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Thursday, May 24, 2007

Required Viewing

posted by on May 24 at 7:43 AM

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1

He's always done what he wants. He doesn't give a fuck about what anybody thinks. It's amazing, really.

Posted by Mr. Poe | May 24, 2007 7:57 AM
2

When does the Democratic Party cave-in to fund the war join the DAMF files?

Remind me: Why is it important that we have this party serve as a majority?

I wake up every morning with a smile on my face that PA is a changed state. But it is quickly removed when I look at the numbers of dead solders consistently higher this year than any other year and the daily reports of hundreds of Iraqis piled up in hospitals that make Walter Reed look like an episode of House. Of course, the Iraqis with money are fleeing the country in droves. It is the poor that are being slaughtered because our government - with the blessing of the Democratic party - made it possible for them to be massacred. Now they will continue to allow this open sore to fester breeding more rage against us that we can plan on experiencing in the future.

Its one thing to push push push to elect a party that promises change. It is another thing entirely to take responsibility for making them do what they said was their mandate.

What now? Now that we have our majority party in charge...what do we do now?

Posted by patrick | May 24, 2007 8:16 AM
3

patrick @ 2,

You're right; it's over.

Maybe we should just choose candidates at random in 2008 and do anything to get all of these stupid incumbents out of office.

This is totally moronic.

Posted by Original Andrew | May 24, 2007 8:24 AM
4

I love Keith so much right now.

Posted by monkey | May 24, 2007 8:25 AM
5

Sorry, I don't love him. Used to. He's gotten so shrill and puffed up with himself...He's not Edward R. Murrow, who managed to speak his points without running out of breath.

Posted by Used to love Olbermann | May 24, 2007 8:40 AM
6

It's not like it took this particular commentary to make me realize this, but Keith Olbermann rocks. And so does John Murtha.

However phased you want to make the withdrawal, however aggressive you want to make the timelines, it is in this country's interest to get the hell out of that country. It doesn't take an occupation to prevent Iraq from becoming a Quaeda hotbed. It just takes a friendly, little reminder, "If you become a Quaeda hotbed, we will act to defend ourselves."

Of course, if this nation were really serious about insulating ourselves from Islamic terrorism, we would be raising the price of oil and gas through taxes, rather than talking about "price gouging" like the cowardly, pandering Democratic Congress and the clueless MoveOn.org want to do.

BTW, what do Keith Olbermann and Vladimir Putin have in common? They both recently indirectly compared Bush to Hitler. I'm always a little circumspect about violating Godwin's law myself, but I don't mind hearing it from those gentlemen.

Posted by cressona | May 24, 2007 8:46 AM
7

How bad does it have to get, kiddies? How bloody, how failed, how chaotic? Does it take a draft? Where's the emergency brake?

I suggest people who voted for Democrats (or anti-war Republicans) to do something about the war, contact their representatives and let them know they won't get their votes again until they do what they were elected to do so.

Posted by andy niable | May 24, 2007 8:48 AM
8

There will never be another Murrow, not on the corporate-owned news networks where Entertainment Value trumps Unbiased Real News, but Olbermann is the closest thing we've got to Murrow's sincerity and, more importantly, his eloquent gravitas. Play the clip and listen to Keith's voice when they cut to Bush at his little podium, listen to the way he says "this president"; there is so much scorn, so much disgust, so much outrage bottled in the low growling registers of his voice in those two words and that's something you simply don't hear enough of these days. Where's the outrage? Where's the scorn? It's all right there, in those two words: "this president."

If there were one newsman that you'd be likely to find getting his knee tapped with a pen by the ghost of Fred W. Friendly, it'd be Olbermann. And I don't know if he writes these opinion pieces himself, but whomever is penning these rants is a far better wordsmith than anyone writing speeches for our own president.

Posted by Wender J. Crinklebank | May 24, 2007 8:56 AM
9

What is actually possible?

If we'd started impeachment proceedings three months ago, Bush would still be in office until his term is over.

To actually have the impeachment work (as in boot him out of office), we need a bigger Dem majority - and there's not another election until Bush is scheduled to depart anyway.

What we have to prevent, at all costs, is the possibility the Repubs can still carry power after 2008.

I really do hate being reasonable...

