Certifiable
It would be an overstatement to affirm that the House Democrats have actually stood up firmly against Bush and his Iraq war policy. It's more like they at least started squirming in their seats.
After weeks of internal party wrangling, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her allies have put forward their latest plan. It's complicated and convoluted and chock full of feints but, in the end, it calls for U.S. troop withdrawl (sort of) by 18 months from now -- in August 2008.
I continue to think it's over-riding characteristic is weakness and even a certain strain of cowardice. It proposes a warmed-over charade -- warmed over from Reagan's wars in Central America-- in which the President must "certify" that certain "benchmarks" are being met in Iraq. Or else the troops get yanked.
And while I'm among those who supported the intervention in Afghanistan, I'm extremely uncomfortable with the blanket Democratic endorsement of that war. In presenting the plan, Rep. David Obey basically said the troops would be pulled from Iraq only to be dropped into Afghanistan. Shouldn't we be examining that war with a tad more scrutiny? Obey said his proposal "will essentially redirect more of our resources to the war against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan, fighting the right war in the right place against the people who attacked us and who are giving Al Qaeda sanctuary."
Two notes right away. First, if it ever came down to it, President Bush would "certify" progress in Iraq in a New York minute no matter what. Just like Reagan "certified" human rights progress in El Salvador even as innocents were being kidnapped, tortured and murdered in droves. Second, it's not gonna come down to any presidential certification because if this bill wins unlikely approval in both houses, Bush will veto it.
It's not even clear that this leadership proposal will even win full support of the Democrats. There's opposition from the conservative Blue Dogs. And at the same moment Pelosi was giving her briefing on the plan, more liberal Democrats put forth their own, more accelerated blueprint.
Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) whacked away at the Bush policy and at the timidity of some of her own Democratic colleagues. “No more chances. No more waivers. No phony certifications. No more sending millions of dollars to send our children into the meat grinder that is Iraq,†she said. “It is time to spend the money to keep them safe and bring them home.â€
One intriguing political question does emerge from the Pelosi proposal. Now that the Dem leadership has gone on the record wanting an August 2008 withdrawal time table. what will their next move be when this measure is ultimately vetoed?
Pat Buchanan, speaking on MSNBC, speculated that when all is said and done, when this measure goes into the bin, and when Bush demands that Congress nevertheless fund his war, the Democrats will grumble -- and then comply. Someone got a different scenario?
P.S. Here's a fascinating little video of Rep. Obey being stopped in the halls by a couple of military parents. They want him to de-fund the war. He rather angrily describes why that isn't possible (while adding that anti-war liberals are "idiots"). I'm sympathetic to Obey's central argument -- that the votes in the House just aren't therte-- but I find his patronizing attitude absolutely appalling. The folks who approached him were calm, polite, solicitous and worried about their mid in the service. No, they don't have the legislative sophistication that a Congressional mollusk like Obey has. But his arrogance and his brimming contempt for these citizen-petitoners reveals much.
March 8th, 2007 at 8:44 pm
I think we’re approaching a crunch time. My guess is that the Dems are getting an earful fom their constiuents and it is dawning on many that if they don’t do something, and quick, they will be blamed for what happens. I don’t think people are under any illusion that Bush can be trusted. He really dosn’t even need to go thru “Cerification” charades. Watch for the “Signing Statement.”
Look, tack on language saying this is how it is and if you don’t comply we’ll impeach your ass. I know Nancy took that off the table but maybe you noticed that George McGovern brought it up today. More to the point Chuck Hagel brought it up the other day when he said it could lead to that. If Hagel can say the “I” word what’s the problem?
March 8th, 2007 at 8:52 pm
Starting next Monday, RLC, you can sign onto Chuck’s campaign
March 8th, 2007 at 9:02 pm
Don’t tempt me!
March 8th, 2007 at 9:06 pm
BTW over at TALKING POINTS MEMO Greg Sergeant reports that today’s House Dem Caucus was quite contentious with the Progressives walking out and dueling press conferences with the leadership.
And here’s an idea I saw at KOS. Since the Dems can’t get their act together maybe we should hope for continued gridlock. Then, when the supplemental comes up everyone dithers and nothing passes – automatically cutting off funding!
Hey!
Works for me!
March 8th, 2007 at 10:36 pm
I enthusiastically supported our war against Iraq and I now reget it, because we haven’t won, and for no other reason. I agree with anyone who holds Bush in contempt for not prosecuting this war effectively. I disagee with anyone who thinks this war could not have been prosecuted effictively, and anyone who thinks it is over.
