Fitz!

Thanks for posting here Taylor!

My pleasure, Mad Dogs.

And where is everybody *g*? Or is this a special post where only I get to comment? LOL!

Can the religious right be so far out of touch that it is oblivious to this blatant change-the-subject-whip-up-the-base posturing about gay marriage?

How far down on the “to do” list should this be, hmm?

Let’s see:

#1: prepare for the Apocalypse

#2: ban gayness

#3: kill musli… …. stop terrorism
…
…
…
#247: consider voting for effective government

clbrune at 4:

Sure am glad they got that pocalyps thingie at the top!

Isn’t that something that causes rectal cancer?

… but, but tony snow says W’s fer a vote for traditional marriage not a vote against gay marriage. Is up down or somethin’?

PSA: While we try to get out of Iraq, we also need to not drop bombs on Iran.

The Young Turks are doing an extra long show on Iran tomorrow.

On Tuesday, we are going to spend the whole day on The Young Turks talking about all the reasons why it is a terrible idea to do military strikes against Iran. Live on the website from 10AM-6PM PT (1PM-9PM ET).

We will have guests from a variety of fields who will tell us what they think the repercussions of an attack might be. Some might even be in favor of a military solution. We want to hear from everybody.

Dayum,I was by your place earlier and read where you were coming back for some guest bloggin. I just didn’t realize it would be today! welcome back, Tay Tay.( I have a small cousin named Taylor, That’s what we called her when she was real little. Don’t mean to offend.)

what is so difficult about actually making a plan, letting the troops know, and letting the American public know?

It sure would be nice if the Republican Neocon Wingnuts (and I don’t mean all Republicans) would stop meddling in our sex lives, personal lives, and religious choices. Do gay men and lesbians have a right to the pursuit of happiness? Are all of us (homo and hetero) created equal?

Doesn’t Congress have anything more important to do? (We know Peabrain doesn’t, and he has become almost totally irrelevant).

Thanks! …and no offense taken, bustednuckles. Great name for a little girl.

Yes, Taylor, let’s call our Congresscritters to action on this. Banning gay marriage (they’d ban gay people if they thought they could!) is today’s Bright Shiny Object, but the grinding reality in America and Iraq is the war.

We HAVE accomplished our objective, since the objective, absent WMDs, was regime change. There’s a government, elected by the Iraqi people, and lots (number unclear) of trained Iraqi army men. So let’s bring our troops home, give them a terrific parade, fully fund the VA to ensure the recovery of those who’ve served, and establish a consensus on foreign aid to the new government of Iraq.

Oh, and let’s defund that fabulous US embassy and the permanent bases. The Iraqis have made it clear we’re unwelcome, especially if our continued presence is to promote regional war.

==========
Had Enough?
==========

And by the way, Russ Feingold got big applause in New Hampshire today, despite a snarky MSNBC writeup, they had to admit that he had to crowd with him.

FITZ, FEINGOLD & FDL!!!!!!!

There is NOTHING more important than pushing Congress right now, TeddySanFran. They need to hear from us. I hope everyone makes a call and sends an email. Talk to others, too. We need to let them hear us. We can be louder than the anti-gay BushCo crowd.

YEAH!

On Fareed Zakaria’s show (Foreign Exchange) yesterday he talked to an independent journalist, Nir Rosen, who has been reporting from Iraq. Rosen has spent most of his time outside the Green Zone, getting stories that most other reporters haven’t. Here’s what he said – I’m paraphrasing, but it’s pretty precise:

American forces have become just another militia in Iraq. The civil war has been going on for a year now. The U.S. forces are practically irrelevant to the Sunni on Shia and Shia on Sunni violence. When the U.S. forces attack Shia insurgents, the Sunnis cheer. When they attack the Sunni insurgents, the Shia cheer.

Zakaria asked him: What’s the most unreported or underreported aspect of Iraq?

Rosen: Just the extent and amount of the violence. It’s everywhere, all the time.

Zakaria then posted a graphic showing that 1.85 million passports have been issued to Iraqis in the last 10 months. 7% of the population, which equates to about 25% of Iraq’s middle class, has left the country.

Lou Dobbs just sounded off against the gay marriage issue, pointing out that economic pressures are the main reason for breaking up marriages — and under this Administration, family incomes are declining ! What a distraction from the real issues!

As always, thanks Taylor.
IMO, one of linguistic tricks of the WH is to refer to the Iraq “War.” I think we’ll have more success as we convince them to end the “occupation,” of Iraq and Afghanistan. There are no military objectives in Iraq for the U.S. and the whole operation is a complete contradiction of the Powell Doctrine.
IMO the next talking point is, “Iraq and the Middle East were better off with Saddam.”
I don’t mean to diminish Saddam’s depravity, unfortunately, it pales next to the depravity and unintended consequences of the neocons in the WH. This has the capacity to engulf the entire region and Russia, cripple oil exports to the world and cause a world wide depression.
The Spanish Civil War (1936) was a formative step towards WWII. Sadly, the Iraq occupation can lead to something much worse too.

My letter to the editors moments ago:
_____

Poor President Bush. He can’t get any political love anywhere for his anti-Gay Marriage Amendment ploy.

Meanwhile, marauding hordes of newly married mincing Islamic gay Skinnies have captured Mogadishu.

Given the love that the offices on the hill are getting via AmericaBlog’s efforts (Staffer: “Senator X’s office.” Caller: “Yes, regarding the Federal Marriage Amendment, has Senator X ever had sex before or outside of marriage?” – and that’s a tame one!), I’d say the staff there would love to talk about Iraq for a change.

i’ve told hillary & chuck many times that we need to get out of iraq — now they both want us to attack iran — the fact that kerry gets little support shows how the two parties really have the same foreign policy

america second!

Just don’t do any “concern troll” posts about how Democrats need to stop hating christians (like Drum and Greenwald outsource for), and you’re A-OK in my book.

Americablog is doing a GREAT job, as always. Aravosis is giving them hell. I say they need some on Iraq as well.

Taylor- Nice to hear from you as always. Can’t wait to read all of the reports from DKLV and DC. I hope the left does not fail to call or write congress critters on this blatent disregard for our constitution, glbt and family of citizens. Republicans perpetuate this assault on both fronts. Both wars mentioned imho deserve to be called off now.

my Congresslady Julia Carson voted against the War on Iraq, Senator Evan Bayh now says maybe we could stay only another 8 weeks or so and Senator Dick Lugar (while deeply, deeply troubled) will support the Preznit into the abyss…

From Tim Grieve at salon.com:
_____

…Gallup asked 1,003 Americans to say – without any prompting from the pollsters – what should be the “top priority for the president and Congress to deal with.” Here is the complete tally of responses:

Situation in Iraq/war: 42 percent.

Fuel/oil prices/lack of energy sources/the energy crisis: 29 percent.

Immigration/illegal aliens: 23 percent.

Economy in general: 14 percent.

Poor healthcare/hospitals; high cost of healthcare: 12 percent.

Terrorism: 4 percent.

Education/poor education/access to education: 4 percent.

Federal budget deficit/federal debt: 3 percent.

Unemployment/jobs: 3 percent.

Taxes: 3 percent.

Social Security: 2 percent.

International issues/problems: 2 percent.

National security: 2 percent.

Environment/pollution: 2 percent.

Medicare: 2 percent.

Foreign aid/focus overseas: 2 percent.

Poor leadership/corruption/dissatisfaction with government/ Congress/politicians/candidates: 2 percent.

Poverty/ hunger/ homelessness: 1 percent.

Ethics/moral/religious/family decline; dishonesty; lack of integrity: 1 percent.

Natural disaster relief/funding: 1 percent.

Trade deficit/foreign trade: 1 percent.

High cost of living/inflation: 1 percent.

Unifying the country: Less than .5 percent.

Judicial system/courts/laws: Less than .5 percent.

Abortion: Less than .5 percent

Lack of money: Less than .5 percent.

Gap between rich and poor: Less than .5 percent.

Other: 1 percent.

No opinion: 4 percent.
_____

Gay marriage didn’t even make the list, LOL.

TM –

Yup – AmericaBlog is absolutely on FIRE!

