Congressional Democrats: Nothing But Smoke and Mirrors
If you’ve been following the news in the past year, you’ve probably noticed how completely useless our new Democratic “leaders” have been. And you were probably wondering: is this something calculated; some sort of sick variation on Good Cop Bad Cop? Or are the Democrats really this timid and scared shitless of their own shadows?
Well, wonder no more. It’s a scam. (Hope you’ll read this whole article by Matt Taibbi; and preferably bookmark it. It’ll piss you off, but we need to know this.) We’ve been had. And with all due respect to that song by The Who, we probably WILL get fooled again. And again and again…
The Democrats have made a conscious decision NOT to focus on getting us out of Iraq. Instead, they’re focusing all of their time and energy on defeating Republicans in the upcoming election. I would’ve thought that getting us out of Iraq (since that was the reason we ELECTED them!) would be the best way to win the ’08 election, but what do I know?
Harry Reid actually came out and said that he can’t fit Iraq into his busy schedule. “Sorry about those 4,000 dead American soldiers. I’ll get back to you on that We have the presidential election. Our time is really squeezed.”
And Nancy Pelosi actually said — this is no joke! — that she’s putting Iraq on hold until 2009, because by then “we’ll have a new president. And I do think at that time we’ll take a fresh look at it.” Whoa! Stand back! She’s planning to “take a fresh look at it.” OOOOOOHHH!!! Talk about somebody who jumps right in there and grabs the bull by the horns.
But the most infuriating thing about this whole charade is the fact that it’s so calculated and devious. They’re pulling the same sleight-of-hand tricks over and over. They don’t want to solve any problems. Fuck no, they want to keep the Iraqi war and all the rest of Bush’s scandals front and center so they can keep campaigning against them. “Goddammit, this time we’re really gonna stand up and say NO to Iraqmire / waterboarding / the Patriot ACT / the Military Commissions Act / telecom immunity…oh darn, we lost again. But by golly we sure tried.”
An aide to one anti-war House member said: “It was all about the public show. Reid and Pelosi would say they were taking this tough stand against Bush, but if you actually looked at what they were sending to a vote, it was like Swiss cheese. Full of holes.”
He also said: “Can you imagine Tom DeLay and Denny Hastert taking no for an answer the way Reid and Pelosi did on Iraq? They’d find a way to get the votes. They’d get it done somehow.”
Lynn Woolsey and Barbara Lee are two Democrats who are fed up with Reid and Pelosi. Woolsey said: “If we’d been bold the minute we got control of the House — and that’s why we got the majority, because the people of this country wanted us out of Iraq — if we’d been bold, even if we lost the votes, we would have gained our voice.”
The article says: “Before the 2006 elections, Democrats told us we could expect more specifics on their war plans after Election Day…and now they are once again telling us to wait until after an election to see real action to stop the war.” Film at eleven.
Matt Taibbi ends the article with: “Just get it done. Because if you don’t, sooner or later this con is going to run dry. It may not be in ‘08, but it’ll be soon. Even Americans can’t be fooled forever.”
February 15th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
So let me get this straight. It’s not about seeking power in order to actually do something good for America, it’s about seeking power because, well, power is good. Ohhhhh - excuse me for mistaking you people for public servants.
My bad. I’ll quit annoying you with my stupid little notes asking you to actually address problems that are, maybe, killing and maiming tens of thousands of Americans (not to mention hundreds of thousands of non-Americans, not that they vote here or anything), bankrupting the country, and trashing our civil liberties. I understand now that you’re Important People whose schedules can’t be expected to accommodate trivial things like that when there’s a chance to take a shot at the other party.
One of my biggest beefs with the establishment of the Republican party since Nixon has been that they put the benefit of their party ahead of the good of the nation. Apparently it’s catching.
Sounding more and more like it’s time for a new party. If someone new put together a platform of real economic and populist reform, and could get through the inevitable media blackout so people actually hear about it, I think they’d take the next election, maybe in a landslide. But for all we know, it could be happening now, but all we’d hear about would the Tweedledummicans and the Tweedledeeicrats.
February 16th, 2008 at 12:50 am
So
How many of you have written to your representatives to cut all funding?
February 16th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
I can’t remember all the damn times I have written to them to demand an end to funding, clean up the ethics and a whole host of shit.
For me, its about which ones need to be gotten rid of now. I will contribute to those that wish to unseat these collaborators.
February 16th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
Christopher,
I have, and encourage the rest of us to do the same - as I learned from another BIOer sharing his experience as a staffer, the most effective way to get through seems to be to fax short, blunt letters telling them what we want them to do to their offices. Phone calls and e-mails are too easily to delete, often unlistened-to or unread, and leave no bothersome physical reminders; snail mail gets held up for too long being screened for anthrax and so on. Faxes put persistent pieces of paper in people’s hands immediately. I use this site to get the fax numbers (as well as addresses and phone numbers): http://www.congress.org/congressorg/home/
It also gives contact information for state officials, which is a plus for more local issues.
I am going to write to them again, and to Pelosi and Reed, telling them that unless they publicly start confronting the Bush administration, putting legally binding limits on it instead of pleading with it, I will do everything I can to get them replaced in 2008 and, if they survive that election in office, every election thereafter until they’re gone.
February 16th, 2008 at 6:42 pm
Your all rather politically Savy I’m surprised you can’t see this article for what it is, pure GOP propaganda to suggest that the Democratic congress is ineffective when in fact they have forced a strategic change in the course of the war just by replacing what was a truly inept Republican congress who did what ever the WhiteHouse asked and never asked a damn question about it. How many times has the president not gotten what he asked for since this congress has come in? Shall we count the vetoed ways?….They have never given you up on you so don’t sell them down the river of negative spin because Ben Fong Torres has a liitle Karl Rove running around at his paper. The best thing you can do at this point is to remind your self of all the road blocks the white house and the republican minority have put up at every turn of the road and then relize that a democratic president with a democratic congress is exactly what its going to take to get us out of Iraq in a responsible manner. This article is aimed at disenfranchising young voters who don’t pay enough attention to what has happen or where too young vote when it was all going on. Infact it looks like Rove is geared up to advise McCain so get savey fast.
February 17th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
Remember this article when you elect a President Obama or Clinton and 4 years later the troops are still in Iraq, the economy sucks and you still don’t have universal healty care.
Of course the excuse will still be the same. It’s all Bush’s fault. If he can do this to a Democrat congress as a “lame duck” just imagine what he will be able to do to a Democrat President when he is retired on his ranch in Texas.
February 18th, 2008 at 7:59 am
Frankly I believe the economy is going to suck for a very long time. The Republicans have convinced everyone that there is a free lunch. That you can have government services and never have to pay for them. If we continue to cut revenue with tax cuts we will end up in the poor house as a nation. If we hit stagflation and lose our reserve currency status we will be in a great deal of trouble.