on FR discouraging fundraising that would pay for such an effort.

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