I heard Conrad Burns from Montana on NPR on the ride home from work. He was telling the listeners how much Abramoff gave to the Dems and how his innocence is laid right out for all to see. A guy from the NRA joined him and told the listeners that the NRA was totally behind Burns and the crowd cheered pretty low in the background.

Mr. Burns, trying to get the word out to vote for him tomorrow, kindly turned down the opportunity of free advertising by turning down a one on one interview with NPR. I think he was late for the chickenhawk express–

Thanks for posting that, BobbyG. It says it all.

Taylor, you could most charitably put it implicitly in

“Ethics/moral/religious/family decline; dishonesty; lack of integrity: 1 percent.”

WAY down the list of proffered priorities even then.

Wonder how much mony they’ll waste on this pig?

BobbyG,, only 2% think they should be working on corruption and poor leadership?I would have thought that to be higher.

Hiya Bobby G!

I note that the poll says top priority (1 thing I guess). It would be really interesting to see the stats on the next priority, if those were available. I’m not sure the second choices would line up in the same way as the next on the list for top priority, if you see what I mean, you statistician, you, babe.

I supported the war. I thought as a geo-political move, it made sense. Of course, the logic of the decision has been eroded over the last three years through admin incompetence, no WMD, no UN involvement, etc. I also think that because we went in Iraq, we had to follow through on our promise of a working democracy. Well, that is what Iraq has now, warts and all and it time for us to pull out. This is not a cut and run. We have accomplished our goal there, they have a working democracy. If they want to engage in a civil war, fine, but we should not be a part of it. We made no commitment to stop a civil war. It really is time to leave. Of course, now, leaving is purely a political decision. I thinks dems who supported the war, can now ask that the troops come home without being accused of a cut and run. Love FDL.

Democracy in Iraq has produced purple thumbs and bloody red streets…

Bustedknuckles @31 -

I don’t know – it looks to me as if the President has that whole corruption and poor leadership thing figured out pretty well. His top priority needs to be something he doesn’t do well.

How did that Carly Simon song go? Nobody does it better, makes me feel sad for the rest . . .

Taylor- Pulling the troops out would bring the cameras in.

Thanks for this post, Taylor. Take a gander at this current poll on AOL — note the contrast between Dubya’s issue du jour and where these folks feel attention should be:

How closely do Bush’s priorities match yours?
Not at all 59%
Very 24%
Somewhat 18%
Total Votes: 69,111

How would you rate his overall job performance?
Poor 61%
Good 17%
Excellent 11%
Fair 11%
Total Votes: 69,548

Where should gay marriage fall on Bush’s priority scale?
At or near the bottom 67%
At or near the top 18%
In the middle 14%
Total Votes: 65,735

How would you rate Bush’s handling of gay marriage?
Poor 62%
Excellent 20%
Good 11%
Fair 7%
Total Votes: 66,201

Where should illegal immigration fall on Bush’s priority scale?
At or near the top 52%
In the middle 38%
At or near the bottom 10%
Total Votes: 39,165

How would you rate Bush’s handling of illegal immigration?
Poor 53%
Fair 26%
Good 15%
Excellent 6%
Total Votes: 39,754

Where should the war in Iraq fall on Bush’s priority scale?
At or near the top 89%
In the middle 6%
At or near the bottom 4%
Total Votes: 38,181

How would you rate Bush’s handling of the war in Iraq?
Poor 68%
Good 14%
Fair 10%
Excellent 8%
Total Votes: 38,616

Where should the war on terror fall on Bush’s priority scale?
At or near the top 78%
In the middle 18%
At or near the bottom 3%
Total Votes: 37,469

How would you rate Bush’s handling of the war on terror?
Poor 54%
Fair 17%
Good 15%
Excellent 14%
Total Votes: 37,871

Where should the economy fall on Bush’s priority scale?
At or near the top 78%
In the middle 21%
At or near the bottom 1%
Total Votes: 36,931

How would you rate Bush’s handling of the economy?
Poor 61%
Fair 15%
Good 13%
Excellent 12%
Total Votes: 37,652

I think the only item I’m not in sync on is the immigration issue — but then I don’t believe that immigrants are stealing American jobs nor are they terrorist threats, nor are they a “brown tide” weakening American culture. The real problems are employers who refuse to pay Americans, poor economic conditions in home countries of immigrants, and racism here in America.

If you want to send e-mail, here’s an alphabetical listing of U.S. Senators and main page with drop down menu of U.S. Congressmembers.

Just sent this via e-mail forms to my senators and congressman:

Despite the Republicans insistence that I should be worried about gays getting married, I’m actually concerned about another issue that Democrats don’t seem to be addressing. That issue is how to end the war in Iraq, or at least our participation in it.

Senator John Kerry has proposed a resolution calling for withdrawal from Iraq by the end of this year. I think this is a good schedule. We have had our forces there for more than three years now. There is no apparent progress toward a functioning Iraqi government. The current version of the “government” has not even chosen the heads of key ministries like Interior and Defense, and they have, according to recent reports, agreed to put off that task indefinitely. I’m sure that these are difficult political issues, but at this pace there will never be a functioning government in Iraq.

It’s time to light a fire under the Iraqi government. Their people will suffer as long as order, if one can call it that, is maintained by Iraqi militias and foreign soldiers. Their government needs to understand that it is on the clock, and it’s fast ticking down. We just passed the 2700 mark for American military dead in Iraq. How much higher does that number need to go?

Please do everything you can to support Senator Kerry’s resolution.

Hopefully, someone will be in their offices tomorrow.

OT: Howie Kurtz, right wing apologist and media reporter for the Washington Post, attacked Keith Olbermann in his on-line chat today ….

“Syracuse, N.Y.: Hi Howard-

As a semi-regular viewer of “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” I’ve seen his tirades on Bill O’Reilly in the past but his undressing of “Bill O” last Thursday was stunning. Olbermann has always used Bill O as a foil for his clever writing but this time it seems like he took the gloves off. Do you detect a new shift in Countdown from tongue in cheek to crusader against Fox/O’Reilly?

Howard Kurtz: I didn’t see the latest missive, but as Olbermann told me when I interviewed him a couple of months ago, the “feud” with O’Reilly has been a publicity gold mine for him. After all, O’Reilly draws an audience several times larger than Olbermann at 8 pm eastern, so anything that Keith can do to draw O’Reilly into a public exchange has the effect of increasing Olbermann’s visibility. Plus, given that “Countdown” has an increasingly liberal and anti-Bush bent, the shtick undoubtedly plays well with Olbermann’s audience.”

So Olbermann’s show is ‘increasing liberal and anti-Bush’ huh? This from a guy who wrote an entire column extolling the fairness of Brit Hume of Fox News. And Olbermann can’t possibly believe what he is saying, it’s ’shtick’ unlike countless republican leaning talking heads. Unbelievable. I always said Kurtz more than made up for an liberal bent from Froomkin. Kurtz is a complete whore. But I’m sure his republican media consultant wife is very pleased with him.

Valley Girl, mon Cherie…

Yeah. And not totally clear from the Grieve piece the Gallup method. Open-ended query (likely)?

Moreover, you can quickly note that they tally to more than 100% (from multiple responses).

Still, the top 5 expressed concerns pretty much cover it. Everything else is comparatively minor. And “Gay Marriage” was not even exrpressed overtly.

Taylor – one of the questions I wrestle with vis a vis Iraq is whether our presence there now is of any benefit at all.

It sure seems like the US presence is at best a kind of sideshow in the increasingly sectarian violence.

Also, we aren’t making many friends inside Irag, and we aren’t making any friends outside in the rest of the world.

So it seems like the only reason left for our presence is the one the Chimp’s supporters are loathe to ever retreat on: We will lose our Honor if we fail to Win!

Win? I can’t imagine any reality that results in a US Win.

There is no winning choice left.

Time to start for the Exit; strategy or not!

OT – Plamegate -

Cooper’s Credibility in Question

http://www.roryoconnor.org/blog/index.php?p=179

“Should Matt Cooper’s credibility be put in serious question during the trial, however, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney might yet beat the rap.”

Personally, sounds like an exaggeration, but IANAL.

Rayne @37 -

Those are some interesting numbers, but please don’t call it a poll. It’s a vote of AOL members who decide to offer their opinions. A poll is a research tool generally conducted with a randomly selected pool of respondents.