Whatever happens in Iraq, Afghanistan remains. Is anyone here willing to say that they support the US and NATO against the avowed enemies of of the US and Nato in Afghanistan? No, of course not, of course you don’t. Taking a side and a position would be vulgur.
l
March 8th, 2007 at 11:06 pm
The Department of Defense has identified 3,179 American service members who have died since the start of the Iraq war. It confirmed the deaths of the following Americans this week:
BELL, Ryan M., 21, Specialist; Colville, Wash.; 82nd Airborne Division.
ESTES, Justin M., 25, Staff Sgt., Army: Sims, Ark.; 82nd Airborne Division.
GRAHAM, Mark W., 22, Pvt., Army; Lafayette, La.; First Cavalry Division.
KASSON, Darrel D., 43, Staff Sgt., Army; Florence, Ariz.; 259th Security Forces Company.
KOSTERS, Cory C., 19, Pfc., Army; The Woodlands, Tex.; 82nd Airborne Division.
PERKINS, Andrew C., 27, Sgt., Army; Northglenn, Colo.; 82nd Airborne Division.
ROLLINS, Justin A., 22, Specialist, Army; Newport, N.H.; 82nd Airborne Division.
STANLEY, Robert M., 27, Staff Sgt., Army; Spotsylvania, Va.; 82nd Airborne Division.
March 8th, 2007 at 11:16 pm
“No more sending millions of dollars to send our children into the meat grinder that is Iraq,†she said.”
My post of the names of the dead, currently awaiting moderation, lists 8 US soldiers. Why is it so difficult for Democrats to come out and say that the best way to support our troops is to bring them home? And why is it so difficult for them to say that they are being sacrificed not to save Iraqi lives, because they are not doing that, but to save the reputation of the Bush administration–a hopeless task? I hope rlo is right.
March 8th, 2007 at 11:18 pm
Jacob Weisberg gets it totally right on Slate, the 4 truths about Iraq that Democrats are afraid to speak:
http://www.slate.com/default.aspx?id=2161385&nav/tap1
March 8th, 2007 at 11:26 pm
Finally, as I am taking off for a few days, on Afghanistan: I posted a couple of things a few days ago, including a piece by Rory Stewart, suggesting that we are heading for big trouble in Afghanistan. Please ask yourselves again why the Russians had to pull out after years of throwing much heavier firepower into the battle than NATO is currently doing. You heard it here, there, and everywhere first.
March 8th, 2007 at 11:32 pm
Really finally, and OT but very important:
March 9, 2007
Rufina Amaya, 64, Dies; Salvador Survivor
By DOUGLAS MARTIN New York Times
Rufina Amaya, who in 1981 saw Salvadoran troops slaughter her family and many others in her village, then, as the only witness, dedicated her life to telling about it, died Tuesday in San Miguel, El Salvador. She was 64.
The cause was a stroke, said her daughter Marta.
Mrs. Amaya escaped government soldiers on the morning of Dec. 11, 1981, as they killed all the men, women and children in her village, El Mozote. There and in the surrounding area, the Catholic Office of Human Rights in El Salvador said, 809 victims have now been identified, many found in mass graves.
After Rufina Amaya returned to El Salvador from a Honduran refugee camp in 1990, moving to a nearby village, she worked as a lay pastor for the local Roman Catholic church and led what she called “reflection groups.†She received a ceaseless stream of visitors from around the world.
Again and again, she told of seeing her husband being beheaded and hearing her daughter’s mortal scream, after she miraculously found a hiding place.
“God saved me because he needed someone to tell the story of what happened,†she said in 1996 in an interview with The New York Times.
Her most significant influence came less than a month after the massacre. Both the Salvadoran and American governments were denying the atrocity, despite protests from church groups and others.
After The Times and The Washington Post reported the killings on Jan. 27, 1982, both extensively quoting Mrs. Amaya as well as citing their own observations of human remains, the debate grew sharper. The United States and Salvadoran governments insisted that any dead were probably armed rebels.
In 1992 the exhumation of bodies, first those of many children, began. The atrocity could no longer be denied.
From the late 1970s to the early 1990s, leftist rebels battled the American-supported Salvadoran government. The Atlacatl Battalion of the Salvadoran Army had been trained by United States military advisers and was fighting guerrillas in northeastern El Salvador.
