For the authoritarian mind, “the leaders” are always the answer.

Jackie @ 44

Lieberman’s state should be proud when the soldiers start dying at a rate of 500 to 600 a month.

Ya know what, I sure wish people would stop blaming everyone in the state of Connecticut for Joe Lieberman. There were MANY, MANY people in Connecticut who worked their tails off to try to get rid of Lieberman.

Why don’t you share some anger with Barak Obama – who made a specific decision not to campaign for Ned Lamont? Or how about President Clinton (for whom I now have total contempt) who knowingly sat on his hands and allowed the Republicans to pump $20 million into Lieberman’s reelection campaign. In fact many of Clinton’s ex administration officials were huge supporters of Joe.

I lay this disaster directly at the feet of the Democratic leadership who gave Ned a wink & a nod and then did nothing to stop Joe.

Last but not least, how about the media who never called Joe on his bald faced lies during the campaign? Is anyone in the media pointing out the fact that Lieberman totally lied to the voters of Connecticut? Not only did he say no one wanted troops pulled out of Iraq more than he – he also denied ever saying members of Congress should support Bush no matter what he proposes in Iraq. And yet, here he is, doing exactly that. Once again.

So, please, there’s plenty of blame to spread around.

Agreed. As far as I am concerned we CT Lamont supporters did a darn good job and should be proud of ourselves and proud of Ned.

SusanM @ 173

I worked my behind off for Lamont – pretty much full time from the primary until election day. I re-registered “unaffiliated” after the election and sent my card back to the national party explaining that I couldn’t remain a member when they did not support the state’s primary choice for Dem candidate. I’d been a registered Democrat for more than 35 years.

Susan – I worked my tail off for Ned too. I bet our paths crossed. I should go change my registration to unaffiliated for the very reasons you listed. I, too, have been a registered Dem for many, many years and am furious at the Dem leadership. We all predicted this would happen if Lieberman was reelected.

I can’t imagine what you must be going through right now, with your son on his way to Baghdad. My prayers are with you and your family.

I am staying Dem, because I feel as legitimate a Dem as the conservative establishment types, if not more. It’s they who have to yield, not us.
Bar shindig. Guaranteed to be people-powered. Will you guys be there?

More War For Joe (4.00 / 3)
Rob Sawicki, Lieberman’s spokesperson, is quoted as follows in this morning’s Stamford Advocate: “Senator Lieberman has always supported a winning strategy in Iraq. During his most recent trip, he was told by commanders on the ground that more troops were necessary to achieve that goal.”
The transcript of the Senate Armed Service Committee meeting of Nov. 15, 2006 establishes that Lieberman had changed his position on troop increases long before his trip to Iraq. At that meeting, a mere eight days after the election, Lieberman rejected the assessment of Gen. Abizaid (the top “commander on the ground” in Iraq) that increased embedding could be achieved “from within the existing force structure inside Iraq” and instead urged Gen. Abizaid to seek authority to send additional troops to Iraq. The following exchange took place between Gen. Abizaid and Sen. Lieberman during Gen. Abizaid’s testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Nov. 15, 2006:

Lieberman: “General, I want to ask you, you’ve said that the military transition teams, the American embedded with the Iraqi security forces, are probably having a very significant, positive affect on those forces and that our forces embedded with the Iraqis should be — I believe you said in your initial testimony — significantly increased. How can we do that without increasing the overall number of American troops in Iraq? In other words, I fear that the only other way to do it is to pull our troops out of other danger areas, like Anbar Province, and then they’ll fall into more chaos.”

Abizaid: “I can’t say for sure that we can do it without having to increase our overall troop levels. But I believe that there is a way to make the transition teams more robust from within the existing force structure inside Iraq.”

Lieberman: “I hope that you will take a look at and not hesitate, most directly as the commander in chief, to give you authority to send more troops in if you really feel that the embedding — and I do feel strongly that the embedding is working best to enable the Iraqi security forces to take over. And it may be that a short-term increase in our forces there, embedded with them, will be the best way for us to more quickly get to a point where we can actually draw down our forces.”