A well-conducted vote will give you a picture of what the people who participated think.

A well-conducted poll will give you a picture of what people as a whole think, not simply those who took part.

(Lots of qualifiers go with those two statements, of course, but I hope the overall difference is clear.)

http://poll.gallup.com/content/?ci=23197

What I meant by my comment to Bobby G. was that if Americans had been asked for first second and third priorities, it might well be that the order of things on the list past #1 might have been different. For example, although health care was not in the top three, it might well be that a significant number of people who put either Iraq or immigration at the top of their list might have made health care a second choice. And so on. JUst trying to point out that the poll may distort the importance of any issue further down from #1. And, people who put the Iraq war at the top of their list would not necessarily named immigration as their second issue.

You people are amazing…

#38: Thanks cujo359, excellent help in contacting Congress. Everyone could use that email text as a jumping off point.

Wow, Rayne.

Everyone read Teak111 #33.

By the way, Jack Cafferty just did a question on Iraq: “Is the American public losing interest in the Iraq war?”

Journalists can’t cover it without dying. Maybe that’s why coverage has dropped around 60%.

Rayne, from those poll questions I have scientifically deduced that AWOL’s poll basement will be 18-20%. :)

My .02 on this “war”. I very consciencly not really ever said too much on it. In a nutshell;
I was aware of the bogus build up for the case to invade Iraq.The things they were telling us didn’t add up ,and were actually being refuted story by story.The aluminum tubes, mobile labs, yellow cake etc.the fact that Congress never declared war, was to me, One in a long list of illegal tricks pulled by Bush. Something that never was prosecuted as the ursurption of power that it was.I have sadly watched this deteriorate from the very beginning. Rumsfield not listening to the people who actually know what they are talking about and the loose and fast incompetence of the Bush administration.
Murtha was,of course , absolutely right,But Bush is incapable of admitting mistakes.In a rational world, I personally am convinced, that there should be a war crimes tribunal and that High crimes and Misdemeanors have been commited.These people are criminals, and should be put on trial,convicted and sentenced.I pray for our country and the people who live in it.
God Damn Gerge Bush, and any one who voted for him. Sorry for the rant.

Hiya again Bobby G- I didn’t notice the part about more than 100%, but the way the article reads they did not tally second choices. (Link above).

Apparently we have to stay long enough to finish off our military and national reputation worldwide by renunciation of the Geneva Convention.

http://www.latimes.com/news/na…..-headlines

At least this is a real article, that actually talks about all the ramifications and ties threads, not just he said/she said.

& for cbl – look whose name(s) comes up.

The move to restore U.S. adherence to Article 3 was opposed by officials from Vice President Dick Cheney’s office and by the Pentagon’s intelligence arm, government sources said. David S. Addington, Cheney’s chief of staff, and Stephen A. Cambone, Defense undersecretary for intelligence, said it would restrict the United States’ ability to question detainees.

I bet I’m the only one still caught in the past of the Foggogate/Fornigate stories, where one of them talked about a Defense Undersecretary that might be implicated. It never pays to hope.

For decades, it had been the official policy of the U.S. military to follow the minimum standards for treating all detainees as laid out in the Geneva Convention. But, in 2002, Bush suspended portions of the Geneva Convention . . . touching off a wide debate over U.S. obligations under the Geneva accord, a debate that intensified after reports of detainee abuses at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison.

. . . Military lawyers and other defense officials wanted the redrawn version of the document known as DoD Directive 2310, to again embrace Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention.

Read again about Mora standing up and reading the War Crimes Act to Haynes and Cambone.

The military lawyers, known as judge advocates general, or JAGs, have concluded that they will have to wait for a new administration before mounting another push to link Pentagon policy to the standards of Geneva.

“The JAGs came to the conclusion that this was the best they can get,” . . .”But it was a massive mistake to have withdrawn from Geneva. By backing away, you weaken the proposition that this is the baseline provision that is binding to all nations.”

You also weaken any argument that we have nothing to hide.

“The rest of the world is completely convinced that we are busy torturing people,” said Oona A. Hathaway, an expert in international law at Yale Law School. “Whether that is true or not, the fact we keep refusing to provide these protections in our formal directives puts a lot of fuel on the fire.”

The ability to use solitary confinement is one of the controversies. Pentagon wants to “segregate” and while that sounds innocuous, it can lead to solitary confinement for months. Years? It’s all such a mess. *s*

Taylor #45 – Yes, well your post put me over the edge. I try not to bug the House more than a few times a year so I’m not labeled a crank, but when “moments” come – especially coordinated ones like this one, I’m on it. McCain, Kyl, & Ed Pastor have been bugged once again.

Re earlier threads that talked about Feingold’s speech to the Natl Press Club combined with the news that Somalia was overtaken by extremists today:

From his speech on May 8, 2006:
“And what have we learned about the lessons of failed states? You remember Somalia? That was, sort of, the first place that President Clinton had to take action, even the first President Bush.

Well, we had a very bad situation there militarily. We had to get out. But you know what happened? We just got out of there hook, line and sinker.

We had nothing there: virtually no intelligence, no presence in terms of NGOs or any of the other things we want to do to stay engaged in a place that we know is both in fact a place where terrorism has come from and where, certainly, it can be bred again.

On this point, think about it: $1.6 billion a week for Iraq; $2 million a year for Somalia. These are among the worst foreign policy choices I think we have ever seen in this country.

This is a place where Osama bin Laden has contacts, where there is piracy. And the pirating and transfer of military and other equipment goes through these borders. And yet we don’t really have a strategy at all for Somalia.

Why is this, five years after 9/11?”

He sure nailed that one! Russ for US!

In order for Little Georgie to keep his ‘war powers’ there must be some sort of war……..

p.s. but, on the other hand, as you say, some other stuff is not even on the radar- gay marriage- which goes to show the vileness of the tactic of trying to stir up a non-issue.

Valley Girl @ 4:13 pm (#44) – I wonder why more polls aren’t done in that manner. That method probably reflects more closely why people will vote for a particular candidate – maybe the guy doesn’t go your way on the number one issue, but if he’s got two thru five right, isn’t that enough?

Valley Girl is dead-on right. I didn’t take time to try to find out the Gallup method here, but if they were asking individuals to each rank-order their preferred priorities without limit (or, e.g., “top 3″ or “top 10″), the tallies could give misleading impressions. There are other problems with subjective-ranked ordinal data too. MY #1 on a “top 3″ list might express 90% of my concerns, whereas as others’ distributions of “relative concern” might well be way different.

From NBC Nighty News…

Haditha is just a minor blip on the radar in Iraq. “Just another massacre” in what has become a daily occurrence.

Heh, how appropriate, I misspelled the fuckers name.

MSNBC Ellen Tauscher on war now !!

here’s the deal with our military in Iraq:

they succeeded…however much I hated the mission, the mission was to topple saddam and our boys and girls completed their mission

now they are tasked with political objectives they cannot possibly satisfy

the reason there is insurgence is the fact that the very best jobs went to private companies from America…that’s the reason there is devision and that’s the reason there is insurgency

our boys and girls completed their mission, if this administration wants to finnish up in Iraq, that’s to be done politically.

he has to get his pals out of the bussiness of taking jobs from Iraqi’s

bing, problem solved

Cujo359 says:
June 5th, 2006 at 4:19 pm
Valley Girl @ 4:13 pm (#44) – I wonder why more polls aren’t done in that manner. That method probably reflects more closely why people will vote for a particular candidate – maybe the guy doesn’t go your way on the number one issue, but if he’s got two thru five right, isn’t that enough?

===huh? you are reading a lot into my comment that I didn’t say!!! I was trying to give hypotheticals. Where did you get the idea he didn’t go my way on the number one issue????

Despite the lies, denials, spins, positioning, fudging, hedging, attacks, accusations, and tap-dancing, Senators and Congressmen are well aware of the truth about the state of the war, as well as its prospects. They are hearing from the generals that they cannot keep this up much longer. And none of the Republicans want to run in November with the war ongoing. Bush may want to stay in but it may no longer matter what he wants.