Accounts vary on leftist activity in El Mozote, a village of 20 houses facing a square. Mrs. Amaya recalled that unarmed guerrillas in ragged civilian clothes had once tried to get townspeople to assemble in a church, but few went.
“I remember people saying: ‘Don’t get involved. Let’s just live and work and not get involved,’ †she said in 1993 in an interview with The New Yorker.
But on Dec. 10, 1981, soldiers arrived in El Mozote, demanding that residents turn over their weapons. When they said they had none, the soldiers killed some people.
Mass murder began the next morning. People were pulled from their beds before sunrise and divided into three groups. Men were beheaded; some women were raped. The first child killed was tossed in the air and bayoneted.
Mrs. Amaya said at the time in an interview with The Times that she heard her son scream: “Mama, they’re killing me. They’ve killed my sister. They’re going to kill me.â€
She escaped when she realized nobody was directly watching her. She quickly huddled among pine and crabapple trees behind her house.
Her husband, Domingo Claros, a 29-year-old woodcutter, was killed; so were her son Cristino, 9, and her daughters MarÃa Dolores, 5; MarÃa Lilian, 3, and MarÃa Isabel, 8 months.
In 1990, Pedro Chicas Romero of La Joya, a nearby hamlet, who had hidden in a cave as soldiers killed his relatives and neighbors, filed a criminal complaint against the Atlacatl Battalion, demanding that its members be punished. Mrs. Amaya was the first to testify.
In January 1992, a pact ending the 12-year civil war explicitly exempted the army from human rights prosecutions. Mrs. Amaya complained bitterly about this.
“They have never even come to ask our pardon,†she said in 1996 in an interview with The Times.
She married José Natividad in 1985 while living in a refugee camp in Honduras. They were divorced two years later.
Besides their daughter Marta, she is survived by another daughter, Fidelia Márquez, who was not in El Mozote at the time of the massacre, and by her adopted son, Walter Amaya.
Jorge Ãvalos, a Salvadoran journalist, remembered visiting El Mozote with Mrs. Amaya in 1992. Amid the ruins and roaming deer, she indicated where bodies would be found.
“Here, next to this tree, the young girls were gathered,†she said.
She did not cry. She said she long ago had cried herself dry.
March 9th, 2007 at 3:20 am
Balter writes: “Why is it so difficult for Democrats to come out and say that the best way to support our troops is to bring them home?”
Maybe because their pollsters are telling them the truth? That Americans hate this war, but haven’t yet gone to the brink: demanding that the reins be handed over to Congress (which isn’t doing much better in the polls than the White House) so that they can get a pullout?
“And why is it so difficult for them to say that they are being sacrificed not to save Iraqi lives, because they are not doing that, but to save the reputation of the Bush administration–a hopeless task?”
Maybe because their pollsters are telling them that Americans regard a defeat in Iraq not just as a defeat of Bush (which many might welcome now), but as a defeat for America (which only a fringe would regard with any schadenfreude)? How else do you explain a majority of Americans opposing the surge, AND a majority also saying they oppose a Congressional attempt to defund it?
The Dems are just acting like politicians in a representative democracy. Which, last I checked, is what they are.
While there is still a significant chance of any outcome that can be called something other than defeat (or even just a popular perception of such a chance, in defiance of the facts), they won’t commit solidly to withdrawal. They will craft various bits of legislation with titles suggesting pull-out action much more aggressive than the actual language of the legislation could possible support. They win both ways (just as they do with namby-pamby “resolutions approving the use of force” in lieu of outright declarations of war.) If the whole adventure comes to grief, they can say “See? I co-sponsored the Iraq Redeployabilitation Act of 2007, and that got us out! Vote for me!” If something less ignominious than defeat is snatched from the actual jaws of defeat, they can say “See this line in the bill about metric-driven troop-increase approvals process committee formation guidelines? *I* wrote that line. Without the pressure it put on Bush, we wouldn’t be celebrating our non-defeat today! Something had to be done, and I was part of doing it. Vote for me!”
Scratch anybody decrying some critical dearth of “leadership”, and you’ll find someone who’s really complaining that the “leaders” aren’t following *him*. The ring through all the noses of all these politicians is firmly knotted to constituency polls.