This represented a complete repudiation by the Senator of his own “ten point plan” for Iraq, which argued that increased embedding would permit withdrawal of troops from Iraq. Lieberman’s own “ten point plan” for Iraq, which plan was still the operative statement of the Senator’s Iraq policy on election day, Nov. 7, 2006, stated:

“Sixth, we need to adapt to the new challenges of this new kind of war, by increasing the number of U.S. soldiers embedded in Iraqi units. This will allow more Americans to come home because embedded troops need less outside support. This should be done by redeploying existing troops, not adding new troops to the region.”

In a period of little more than one week following the election the very strategy that Sen. Lieberman had assured his constituents would allow for troop withrawals – embedding – had instead become the basis for Sen. Lieberman’s call for increased troop levels in Iraq. Within just eight days of the election Lieberman had gone from believing that increased embedding would permit a withdrawal of troops to worrying that increased embedding could only be achieved by sending more troops to Iraq. This complete reversal of Lieberman’s position on troop increases and the impact of an embedding strategy on force levels in Iraq flatly contradicts Sawicki’s claim that this change in Sen. Lieberman’s position resulted from meetings with “commanders on the ground” in Iraq that took place more than month after Sen. Lieberman urged Gen. Abizaid to increase troop levels.

As many of you know, Ollie North and Sen. Susan Collins met with many of the same “commanders on the ground” in Iraq that Lieberman met with, and they understood these commanders to oppose troop increases. Their reports of their trip to Iraq, together with Lieberman’s rejection of Abizaid’s assessment at the Senate Armed Services Committee meeting in November, suggests that Joe hears what he wants to hear. And he always hears calls for more war, more death and more blood.

——————————————————————————–

I worked my behind off for Lamont – pretty much full time from the primary until election day. I re-registered “unaffiliated” after the election and sent my card back to the national party explaining that I couldn’t remain a member when they did not support the state’s primary choice for Dem candidate. I’d been a registered Democrat for more than 35 years.

Susan – I worked my tail off for Ned too. I bet our paths crossed. I should go change my registration to unaffiliated for the very reasons you listed. I, too, have been a registered Dem for many, many years and am furious at the Dem leadership. We all predicted this would happen if Lieberman was reelected.

I can’t imagine what you must be going through right now, with your son on his way to Baghdad. My prayers are with you and your family.

Lieberman’s state should be proud when the soldiers start dying at a rate of 500 to 600 a month.

Ya know what, I sure wish people would stop blaming everyone in the state of Connecticut for Joe Lieberman. There were MANY, MANY people in Connecticut who worked their tails off to try to get rid of Lieberman.

Why don’t you share some anger with Barak Obama – who made a specific decision not to campaign for Ned Lamont? Or how about President Clinton (for whom I now have total contempt) who knowingly sat on his hands and allowed the Republicans to pump $20 million into Lieberman’s reelection campaign. In fact many of Clinton’s ex administration officials were huge supporters of Joe.

I lay this disaster directly at the feet of the Democratic leadership who gave Ned a wink & a nod and then did nothing to stop Joe.

Last but not least, how about the media who never called Joe on his bald faced lies during the campaign? Is anyone in the media pointing out the fact that Lieberman totally lied to the voters of Connecticut? Not only did he say no one wanted troops pulled out of Iraq more than he – he also denied ever saying members of Congress should support Bush no matter what he proposes in Iraq. And yet, here he is, doing exactly that. Once again.

So, please, there’s plenty of blame to spread around.

twolf1 @ 24

NBC: U.S. airstrikes target suspected Al-Qaeda operations in Somalia

Here we go folks.

Think of it as advanced PR for Bush’s Wed speech about how Iraq is still the front line of the GWOT…which of course involves Somalia…and Iran…and…