Senators and Congressmen share responsibility for getting us into this mess and are afraid of a tsunami of voter-backlash. That “tsunami” and whether it is real are all the talk in Washington now. Our representatives feel stuck and are somewhat frightened themselves (as they have every reason to be, considering their culpability). I recently spoke to a Senator’s chief of staff and encouraged him to have his boss stand up against Bush’s war and usurpations now, while he could still emerge a hero, rather than wait and be crushed by the coming tsunami. He was sweating and spoke of White House pressure but took my point.

Mark Blumenthal – aka “The Mystery Pollster” – has a great website for demystifying polling and for checking out the debates and discrepancies around different polls, polling techniques, and polling operations.

http://www.mysterypollster.com/main/

It’s a great place for both number crunchers and those who feel crunched by the numbers.

(Would to God that more media folks would check him out before writing their stories!)

CNN is reporting that jets were scrambled because of a possible air space violation in Washington. Could it be…

“Apparently we have to stay long enough to finish off our military and national reputation worldwide by renunciation of the Geneva Convention.”
LMAO

Feingold is almost the only one who ever sounds like he has actually thought any of it through as opposed to mouthing inanities.

That people could feel safer with Bush – I just don’t get it. Someone knew what they were talking about with that “ignorance is bliss” thing.

Tauscer pitched a fast ball on the war talking points, and smoked tweety. That was beautiful work.

Nice article, Ms. Marsh. My thoughts-
1. I think the D team is missing out on a huge moment here. All D senators should line up to the Senate podium tomorrow…each Senator vigorously protesting this huge waste of time debating gay stuff while our boys continue to die in Iraq. Each Senator speaks strongly for just 30 seconds or so…urging that we solve Iraq, gas prices, corruption in gov’t, health care….and on and on.
It’s almost “melodramatic”…but I bet it makes all the news channels. Could be quite dramatic.
2. And, the D team ought to just line up and adopt the Murtha plan. Make a unified voice. Murtha’s plan is simple, brave, and sensible. The R team has nothing to fight it.
Ghostman

wjh #59:

you need your mouth washed out with soap and water. racial slurs are not allowed at FDL. get thee to a nunnery and repent.

#42 – That was covered a few weeks ago. A person who reportedly saw all the drafts was quoted in the AP as saying the changes were ‘trivial’ and would have no impact on the case. But take it for what it is worth. Half of what is said in the press about Plame is half-truths or wrong. Remember how we were supposed to know Karl’s fate soon? Snort.

Valley Girl @ 4:23 pm (#61) – I was speaking hypothetically about candidates in general.

In general, it depends ;) For some folks, the number one issue is the only thing that matters. These folks are rare, I think, but they do exist. I think most of us live in a more nuanced world, and if the number one issue isn’t too much more important than number two, then my hypothetical beats your hypothetical. Or something like that.

I’m usually faced with a choice between candidates I’m not entirely pleased with. For legislators, it’s about who represents my opinions better. Sometimes even that’s a tough call.

Ghostman- Excellent idea. The Country is so very ready for that king of leadership.

John C – your 18 is the heart of it. As bad as it is now, the ways it can go just get worse and worse.

Mary 49, You’re in good company with Laura Rozen of http://warandpiece.com wrt Foggo.

Mary @ 49

The JAGs are probably not the only career government folks who are biting their tongues and waiting for the next administration. EPA, NASA, Forest Service, CDC, FDA, . . .

Keep the faith, people.

John (18), I second Mary’s endorsement. The “war” part has been over for a long time.

err king = kind gee, what would freud say? *g*

That was my pathetic Rep, Kay Granger on Hardball.

How’s that $5,000 contribution to Tom DeLay’s defense fund working out for you, hon? LOL

fahrender at 4:29 pm – Thanks for saying what need saying.

E-mailed DiFi and Boxer. Thanks, Taylor.

MaryAnn @ 4:30 pm (#70) – As a procedural matter, it’s much better to identify who wrote the comment you’re responding to. The way this blog comment thing works, my #42 isn’t necessarily going to be the same as your #42.

When a comment thread gets really long, I will sometimes just scan for my handle to see if anyone’s responded to something I wrote. If I were the person whose comment you responded to, I might have missed it.

You’re not the only one who does this, by a long ways, but it’s just come more into focus recently.

the war is over and we lost it all– the war, the occupation, the peace, our morality, our soldiers, our credibility and our former allies, the Iraqi people.

Hey- Taylor’s back. Howdy Taylor- good ta see ya. Let’s get those troops OUT of there!

Let’s get the airforce OUT of there.

Let’s get the naval ships OUT OF THERE.

Don’t leave ONE american military person in Iraq!

Ghostman (#68):

Simple. Direct. To the Point. Great plan.

Cujo359– okay, I see that when you said “you” you did not mean me in particular, but I read it that way at first, and thought you were suggesting that my number one issue was not Iraq, but health care or such from your reading of my earlier comments.

Petro 50 – I’m so lovin’ you right now.

Ghostman 67 – Murtha is wonderful, but Kerry has a referendum in the Senate ready to be voted on now. Let’s not miss the opportunity Kerry’s handing us. Feingold is on board. Let’s pressure the Senate so EVERYONE gets on board now.

I can’t get to Vegas but I just signed up for TBA. See you there Taylor! Glad to see more anti-war stuff here on FDL! I think it is a big issue, and I’m glad to see so many folks on board.

Nir Rosen, mentioned above, has written in the New Yorker and elsewhere about Iraq. He has gotten further inside than anybody else I’ve read and says that the situation is disastrous. yuck.
peace,
jim

Heard on NPR that a new Gallup Poll shows the President from Hell with a five point jump in his JAR- to 36%.

Can’t find it. Please post a link if you’ve got one!

hey, rwcole, and AMEN.

See you at TBA, Jim.

rwcole @ 4:36 pm (#82) – Don’t leave ONE american military person in Iraq!

Well, embassy guards and military attaches, but no one else. I think we’d need to be out of there for quite a while before even thinking about a military presence, assuming it met our needs at a later time.

oh and I really cannot abide all the pundits telling the Iraqis what they must do now– only the cruddiest of the cruds asked us to come in. We invaded a country illegally, occupied it and caused the death, and physical and mental anguish of an uncounted number of people, and oh, by the way blew it to smithereens. It is an incredible extension of the admin’s hubris to blame the Iraqis for not getting it together enough after we busted the hell out of it.

“embassy guards” ? considering the new Embassy is going to be the largest of its kind in the world, the Marine security detachment could be quite sizeable…

“military attaches” ? considering the plans to have U.S. military advisers assisting the new Iraqi Armed Forces, this could be a quite numerous contingent…

angie @ 4:40 pm (#89) – Considering how little planning we did for the post-war period in Iraq, it’s hard to blame them for not coming up with one.

Ghostman– Reid and Leahy started that today on the Senate floor speaking to the utter shame of bringing an anti rights amendment to the floor when all this other stuff is far more important and far more cared about by the American people– they called it for what it is– a pre campaign gimmick. I had to scoot after they spoke, but I can guarantee you, the Dems are talking about it all.

What about another Senate shutdown? The Dems should seize this week/yr. now. Just select any issue please.

Can I get an AMEN for Angie @ 4:40 pm?

*ilson46201 @ 4:46 pm (#90) – True, it might take a battalion of marines to cover that much ground, but perhaps we can scale back those embassy plans, too.

There would probably be military advisers in Iraq, but considering how much of our defense work is now being done by contractors, I wouldn’t be too surprised if those folks turned out to be “civilians”, too.

The answers to Cafferty’s question on CNN right now are amazing!

On topic:

Peace Movement to Phone Congress Demanding Debate on Iraq
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/060506R.shtml
United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ) is calling on citizens to phone their US
congressmen on Wednesday, June 7, to urge them to sign a Discharge Petition that
would force, for the first time, a full and open debate on Iraq on the floor of
the House of Representatives.

AWOMAN @ Angie *g*

I’m probably the only one who keeps count but it has been 172 days since the December 15, 2005 elections for a pemanent Iraqi government and to date the government remains incomplete. At 183 days or in 11 days a full 6 months will have elapsed since the elections. This is not doubt, hesitancy, or caution. It is incompetence and political cowardice. If you think our leadership is pathologic, just look at what the Iraqis have to put up with.

The question is should Americans die and our country go broke anymore because of this?