Posted by Ayden | May 24, 2007 8:58 AM
10

I still can't believe MSGOP lets KO speak the truth, with emotion & eloquence, on their airwaves every night.

Hey Jim McDermott, LETS HEAR YOUR VOICE.

Posted by maxsolomon | May 24, 2007 9:01 AM
11

Oh, before I forget Dem cheerleaders, now is when you should dust off the blame Nader buttons.

This is his fault after all, right?

If only Nader would not have run against Gore/Bush in 2000, Nancy and Harry wouldn't have to put their privileged asses on the line.

Its always someone else's fault...isn't it?? Who you gonna blame now??

Oh, maybe its the gays' fault. If only we didn't push so damn hard to get married, then Kerry wouldn't have lost in 2004 and Pelosi and Reid wouldn't be in the terrible predicament of having to appear like they don't support the troops by withholding funds and risk losing the 2008 election (16 months in advance).

Do you Democrats have any ethics or are you just as brutal as the Republicans only you feel bad about it (kinda sorta bad)?

Posted by patrick | May 24, 2007 9:05 AM
12

They still haven't voted on the damn thing yet. Call your Senators and ask that they oppose it. Cantwell is at 220-6400 locally, and Murray is at 553-5545, also local. They also have numbers in DC which you can find at the League of Women Voter's website, www.lwv.org.

Posted by Chris | May 24, 2007 9:09 AM
13

Call me cynical, but I think this country has gotten what it deserved. Look, you elect a president for four years and you're stuck with him. We knew when we voted that a vote for Bush was a vote for four more years of war.

The 2006 election allowed for investigation and checks and balances. Congressional turnovers are shifts, not sea changes--unless they provide veto-proof majorities. If Americans thought when they voted for Democrats that they were voting to end the war in six months, then they were simply ignorant of the nature of our government. And that ignorance does not entitle them to outrage when they get a lesson in how our government actually works.

I don't think the Democrats had much else of a choice. They don't have the votes. Game over. What else would you suggest?

Posted by Ryno | May 24, 2007 9:12 AM
14

Why aren't we talking about replacing Harry Reid and Steny Hoyer with Jim Webb and John Murtha? Coups are often improbable but certainly not impossible. Isn't there a chapter in Machiavelli that covers this sort of thing?

Posted by Brian | May 24, 2007 9:13 AM
15

"Two front-runners, Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois, declined to say how they intended to vote on the measure."

Wow, talk about profiles in courage. They're waiting on early polling data, no doubt. I'm amazed that after the last six years I'm still able to feel outraged and disgusted, but there it is.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070524/ap_on_go_co/us_iraq

Posted by Original Andrew | May 24, 2007 9:20 AM
16

3,434 today. 83 for May. We still have a week to get over 100, which will make four of the six 100+ months total coming since October. And they call statistics dull.

Posted by Fnarf | May 24, 2007 9:20 AM
17

@13: The President can't veto nothing. That's what they should send him: nothing. No emergency war funding bills at all. They need to stop funding this war.

Posted by phil | May 24, 2007 9:22 AM
18

Wow! Talk about a K.O. (heh) by Murrow Jr.

Posted by Tony | May 24, 2007 9:26 AM
19

@14 Because Murtha already tried to upstage Hoyer when Dems were picking their leaders. Despite Pelosi's backing, Murtha didn't have the votes. Why? It's unclear, but part of it is that despite Murtha's principled stand on the war, he's corrupt as the day is long.

Plus, we don't talk about replacing them because we can't replace them. Their seniority isn't determined by the electorate. It's a republic. The representatives get to choose their own leaders. And they have.

Posted by Ryno | May 24, 2007 9:26 AM
20

I wouldn't worry about McDermott. He's a reliable liberal voice and he'll vote against this. It's Murry and Cantwell that need to be pressured.

Posted by Gitai | May 24, 2007 9:31 AM
21

You're right. They could send him nothing. I personally think that you don't want to get in a pissing contest with a GOP president over who supports the troops more. The Dems have suffered for over a generation because of the militant left's stance on Vietnam. It doesn't matter if it's true or not that the Dems support the troops. It matters what people believe when they go to the polls in November 2008. And I tend to think that the "Dems=weak on national security" myth is still too powerful to risk it. And then what are you left with in 2009? More war. It's depressing that this is how I think, but I think it's more than justified given this country's last half century of history.