I caught “Tora Tora Tora” on late-night TV the other day. I don’t know how historically accurate it was, but I take encouragement from the fact that the Japanese side of the decision-making process is presented more faithfully than in any other movie I’ve seen. It portrayed a steady deterioration in intelligence channels to FDR about the prospects for a Japanese attack, at just the time when all the sneak-attack red lights were starting to blink ever faster. FDR knew what he wanted: to get into WW II. But he also knew he couldn’t shake Americans out of their isolationism with mere “leadership”. It would take some external forcing event. Embargo of Japan supplied half the impetus, and it appears that he — or those under him who knew his wishes but wanted to give him plausible deniability — let the situation slide toward enabling the other half.
Getting into wars is fast: gung-ho spirit stoked by some galvanizing event. Getting out is slow: a steady grinding down, with reality gnawing more than biting. The people will lead their nation to war en masse; the people will lead the nation out of war only piecemeal. To paraphrase Yogi Berra: the American people are at a fork in the road, and they are taking it. Politicians will straddle the forks — mirroring the people’s straddle — as long as possible. What else can one reasonably expect?
March 9th, 2007 at 8:02 am
Balter again: “Please ask yourselves again why the Russians had to pull out after years of throwing much heavier firepower into the battle than NATO is currently doing.”
Um, maybe because America, with Pakistan’s help, was throwing some pretty major firepower to the Afghanistan rebels, who were in turn throwing it at the Soviets? And because, however hated we are, we’re not nearly as hated as they were? And finally, maybe because Afghans refugees are mostly returning not to fight, but to just go home and live peacefully (even if it’s a return to their beloved poppy fields in many cases)?
The Taliban is largely limited to insurgency tactics right now, which puts a premium on weapons you can carry and conceal. It’s very hard to conceal serious anti-aircraft weaponry, for example. Or serious artillery. Both of which played a role in finally toppling the Soviet-backed government — the battle for Kabul was your basic conventional pitched battle. The Taliban have no sponsor regularly supplying them with heavy weaponry — it’s not a Cold War theater. They are pretty much on their own, even if elements within Pakistan’s intelligence agency pitch in a little safe haven on their side of the border to help them out.
I also don’t think NATO is pissing off the Afghans nearly as much as the Russians were. The Russians (and the Soviet-aligned Afghan educated elite) tried to sell them on Godless Communism, with such moral horrors as female doctors and engineers, legal abortion, modern Western clothing, an economy oriented around rapid modernization, etc., etc. (in some ways, not too different from the social acceleration attempted by the Shah in Iran, with superficially similar upshot). The present government (such as it is) is based on Shariah law — a dirty little secret most Americans seem unaware of. And that’s apparently not unpopular with Afghans. Insurgencies require considerably popular support, and the Russians seemed to be trying to rush the Afghans straight into the later 20th century when most were apparently content to live in 17th century benightedness and squalor. The Taliban was routed rather quickly (and is coming back rather slowly) because they were too chauvinistic and conservative even for the very chauvinistic and conservative Afghans.
The Soviets lost 15,000 soldiers in over 10 years in Afghanistan. We’ve been in Afghanistan for about half as long. I don’t know total number of American soldiers dead in combat in Afghanistan, but I have to wonder if it’s exceeded 250. At that rate, we’ll match the Soviet death count in, oh, about 60 years of occupation.
Afghanistan is not exactly going up in flames these days, even if things are getting worse at the moment. A report from UNHCR dated 2 Mar 2007 has this to say about Afghan refugees (the largest single refugee population in the world):
“More than 2.87 million Afghans have returned from Pakistan to Afghanistan with UNHCR assistance since 2002. This year marks the sixth year of the largest such operation in the refugee agency’s history.”
http://www.unhcr.org/news/NEWS/45e7f7e94.html
Their largest operation *ever*? Even larger than any of the operations in which it handled *outflows* of refugees from Afghanistan? Outflows that have been very large in the past, the peaks of which were during the years of the Russian invasion and occupation? Paw around in the UNHCR reports on the country, and in the numbers, you’ll see a picture that’s not exactly bright, but not nearly as dark as the period of over two decades starting in 1979, and ending in 2002.
March 9th, 2007 at 8:22 am
MT: Afghanistan is not exactly going up in flames these days, even if things are getting worse at the moment.
Yes, thats because horrible warlords, as bad as the Taliban are not “connected with the government” – they ARE the government. When Mahali Joya (sp could be incorrect) a leftist woman MP tried to do something about it, she was – in parliament- threatened with gang rape
March 9th, 2007 at 8:23 am
Afghans, from what I know, want an international presence- just not one that props up the above mentioned warlords. Legalize opium and cannabis and they will have an export industry that undercuts these warlords.