The question is isn’t it time to say, Had enough?

Ms. Marsh, ok, I went and read over Kerry’s proposal. His #4 dovetails quite well with Murtha. I bet Murtha would be ok with the Kerry plan.
So I’m onboard. Will do what I can….but, alas, being in Texas, I’ll contact Kay Bailey and….Cornyn. Good lord.
Ghostman

Taylor,

Reallllly nice job here

Thanks for this

I think this Federal Marriage Act is good news. It must mean that our occupation of Iraq is over, the price of gas is back below $2 a gallon, the levees in New Orleans have been fully rebuilt and reinforced, the budget deficit has been tackled and everyone in America has access to affordable health care. That leaves our only national concern those insidious gay people who are trying to violate our civil rights by insisting on legally recognized monogamous relationships.

I mean, there’s no other possible explanation, right?

Hugh,
How ’bout we send em some of ours? they don’t seem to be of much use to us anyway.

There’s a ghost sitting at the wedding feast you can’t ignore: Hillary Clinton. Even Evan Bayh has backed off the war. Clinton nostalgiacs should take notice that HC resembles Joe Lieberman on the war, on AIPAC, on back-pedalling on reproductive rights, on love-ins with the President. She should not get a free ride on this for much longer.

John in Sacramento #102 – Thanks very much. Gathering research took a while, but it was a true labor of respect for our military. I’m still searching for more stuff as time goes by. I appreciate you taking the time to check it out.

Oh, and one more thing. Ms. Marsh hits the nail ON THE HEAD with a very UNDER-reported part of the Iraq mess:
“However, the Iraqi elite, comfortable in their Green Zone of safety, while the Iraqi people suffer for their leaders’ selfishness, still have not chosen interior or defense ministers, with the decision now on indefinite hold. The governing elite in Iraq feel no urgency, believing they have time to spare.”

This is one of those huge stories out there. The Iraq leadership never gets shot, hand-grenaded, etc etc. I’m talking about the upper, upper tier. They are safely ensconced…all sound and secure.
Ghostman

Hugh @ 4:56 pm (#99) – I think if U.S. politicians suffered the kind of casualty rates the Iraqi pols have, we’d have trouble forming a government, too. It seems likely that the only ones who want government positions right now are either too stupid to be useful or so ruthless that they’re better off without anyone in the position.

Call it cowardice if you want, but it’s pretty much what I’d expect given conditions there.

Ghostman 101 – I, too, think Murtha would be on board, so glad you agree.

You can also contact John Kerry to let him know you called. I’m sure they’re keeping track of what senators get called.

http://www.johnkerry.com/action/call/senate/?sc=hp

Ghostman, I hear you. I’m in Ohio and my representative is Bob Ney (R-Awaiting Conviction) and 2 Republican senators.

Thanks Cujo359, jayt and Eureka Springs, AR– my blood boils about this as you can see from my punctuation and grammar mistakes.

Thanks, Taylor. Emails sent and will follow up with calls in the a.m.

Taylor Marsh! Princess of the Fever Swamp….welcome back to FDL

Cujo359

Cowardice or whatever, it is their ultimate responsibility. If they can’t do it, then there is no reason for our continued presence in country. That they fail is their choice. It is the same for us. We either get it together and deal with the excesses of this Administration or we fail. Our choice.

angie – Lord A’mighty, Amen sister.

oh, and we fomented a civil war, too. As GSD told us today, at least 6000 Iraqis have died in the last 5 months. But the administration and the CM refuse to call it that. That’s not counting the ones dying from disease, malnutrition or despair, either.

gotta go get my BP down.

My letter to my Senators: Please feel free to use any or all of this for your own letters to your Senators or Congressmen/women.

The Honorable Senator Patty Murray
The Honorable Senator Maria Cantwell

Dear Senators;

As a citizen of Washington State, I feel it is my duty to contact you, my representatives in the United State Senate, regarding the proposed Constitutional Amendment to deny gay Americans equal protection under the law.

This amendment has been afforded the egregious spin of protecting traditional marriage. Please tell me Senator, just how marriage of one couple threatens the marriage of another couple? The so-called reasoning in support of this amendment has all the earmarks of Loving v. Virginia. Giving this proposal even a cursory look wastes the valuable time of our lawmakers.

Instead, please consider for your time and attention Senator Kerrys Joint Resolution introduced last month to bring our troops home from Iraq. The disorganized, ill-planned and ill-executed war being perpetrated by our current administration is in itself a weapon of mass destruction for our nation. We are suffering great loss of talented young people, our sons and daughters, either through death, maiming, or through PTSD. We cannot ignore the heinous, heinous carnage to the civilians of Iraq, the destruction of their communities infrastructure, and the fact that what we have done is unleash a Pandoras Box of probable civil war in that region to be carried on for who knows how long?. This war is now used as highly visible proof among Islamic extremists that their jihad against America is justified. There is no better recruiting tool for their jihad. This war stupidly plays into their deranged hands.

This war will not pay for itself in oil revenues as advertised by our president at its inception. We are draining our own treasury by hundreds of billions of dollars. Senator, how is it we can fund the destruction of one of the most important historical regions of mankinds history, but we cannot fund adequate health care for our own citizens or better tuition cost relief? Where are our priorities? Where are we spending our resources, including time? On a guaranteed-to-fail-amendment that smacks of pandering and distraction from truly valid issues? OR do we spend our resources (including time) on the things that will turn us back in the direction of building our economy, of rebuilding our own aging infrastructure, of investing in research and development of new technologies including energy, of investing in education and basic health care?

We can begin to re-invest in America by making intelligent decisions today. The most intelligent thing we can do as a nation is to stop pouring our resources into a war with no exit strategy. Senator Kerrys resolution provides a framework for exit with timelines. Everyone in business has heard of a SMART plan; the T is for timeline. All realistic plans must use the calendar as a realistic part of the goal. An open-ended (non)plan as we currently operate under, must be replaced. Senator Kerrys resolution is a good first step in this direction.

Vigilantly watching the voting patterns of my elected representatives,

jcricket
(using my real name and adress in the letters) also apostrophes are not coming through as I post, so they are removed here to be replaced in the actual letters.

Wanna put it in a way even your freeper friends and family members can comprehend?

It’s all about the money

Many lawmakers agree to a different strategy in Iraq, one that includes self-reliance from Iraq. I will be letting my representatives know that if they take this course of action, we will have their backs by shouting down any claims of them “being weak on terror”, and conversly, we will be in opposition of anything similar to staying the course.

jcricket- really nice letter

http://www.congress.org/congre…..ongressorg

^^^ Excellent post on congress.org

Also… Don’t forget to write the media. I have contact info here:

http://tinyurl.com/a6erq

Scroll down, also… Sign the petitions if you have time ;)

MaryAnn– Keith ain’t letting go, rightfully so, imho.

Ha– Rieckhoff just said O’Reilly should get his butt over to Iraq — even Al Franken has been there three times. He’s p.o.’ ed big time. (on Keith O.)

Just stopping back here at the office after attending Ned Lamont’s NYC fund raiser.

Didn’t stick around much past Ned’s fine stump speech. Just as I hate marching in the streets but do it because it must be done, I’m SOOO not a fund-raiser hobnobber…but God do I want Lieberman out on his ass! I only wish the NY primary campaign to oust Hillary had the resources and as charismatic a candidate as the Lamont campaign.

It’s essential that we take this one all the way.

I watched “An Inconvenient Truth” this weekend and was reminded of how tragic it was that Al Gore was denied the presidency, while at the same time, the lost opportunity to have Lieberman a heartbeat away…erm…not so tragic.

http://www.hrcactioncenter.org…..marriageac

http://www.petitiononline.com/0712t001/

^^^ The two big marriage equality petitions

http://tinyurl.com/a6erq

^^^ HELP IMPEACH TODAY

Where’s Norskflamethrower these days? And BTW, US out of Iraq NOW. There’s nothing more for us to destroy there now.

As a gay, lawyer, mother, seventh generation American I am appalled by the republican right-wing pandering gay marriage Amendment not because it denies me the basic fundamental rights of life, liberty and and the pursuit of happiness guaranteed by the U.S. Contitution to all Americans but that this President and his Republican party considers it essential that at this time and place given all the horrific challenges our country faces that me and my life partner to be more of a threat to this country than the members of fundamentalist religions bent upon the destruction of our freedom loving nation. God help us all.