Posted by Ryno | May 24, 2007 9:35 AM
22

You know, I hate to be all Christopher Hitchens about this, but I actually disagree with Olbermann on this one. We achieved this majority by picking up swing voters, and the swing vote perspective on this war is different from the perspective of the main stream of Democratic voters. Swing voters believe the war was justified but that it has been mismanaged. Thing is, they also have a disproportionate number of family members in the military. De-funding the troops, even if that’s the only course open to us because of Bush, will not play to those swing voters. Their perspective is that Congress has to use legislation to force withdrawal. And Congress can’t get the supermajority they need to override a veto. Olbermann’s right, that the Dems capitulated too easily, but the majority is actually much more fragile than he’s acknowledging.

Posted by Judah | May 24, 2007 9:35 AM
23

Congress should hold firm. They can keep sending Bush budgets with a timeline. Bush can keep vetoing them. Stalemate? In the short term, yes. But sooner or later the public pressure on one or the other will mount. With the war becoming less popular by the day, the pressure will fall on Bush, not congress. Congress' only real power is to withhold the money. They cannot force Bush to stop the war any other way. And Bush clearly doesn't respond to subtleties or compromise.

Posted by SDA in SEA | May 24, 2007 9:36 AM
24

Wow, that's a fiery statement. I love it.

Posted by Carollani | May 24, 2007 9:44 AM
25

According to a few comments here, I have changed my mind.

We should give the President TWICE as much money as he asked for. Then the Dems can look like heroes next year during election cycle. That's what it's all about anyway, right?

Shower him with money. Give him all the troops he wants and then give him 10,000 more. In case you haven't heard, there is another escalation in the works - a big one - for the end of 2007.

We don't have to care about how many people (American and Iraqi) are chewed up and mangled as long as we have an African American, a woman or a pretty boy from the south sitting in White House next fall.

It sure has made a difference since the 2006 election.

The lengths to which some people will cling to fantasy is truly astounding.

Posted by patrick | May 24, 2007 9:45 AM
26

I certainly understand the sense of frustration a lot of people are feeling, but as others have pointed out, we're stuck with shrub until January 2009, and nothing is going to change that - not even impeachment proceedings. He will continue to veto any bill put on his desk that doesn't give him exactly what he demands, and without a solid, veto-proof majority in Congress, there's little the Dems can do about it.

Although I do sort of like the idea of just not sending any appropriation bill to the White House, as Phil@17 suggested, I can alse see how that would play directly into the GOP/shrub stategy of calling the Dems out as weak on defense and unwilling to "support the troops". Let's face facts, there's a sizeable enough group of voters out there who do little more than swing whichever direction the wind blows them, and their frustration with the GOP in 2006 could just as easily become frustration with the Dems in 2008, political realities be damned.

All that being said, I believe Democrats should vote against passing an emergency appropriation bill that does nothing to hold shrub accountable. I'd rather see them risk the wrath of fair-weather voters by sticking to their principles, rather than cave in to the criminals in the Oval Office.

Posted by COMTE | May 24, 2007 9:51 AM
27

Two seconds ago I received this email:

"Dear Patrick,

Already more than 8,000 people from all across America have contributed to my 2010 re-election campaign. That's simply amazing! I'm so grateful for this strong grassroots support!

Now we need just 2,000 more donors to reach our "10 for 10" goal -- our drive to find 10,000 donors for my 2010 campaign before May 31st. Can I count on you to be one of them?

By reaching 10,000 donors this quickly, we'll be telling the radical right-wing that we won't back down from their attacks -- not now, not ever. In fact, we're building a grassroots campaign with the strength and resources to fight back, each and every day between now and 2010, no matter who my opponent is.

What's more, by raising money online from friends and supporters like you, I'll be able to spend more time fighting in Congress for the critical issues facing our country -- Iraq, global warming, health care, and a woman's right to choose -- and less time working the phones and attending fund raising events.

In Friendship,
Barbara Boxer
U.S. Senator"

She doesn't even have an opponent yet.

Posted by patrick | May 24, 2007 10:03 AM
28

Judah @22, excellent point that the situation is not as cut-and-dried as Olbermann makes it out to be. However, I would say that I think most of the so-called swing voters out there have come to the conclusion that the war was a mistake.