March 9th, 2007 at 10:38 am
While MT is right to assert that the polling data are inconclusive on how receptive the American Public is to a funds cut off I still maintain that it is incontrovertable that they want out and a party sure of itself would be encouraged by the nhumbers to make the case that the best way to get out is “A Fully Funded Withdrawal” – there that is how you can frame it.
It is called “Persuasion” and it is – or should be – the politician’s stock – in – trade.
MB I find Weisberg persuasive but would note for the record that Hillary’s obfiscations don’t seem to be helping her much. Could it be that the public is more intelligent than given credit for?
Ya Think?
March 9th, 2007 at 3:03 pm
Have to say, Marc, I have a completely different take on Obey’s behavior in that video. He seems like a basically well intended guy who’s at wit’s end at the absurdity and politics of the Iraq War. I can’t say, were I in his shoes, I’d behave much differently.
March 9th, 2007 at 5:06 pm
My take too, Wil. He just seems incredibly frustrated…
March 9th, 2007 at 5:43 pm
I said I sympathize with Obey’s frustration. But he’s still an arrogant prick. I just watched the woman he was yelling at, Tina Richards, on Hardball and she remains a thoughtful and distraught military mother. She deserved better treatment than the arrogant Obey dished out. In the end, I side with her. Obey’s arguments suffered from what I like to call “excessive pragmatism.” Obey’s gonna lose the vote anyway on his half-arsed measure. He might as well push one that goes farther.
March 9th, 2007 at 8:16 pm
rlc: “It is called “Persuasion†and it is – or should be – the politician’s stock – in – trade.”
Yes, it should be — in some ideal democracy of citizens taking responsibility for informing themselves and keeping an open mind in debate. Realistically, though, most people make up their minds and then rationalize their belief choices after the fact, and woe unto the politician who tries to change minds.
jcummings: “Yes, thats because horrible warlords, as bad as the Taliban are not “connected with the government†– they ARE the government.”
Those “horrible warlords” wouldn’t last very long if they were as bad as the Taliban. Are they horrible? I don’t doubt it. But the real question is: do the subjects regard their present rulers as more legitimate than the Taliban? Probably. You say a leftist female MP was threatened with rape for things she was saying? Do you know how many Afghans, including Afghan *women*, might say “she’d have it coming”? I don’t, but it’s probably high. Is this right? Of course not. But none of that is particularly relevant to the question Balter asked, which was why we’re ignoring Russian experience in Afghanistan. And my answer is: because it’s so different on so many levels, and clearly better. “Better” is not the same thing as “good”, but “good” requires, in this case, sweeping cultural change, and that takes a long time.
March 9th, 2007 at 8:51 pm
“I said I sympathize with Obey’s frustration. But he’s still an arrogant prick. I just watched the woman he was yelling at, Tina Richards, on Hardball and she remains a thoughtful and distraught military mother.”
She didn’t seem distraught in this video. She (and whoever that guy was) *did* seem serenetly, time-wastingly clueless. If she’s so “thoughtful”, why can’t she read up on process? If you want “distraught”, imagine Obey, after slamming that door, going to his desk and crying. That wasn’t hard to imagine, for me. “Did you read my son’s *poem*”? Jesus. He probably thought “Lady, *your* son is still alive — were you hoping I’d read his poem into the Congressional Record? With, what, maybe a *flower* parked behind my ear?”
“She deserved better treatment than the arrogant Obey dished out.”
The arrogance of willful stupidity, pathetic ignorance and political self-importance (really, her son’s *poem*?) was considerably more in evidence on the other side. “I’m a citizen and I have a constitutional right to hallucinate about how my government works.”
“In the end, I side with her. Obey’s arguments suffered from what I like to call “excessive pragmatism.†Obey’s gonna lose the vote anyway on his half-arsed measure. He might as well push one that goes farther.”
Some measures get savaged for being merely symbolic, others get savaged for not being symbolic enough, and women whose sons haven’t even gotten killed want their representatives to read some frickin’ poem. If I were in Obey’s shoes, I’d be thinking, “With friends like these ….”
Obey apparently seeks to have the war in Iraq declared illegal. So does Lt. Watada. These are legitimate angles of attack, and, while unlikely, far more likely to work than stalking your actual legislative *allies* in Congress and throwing half-remembered concepts from high school American Institutions courses at them, not to speak of poems. If you want to turn up the heat on legislators, who make law, and who are mostly lawyers, support efforts to get the war declared illegal. I happen to think it was. If you want the war over, just imagine “arrogant” *Republican* legislators yelling at clueless pro-war constituents in frustration as they offer idiotic suggestions, saying “That won’t work! We can’t legally do that! Inform yourself already!”