I am only a lurker–just an ordinary guy with an independant streak

but how can Kerry call for this, when he voted to give a stupid man all powers to invade and occupy Iraq and any other place he chooses?

Excuse me, but Kerry DID vote for this. So did Hillary Clinton and now Kerry is coming out with such “wise” statesman like papers? err excuse me–he was
FOR the invasion on Iraq and will most likely, ino be for bombinb in Iran. Please,can we stop pyutting this man in the forefront? He is nothing but a rich politician who thinks he is wise and statesmanlike, but who is jerking us all around

Sorry–I simply cannot, as an independant thinker, accept this. I do not like being jerked around like this.

Please forgive my grammer, I meant my life partner and me

RH- if you are reading, please check mod com for an update from me.

Thanks, Eureka Springs. Appreciate it.

http://www.hrcactioncenter.org…..marriageac

http://www.petitiononline.com/0712t001/

^^^ Marriage Equality Petitions (did not seem to go up the first time)

fedlawyerdog at 128:

Bravo!

If you haven’t seen it, Digby has a great post about the bizarre gender psychology underlying the rationales for torture and the Shrub’s post-9/11 strategery as a whole: “If we stick an electrode on their brother’s genitalia, they’ll run go hide under their beds [because that’s what I’d do].” Digby says it better than that, of course.

Porta Bella @ 5:52 pm (@126) – Well, if that’s independent thinking …

First of all, many in Congress voted for the AUMF with the understanding that it would be only acted on if the inspections and sanctions route didn’t pan out. They also believed, wrongly as it turns out, that Bush would get international support before invading. Bush never let it get that far.

Second, who else is going to do this? Certainly not the Republicans, who are mostly rich anyway, disqualifying them from doing anything according to your “logic”. I daresay most Democrats aren’t likely to do it, either. Besides, quite a few of them are rich.

Finally, the only people who seem to be stupid enough to never change their minds about anything, no matter how much evidence there is that they were wrong, are the very ones who got us into this war in the first place, and they for damn sure aren’t going to get us out.

Frankly, I’m not willing to wait until all the current members of Congress who voted for the AUMF retire before something is done. If Kerry’s introducing this resolution, then as far as I’m concerned it makes sense to support him. If he changed his mind to get there, so much the better.

People who are really capable of thinking change their minds when they’re wrong.

new thread – new unions !

Porta Bella,

So because Kerry made a mistake, he’s not allowed to try to correct it? The whole AUMF was a con. Bush was going into Iraq and wrapped the enterprise in the flag. Anyone who voted against the AUMF could be portrayed as not supporting the troops and downright unAmerican. OTOH if things went south as they did Bush could always say, well you supported my project. Frankly, I find your take disingenuous. Once anything was voted on, those who voted for it could never change their minds. With an attitude like that we would still have slavery.

just remember who votes for it and never let anyone forget it
before long, americans may see just how much waste, and fraud, and graft, and bribery, and conspiracy, and other crimes, that have been committed by their representatives and public officials.
no matter who they are, they have to go. we don’t need any of them if they are stealing from us.

at that point, the republicans won’t be able to forestall efforts for electronic voting machines to be destroyed like slot machines in the 30’s were. they won’t be able to quash investigations into crimes of the administration, of congress people, of various court justices. they won’t be able to stop questions into the legality of a matter, much less the finding of fact as we are seeing now. They have found a way now to stop the legal process, and that should scare us all to the core.

remember, they know they are only about 33% of this country’s vote. So what does that tell you? that not enough people who would vote them out get out and do so, and second, that we have had diebold (and other) flawed electronic voting for some time now. only landslides can’t be covered up. the only place repubs win at all is in their little red communities. the fraud is on a state and national level, as noted by so, so many. The UN really should send in people to monitor our elections. the most corrupt in the world? not quite, but enough to have monitors here to prevent crimes we all ready know are going on.
floridians and ohioans should be deeply ashamed of the criminals they have elected to subvert the will of the people of this country in 2000 and 2004. problem is, some of these people are paid to do just that, and they will be again.

Thanks Mad Dog, I gotta go put my son to bed…

“But to make anything concrete happen we have to band together, sound off and push back against the president and his people.”

Great post, Taylor. Absolutely.

First of all, many in Congress voted for the AUMF with the understanding that it would be only acted on if the inspections and sanctions route didn’t pan out. They also believed, wrongly as it turns out, that Bush would get international support before invading.

Bullshit. Wellstone, Kennedy, Feingold, Byrd, and a raft of others saw the October 2002 ploy for what it was, in real time. Don’t make “they didn’t realize” excuses for the execrable, craven behavior of the Democrats who caved in. They knew exactly what they were signing on to, and damn them for it.

Yes, they have the right to change their minds. And with enough remedial behavior (cf Murtha), maybe even atone. But let’s not be in any rush to suck their dicks for it.

Good for Kerry on the current resolution. Belated fucking good, but sure, good.

OT- Jennifer
I noticed that an anonymous moderator had changed your email address on the book club thread, and I don’t know if you saw that info or not. However, I would reinforce the point that it is probably wise to post email addresses as Blah DOT blah AT xyz DOT com rather than in their real form to avoid getting spam from spam bots.

Well, looks like lots has happened today while I was handling real life (taking care of the post-new-car paperwork and license plate nonsense–got a 07 Camry, for those wondering).

OT to Mad Dog and some others, in reference to the Canon guitarist:

With some of the evidence presented, I’m now reserving judgment on who’s actually playing all that. Could be the kid. Could be JerryC. Could be Yngwie (to me, it has his “fingerprints” all over it–technically adept, emotionally dead). Hard to say.

Still wondering why the world isn’t in the thrall of Green Leaf’s Yatta video, though.

Hiya VG,

I’ve had a commercial web site for about a year and a half. I advertise heavily on Google and Yahoo and am listed in several other directories, all using my regular straight email address. I don’t get any more or any less spam than prior to that. Not sure I buy the spam bot deal, yeah, I’ve read about it but…just not sure I buy it ; )

Coz- nice to hear from you. I was being super cautious. If you have not had bad experiences, then that’s great. And, I really don’t have much basis for the comment, apart from “what I’ve heard”. I didn’t mean to be an alarmist. That’s just one of those pieces of info that somehow got lodged in my brain and was never removed by way of “the real story” from Urban Legends. Did your kitty (s?) miss you while you were swimming in the big fish bowl?

ralphbon @ 6:24 pm (#139) – An exercise in mind reading, including reading the minds of the dead, sounds like bullshit to me. That’s what people said at the time, and later. If they were wrong or didn’t really believe it is something that I’m not going to debate without some real proof.

Hi VG!

Good to hear from you too! Of course my kitty missed me ; )

I think the spam bot deal MAY be in fact, an Urban Legend as you suggest. I sure haven’t seen any personal evidence of it myself. I doubt my business partner in New York has either. He’s using his full email on his site and has been on line for probably six years now.

Coz- and about that kitty- I did check out the manx personality at the site you gave- sounds like a delightful profile. But, the absent tail thing might bother me. The subtle tail twitches can say so much. Then again, my mom’s recent fav (now in Cat Heaven) had only half a tail, and I was in love with her anyway.

Vg,

My Manx (Coz)is what they call a “stubby” I think. His “tail” about an inch long, and wiggles! LOL

VG,

If you get a Manx, just FYI, there’s no such thing as “purebred” Manx really. If a Manx breads with a “tailed” cat, it’s still a Manx because the Manx gene is ALWAYS dominant.

Coz- well now if there is a Manx version that has a few more inches, I will consider. I am missing having cat/s. I loved having my “rental cat” while on sabbatical, but I just haven’t been able to take the plunge. It’s not like I don’t love cats and find them fascinating but… oh, there is a great book, but it is out of print- the Silent Meow- Paul Gallico. Have you seen it?

Coz- just saw the purebred comment- so, that’s not good is it? I mean, sounds like the Manx gene will make a cross bred cat tailless, but without all of the great personality traits. I want one that’s the other way around- all of the personality traits, but with a tail.

VG,

“Coz- just saw the purebred comment- so, that’s not good is it?”