This reminds me... Al Gore has compared the choices facing us with Iraq now to grabbing hold of a car's steering wheel in the middle of a skid. And that analogy goes as much for the state of things here (US) as the state of things there (Iraq).

Posted by cressona | May 24, 2007 10:10 AM
29

I just called Cantwell and Murray's offices. It would be amazing if, after prematurely claiming victory and rubbing the dems' faces in it, this didn't pass after all. I agree with the "he can't veto nothing" sentiment, myself. Move on to other stuff, at least for a while, and then send him the original bill with some form of timetable and make him veto it again.

Posted by Levislade | May 24, 2007 10:16 AM
30

Is there really a plan to pull out or are there really plans to escalate it further? Why is there no discussion of this story linked to the story about withholding funds?

How can you do one and the other at the same time?

(05-22) 04:00 PDT Washington -- The Bush administration is quietly on track to nearly double the number of combat troops in Iraq this year, an analysis of Pentagon deployment orders showed Monday.

The little-noticed second surge, designed to reinforce U.S. troops in Iraq, is being executed by sending more combat brigades and extending tours of duty for troops already there.

The actions could boost the number of combat soldiers from 52,500 in early January to as many as 98,000 by the end of this year if the Pentagon overlaps arriving and departing combat brigades.

Separately, when additional support troops are included in this second troop increase, the total number of U.S. troops in Iraq could increase from 162,000 now to more than 200,000 -- a record-high number -- by the end of the year.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/05/22/MNG7QPV65N1.DTL&hw=troop+surge&sn=002&sc=421

Posted by patrick | May 24, 2007 10:36 AM
31

patrick @ 30,

I saw that article, too. If the Vietnam comparison holds true, then we're at about 1968 which means we can expect the Iraq War to continue for about another 6 years. Seems impossible, but I never thought we'd go this far.

I'm not sure if it really matters. Given how militaristic and far-right this country has become, we're only going to launch more wars in the future.

Posted by Original Andrew | May 24, 2007 11:02 AM
32

Obama better do the right thing or I'm voting Edwards.

Posted by Tim | May 24, 2007 11:04 AM
33

you are probably right OA. Maybe we are at 1968...with alot less resistance and only Green Day and the Dixie Chicks sounding angry (oh, and Pink...horrifying).

where is our Bobby Kennedy? Please tell me Emilio Estevez' resurrection is all we are getting. There aren't any politicians worth assassinating. They all are already undead.

we are being ripped off.

Posted by patrick | May 24, 2007 11:17 AM
34

We told you so.

Posted by Every Nader '00 Voter | May 24, 2007 11:44 AM
35

Olbermann/Stewart in '08!

Posted by Lauren | May 24, 2007 11:56 AM
36

The less reported second surge involves many troops who are stationed in Germany. They are getting the bare minimum recovery time of 12 months, whereas some other units may get less than that...(after an almost 15 month deployment)

http://stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=53277&archive=true

http://stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=46134

Enact the draft NOW. NOW NOW NOW.

Men and women 18-36, no outs for school. The only thing to make you ineligible is health.

Then see how long this bickering about the war goes on. Everyone support bringing back the draft. It would mean I might get called up, but I would still support it.

Posted by Monique | May 24, 2007 12:21 PM
37

Someone should put Keith in that tank chasing Harry Reid around. Get some nuts! The Democrats should pass the bill and again and starting threatening to file impeachment papers. This is a one-issue Congressional mandate, can the Democrats do nothing right?

Posted by vegetable lasagna | May 24, 2007 12:46 PM
38

Is that the guy from Project Runway? He looks fantastic!

Posted by SEAN NELSON, EMERITUS | May 24, 2007 1:03 PM
39

i'm a registered democrat, and you know what? i'm fucking sick of supporting the troops. the war is LOST LOST LOST. america LOST, and bush got goaded into iraq by a medieval-minded millionaire in a cave. its OVER. time to come home, lick our wounds, and destroy the MIC before this fascism lite become our permanent, delusional condition.

no funding bills, no veto.

Posted by maxsolomon | May 24, 2007 2:37 PM
40

I never thought I'd say this, but Edwards isn't looking so bad right now.

Posted by Megan | May 24, 2007 9:00 PM
41

i am so completely disgusted with our government right now.

Posted by stacy | May 24, 2007 10:25 PM

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