March 9th, 2007 at 11:53 pm
I just looked at the video again, just to make sure I’m getting it right. I am.
You don’t approach a busy legislator with a long record of decent lawmaking by setting yourself on a (literal, physical) collision course with him in the hallway.
If button-holing is your only recourse (and it probably isn’t), what you should have in your hand is a name card, not an Extra Tall Latte.
Your opening line should be an apology for demanding just a moment of an important person’s time — NOT something about your son’s poem, fer chrissake. (Nothing against poetry. I love poetry. I wrote poems well into my twenties. I even got a few published in a JC literary journal. I still read poetry now and then. But, c’mon, these people aren’t college students!)
If you’re going to drag your husband along (if that was her husband), make sure he wears a suit. Confused about color choices? Black works. For that matter, wear black yourself — the esteemed lawgiver doesn’t (yet) know that you’re not (yet) grieving the loss of a loved one.
Know your talking points, know your legislative process, know your history, and know what the guy is up against in the gladiator arena of partisan maneuvering.
Rehearse your pitch, and try to get it down to one minute. Be willing to walk with the guy to his meeting. Have a one-pager handout summarizing your situation and your position.
Frankly, it takes real arrogance to do otherwise. Obey didn’t go ballistic on her until well after she started trying his evident patience.
By “idiot liberals”, I don’t think he meant “all liberals are idiots”. He meant “that subgrouping of liberals who happen to be idiots.” As a liberal myself (moreover a Berkeley native son) I know the type well. They are a perpetual embarrassment to my chosen (and, I delude myself, well-reasoned) beliefs. I’d actually rather debate a fundamentalist Christian who has studied the Bible very closely and given it a lot of thought. It’s actually intellectually more stimulating, even it’s unlikely to change anybody’s mind significantly.
March 10th, 2007 at 12:47 am
Tina Richards’ poet-warrior son is named (could I make this up?) “Cloy”. Google on “Cloy Richards” and “Why I fight for PEACE”.
You were expecting maybe Randall Jarrell?
It can be done right — Brian Turner (no relation), for example:
http://www.alicejamesbooks.org/turner_poem.html
EULOGY
It happens on a Monday, at 11:20 A.M.,
as tower guards eat sandwiches
and seagulls drift by on the Tigris River.
Prisoners tilt their heads to the west
though burlap sacks and duct tape blind them.
The sound reverberates down concertina coils
the way piano wire thrums when given slack.
And it happens like this, on a blue day of sun,
when Private Miller pulls the trigger
to take brass and fire into his mouth:
the sound lifts the birds up off the water,
a mongoose pauses under the orange trees,
and nothing can stop it now, no matter what
blur of motion surrounds him, no matter what voices
crackle over the radio in static confusion,
because if only for this moment the earth is stilled,
and Private Miller has found what low hush there is
down in the eucalyptus shade, there by the river.
March 10th, 2007 at 10:45 am
Jarrell maybe. Somehow I think Sasoon or Owen more appropriate. For that matter even Kipling had some interesting things to say about Afghanistan and what happens to people who try “To hustle the East.”
March 10th, 2007 at 3:36 pm
On David Obey. See Dave Sirota’s piece in today’s HUFFINGTON POST. I pretty much agree with it.
March 11th, 2007 at 9:27 am
Why does this site keep blocking my posts?
March 12th, 2007 at 12:44 am
“While MT is right to assert that the polling data are inconclusive on how receptive the American Public is to a funds cut off ….”
Actually, it keeps getting more conclusive all the time. Not to suggest that I sit around hitting “Refresh” on
http://www.pollingreport.com/iraq.htm
but there are finally some March numbers and … look for yourself. While opposition to fighting is stable or climbing, so is opposition to funds cut-offs. USA Today/Gallop has the number opposing funds-cutoff for the surge climbing from 58% to 61% from mid-Feb to early March. Setting a timetable for withdrawal this year, and for capping troop levels, have both slipped three points as well, though you see majorities in support of those ideas.
The voice of the people is getting ever more equivocal, so don’t expect the people’s representatives to be much less so.
April 18th, 2007 at 12:07 am
nice photos of this blog