Well, not really. Manx are subject to a back deformity that can kill them as kittens in the first few weeks. Most breeders breed them with a “tailed” cat every few generations to avoid it. I swear, they just LOOK like cat but act like a dog. They’re often referred to as a “mans cat”, as such.

PortaBella’s right about Kerry; he HAS to eat that vote, and no snarfing about it; has to be done UP-FRONT, or else he will have jackshit for cred with the progressive wing of the party.

(He won’t have a lot, AFTER he scarfs, but until then, he gets zip.:o))

Taylor Marsh @ 4:51 pm (#96) Here’s the transcript from that segment of the Cafferty report:

A story in the “L.A. Times” today, Wolf, that the coverage of the war in Iraq on the three major broadcast networks is down 60 percent from 2003. So the question we asked is, is the American public losing interest in the war in Iraq?

Steve writes from Atlanta, Georgia: Jack, I don’t think the American people have lost interest, I think the media has. Unless there is something happening to spark immediate viewer draw, the Iraq war is not as interesting to the news media.

Robert in Kemmerer, Wyoming: The American people would like to forget about Bush’s war. They want it to go away like an uncle who was convicted of child molestation. They feel violated, lied to, and they sense the stench of defeat. The leadership of this war is a disaster and no one seems able to get us out. The troops deserve better than the crap they’ve had to endure with Bush’s war.

Derrick in Tacoma, Washington: Ask the people that have lost loved ones over there if they’ve lost interest. Ask the people that have loved ones still over there. They’re the ones that count.

Chuck in Northville, Michigan: Yesterday while Condoleezza Rice was on “Face the Nation,” saying that progress was being made in Iraq, 21 Iraqi students were pulled off buses and executed on the spot. Today while President Bush was giving a speech in support of a constitutional amendment against gay marriages, 50 Iraqis were kidnapped in broad daylight by Iraqis in police uniforms. I’m outraged by this. Why aren’t you?

Joe in Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia: It’s a damn shame, Jack, but we are. Every time I sign onto CNN.com, I don’t even read the news stories of a bombing, it’s the same news as the previous day. Perhaps that 60 percent drop in coverage should be reversed and we should pull our heads out of the sand to give the soldiers who are dying a little more honor.

And finally Grace in Austin, Texas: Of course I’m losing interest in Iraq. I’m now completely riveted by the gay marriage issue. It is so important to me that the government control who we all love and marry. Frankly I don’t care if you marry a kangaroo, Jack, but I would like the videotape.

So, you mean I might be able to get one that has a tail, but has all of the other personality traits? I was assuming you meant when you said “the Manx gene is dominant” that all cross breeds lack tails- and, there must be more than one gene involved, if the “personality” stays the same with tailed interbreeding.

tanbark,

“PortaBella’s right about Kerry; he HAS to eat that vote, and no snarfing about it; has to be done UP-FRONT”

I couldn’t agree more but it seems to me he’s ate it, Edwards too and probably more so that Kerry.

We, opposed to the Iraq invasion from the beginning, best get used to it and welcome it. That applies to the now reformed Pach, and a GROWING number of NEW commenter’s here at FDL. I say, WELCOME, how about YOU?

VG,

“So, you mean I might be able to get one that has a tail, but has all of the other personality traits?”

Ahh, no. The Manx gene being dominate includes the lack of tail pretty much.

Something that the administration fears, is that if the troops are pulled out, violence in Iraq ending immediately, because it would prove the point that the violence was due to the occupation, not just barbaric Muslims who do not know the difference between good and evil.

When a war is elective rather than necessary it is a war crime. The lies put forward to justify necessity have been exposed. It is and continues to be a war crime. 9/11 was a criminal act, not an act of war. “Vengeance is mine,’ sayeth the Lord.” Go forth and commit murder in my name, is not in the Bible.

Coz- in case you need my “priors” I was opposed from the get go. My mother also. My computer scientist sister also. (I won’t mention the other sister, R in PVE).

VG,

No “priors” necessary, I know where you’re coming from ; )

Coz- quite by some quirk of fate, I saw Jimmy Carter speak in a U chapel, the morning after the invasion was launched. Quirk of fate meaning that the Carter speech had been scheduled for months. It was a very small invited audience. That is a day that I will remember. Such a bad day for the US. Carter took many questions from the audience, and responded fully. Bush was just so stupid and so much of a cowboy.

I have a question. I believe that WE are responsible for starting the civil war in Iraq. While Saddam’s tactics were on the brutal side, he did maintain some sort of peace. Since we took him out of the picture, things have deteriorated rapidly. My question is – since we made a mess of Iraw, aren’t we responsible for it.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m dead set against the war – don’t believe we should have gone in in the first place BUT now that we have, aren’t we responsible?

Saddam knew his people much better than we do. He made the comment when this all started that we’d be fighting them in the streets, fighting door-to-door – just like we are now doing. Not too many people remember or mention that comment but he did make it.

So what are the ethical solutions? We’re in a horrible mess in Iraq but we’ve created an even bigger one for the Iraqi people. I don’t think they have any concept of democracy. It seems to me they are more like children playing with the new purple fingers and democracy toy.

How do we resolve this?

VG,

I remember Robert Byrd on the Senate floor waving a copy of Constitution like it was yesterday, “no preemptive war ever in our history” etc. If he wasn’t so old he might be my candidate of choice for 2008 ; )

And how do I get rid of the purple banner when I post?

Shadowhawk,

“And how do I get rid of the purple banner when I post?”

You have to post a YouTube link, you can cut and paste mine in your next post! LOL ; )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…..earch=jeff beck

Busterknuckle at 47-you are right-”God Damn George Bush” -God Bless America

Thanks – do I have to post a YouTube link every time? Or can I get my very own link?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…..earch=jeff beck

Cujo –

I’d call it surmise rather than mind-reading, but you’re right that I’m engaging in a touch of it.

Still, I’d bet my cat (the friendly, pretty one, not the matted, feral one) that had the 2002 mid-terms not been looming, dozens more Democrats, maybe even most, would have tapped into suppressed wellsprings of rationality to ask, “What’s the rush?” and “Where’s the proof?” and “What earthly sense would an invasion make?”

And since I and millions of others shouted those questions to the rafters at the time, I see no urgency to give any benefit of any doubt, tens of thousands of deaths later, to Democrats only now getting ’round to ceding the point.

Shadowhawk @ 8:02 pm (#161) – You’re right, we brought this on. The problem is that I just don’t see what we can do about it at this point. Even if we quadrupled the size of the army we have in Iraq, which might bankrupt our economy if the current group of clowns are still in charge of the effort, we probably couldn’t keep a lid on the place. We seem to have sunk considerable sums of money into public works and reviving the government. At some point, the Iraqis really will have to work this out for themselves.

It may be that the best thing we can do is get out of the way and let them do it. I certainly haven’t heard a better proposal.

ralphbon @ 8:22 pm (#167) – I’d call it surmise rather than mind-reading,

If you’d stated your guess as a guess, I’d be inclined to agree. When you state it as though it’s fact, I have to think of it as a claim of mind reading.

Nor would I take that bet about the 2002 Congress. It’s nearly certain that someone in Congress just wanted to get home early without having to swim against the tide. Was Kerry one of them? If so, how did you know?

Bear in mind that in 2002 the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq was still classified, and other than Senator Durbin I don’t know of a single Democratic senator who was allowed to see it, and whoever saw it was compelled not to discuss it. The Administration was claiming to know many things it turned out they did not know. At the time, my viewpoint was Feingold’s, which is I wasn’t going to believe it until I actually saw proof, and the case I saw wasn’t convincing. That should have been Kerry’s position, I think, and I wish he’d acknowledge that that was his mistake in judgement now.

If Kerry’s account of that time is accurate, then he was given promises that the Republicans later renegged (sp?) on. That’s happened quite often since then, so it would fit the pattern.

Kerry has also publicly regretted what he did, and has tried to make up for it since. That’s good enough for me. If it’s not good enough for you, that’s OK, but I think you should re-examine your assumptions first.

tanbark says: June 5th, 2006 at 7:27 pm

Tanbark

Kerry has eaten his Iraq vote – it’s been months now since he first did:

“The country and the Congress were misled into war. I regret that we were not given the truth; as I said more than a year ago, knowing what we know now, I would not have gone to war in Iraq. And knowing now the full measure of the Bush Administration’s duplicity and incompetence, I doubt there are many members of Congress who would give them the authority they abused so badly. I know I would not.”

“The truth is, if the Bush Administration had come to the United States Senate and acknowledged there was no “slam dunk case” that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, acknowledged that Iraq was not connected to 9/11, there never would have even been a vote to authorize the use of force — just as there’s no vote today to invade North Korea, Iran, Cuba, or a host of regimes we rightfully despise.”

“I understand that as much as we might wish it, we can’t rewind the tape of history. There is, as Robert Kennedy once said, ‘enough blame to go around,’ and I accept my share of the responsibility. But the mistakes of the past, no matter who made them, are no justification for marching ahead into a future of miscalculations and misjudgments and the loss of American lives with no end in sight.”

http://blog.thedemocraticdaily.com/?p=952

To echo Pamela, and with the frustration that we are still back at the IWR, now, again, for years now.

With all the unclear and hysterical rhetoric, assertions from Colin Powell, and others, important that we get in the inspectors, something Bush would not go. On face, the IWR seemed a cautious approach, one that Blix appreciated. It worked.

Also, many behind the scenes wanted to stop that runaway train, but few thought pre-emption would be a result after getting it to the UN.

How would the ‘no’ people have contended with discovering and leveraging the inspectors? Any of it. Don’t even want to get into the politics, but this was an easier vote for some.

You need to go back to Kerry’s speech on the floor of the vote to hear this was not a vote for war, not for regime change, and definitely not for pre-emption for regime change. They had to determine the reality, with claims from other countries, as well, there was something to find.

What we didn’t need was Leiberman, Gephardt, and Daschle doing an end run around Congress to get the language changed and end the deliberations, the Biden-Lugar Amendment.

Can we get past the fog, primary and media misrepresention, going on for years now, on the resolution and mobilize-ourselves-to please take action.

To echo Pamela, and with the frustration that we are still back at the IWR, now, again, for years now.

With all the unclear and hysterical rhetoric, assertions from Colin Powell, and others, important that we get in the inspectors, something Bush would not go. On face, the IWR seemed a cautious approach, one that Blix appreciated. It worked.

Also, many behind the scenes wanted to stop that runaway train, but few thought pre-emption would be a result after getting it to the UN.

How would the-no-people have contended with discovering and leveraging the inspectors? Any of it. Don’t even want to get into the politics, but this was an easier vote for some.

You need to go back to Kerrys speech on the floor of the vote to hear this was not a vote for war, not for regime change, and definitely not for pre-emption for regime change. They had to determine the reality, with claims from other countries, as well, there was something to find.

What we didn’t need was Leiberman, Gephardt, and Daschle doing an end run around Congress to get the language changed, ending the deliberations, the Biden-Lugar Amendment.

Can we get past the fog, primary and media misrepresentation, going on for years now, on the resolution and mobilize-ourselves-to please take action.

Dahr Jamail, an independent journalist who spent eight months in Iraq, and filmmaker Mark Manning who was in Falluja during the seige in November, 2004, were in my town yesterday. I’d like to share some of what I heard (I wish I had taken notes) that perhaps people here would like to hear. Dahr quoted Pace, who told Russert on Meet the Press that things were going “very, very well,” in Iraq. then he told us how things really are going in Iraq. He says heads are found in the streets and buried because the bodies cannot be located. The level of violence is unimaginable. That between 100,000 to 300,000 Iraqis have been killed. I got an email from Barbara Boxer saying 40,000 Iraqis have been killed, but this figure comes from a group that requires three independent sources before an Iraqi killed is counted. That the most common injury among US soldiers is head injuries. The number of US soldiers reported killed is misleading but politically expedient because you have the ones who are brain dead but kept alive and therefore are not counted among the dead. I haven’t heard about this from any MSM source. It is very difficult to film in Iraq or get the tapes out. The US military commonly confiscates the work product of journalists. We know more journalists have been killed in Iraq than in WWII or Vietnam combined. I think 71 have been killed in Iraq. Mark Manning has brought a film out on the seige of Falluja that was shot between November 2004 to April 2005. It is a powerful work. After seeing the film and hearing what Dahr and Mark had to say and their experiences in Iraq, I am convinced we need to leave there and that the Iraqis are better off without us. I disagree that if we leave, Iraq will fall apart (it’s already a titanic disaster) or that the Iraqis are like children who can’t govern themselves. They are a sophisticated and capable people who will work things out for themselves. But, Dahr says the US government has about 10-14 bases there, complete with gyms, food courts, apartments, the works, and that it has no intention of leaving. Dahr calls the government in Iraq a puppet of the US. Mark was selected by Iraqis in Falluja to tell their story about the effect of the seige of Falluja on civilians who could not leave the city. The film is called “Caught in the Crossfire, the Untold Story of Falluja” and is a collaboration of Iraqi and American filmmakers. Mark told us the people he spoke with wanted their story told and that if we Americans were aware of it, we would stop the war. Now, they have their doubts. One more thing, Dahr pointed out that “redeployment” ala Murta’s plan that apparently Boxer has signed onto is not the same as withdrawal. US troops according to this plan would still be just “over the horizon.” Anyway, I’m convinced the beltway types are not going to get us out of Iraq. I agree, it’s up to us. Glad to be here @ FDL.

Cujo –

The NIE was a distraction. Nothing in it could have changed the facts that

1. as George Tenet himself testified in October 2002, even if Hussein possessed chemical or biologial munitions (no one was claiming he possessed a nuclear weapon), the only way he would have actually used them against us would have been if we attacked him first. Hussein was a contained, deterred, secular tyrant;

2. the AUMF itself was unconstitutional, as fully and brilliantly explicated by Robert Byrd;

3. the action “authorized” by the AUMF included unilateral preemptive war in the absence of an imminent threat, an abrogation of internatinal law and so, by extension, the supremacy clause of the constitution;

4. even if items 1-3 were not true, attacking Iraq would do nothing to make us safer from terrorists but would, rather, inflame worldwide animosity toward us and therefore amplify terrorist recruitment, as was being pointed out by such wild-eyed leftists as Brent Scowcroft and Zbigniew Brzezinski.

MOREOVER, let us not forget that Democratic pandering to the Bush administration’s war-mongering did not end with the October 2002 AUMF but continued through the long months when it grew sickeningly obvious that Bush was not going to take “yes” for an answer, despite the fact that Iraq “on the whole co-operated rather well” with Unmovic and the IAEA.

So, sure, it’s better than nothing when a Democrat gets around to saying, “If I knew then what I know now…,” but that’s still disingenuous. Full honesty would instead require, “If I’d acted honorably based on what was plain as day at the time….”

Ralph, how long are you going to carry around the IWR as a vote for purity, or maybe reason for a primary choice? If for Dean, he was on board for the IWR that October.

A full view of all the comments and rationale at the time are important. Some had no objection to war, or didn’t state it as so. Others were not for war, at all, unless a real threat from WMDs.

Remember at election time, after all those orange and yellow alerts, more than 50% liked the war and Bush. Getting the power back had to be about finesse, despite that not at any time did Kerry want this war, and stated so.

All agreed, around the world, they’d find something, and how would that play? The IWR sold as a precautionary tool against terrorism, and as Bush himself said before the vote in Cleveland, this is not the vote for war. Then they’d find something.

Each time you blame the Dems more than Bush for rushing to war, for dishonesty, you let Bush off the hook.

No one’s blaming the Dems more than Bush, but each time you let the Dems off the hook for their complicity, you contribute to the Democratic party’s soullessness. And as Ned is showing, regained soul can be a winner.

Easier for Ned now, and easier for Ned to get his message across. Many times throughout the 04 campaign and since, I’d hear how Kerry didn’t say or address this or that. We can thank the media for the lack of clarity, and a whole heaping of polarization on behalf of their choice. So admitted Viacom’s Redstone, and others.

We, as a party, need to admit we don’t always have the facts and support nonetheless. Amazing what being in the majority in at least one house will do. This is worse than being in the minority. We are completely shut out, yet I see signs of life. Let’s encourage where we can.