Salon.com's Withering look at the Democrats' Week that Was

[Totally Committed]

"In a political showdown, stupidity can be even more crippling than timidity. Unfortunately, congressional Democrats have displayed both as they backed down from their confrontation with the Bush White House over the war in Iraq. It was completely predictable that Democrats would divide over supplemental appropriations for the war, which are so easily defined as "funding for the troops," and it is also understandable, if not excusable, that some Democrats would balk at voting no on such a measure. Such divisions may have been unavoidable, especially when the new congressional leaders had done so little to present serious alternatives to the president's policies.

The defeat represented by this week's supplemental vote can be traced directly to the Democratic leadership's failure to shift the debate six months ago. Looking back, the critical moment came when the Bush administration rejected the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group report.

.... Had the Democrats endorsed the Iraq Study Group report immediately, and linked future funding of the war to the president's full acceptance of its recommendations, they would find themselves in a different position today. Rather than being perceived as weak and divided, they would at least have identified themselves with a plausible alternative to administration policy -- and isolated the White House even further.

Now the Bush administration can turn around -- as Washington Post defense expert William Arkin predicts -- and accept the Iraq Study Group recommendation to begin withdrawing troops. After all the carnage and waste, the Republicans may yet escape responsibility for the most significant strategic failure in decades, because the Democrats hesitated and dithered." -- Salon, "Dithering Democrats", by Joe Conason

http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2007/05/25/bush_iraq_plan/index.html

"....... But let's be honest, we would have been better off over the past six years if the Oval Office had been occupied by an orangutan with a Magic 8-Ball. And that's why it's so depressing that when the right-wing noise machine pretended to get upset at what Jimmy Carter said, he did what Democrats always do and backed down. He said his remarks were careless and misrepresented and the sun was in his eyes and his hearing aid went out and he was molested by a clergyman.

They confronted him, and he took it all back. Which is what Democrats do. Why couldn't he have just said, 'No, I meant what I said. And speaking as the first citizen of Habitat for Humanity, let me take out my toolbox and build you a house where we can meet and you can blow me.' If a Democrat who's out of office and 100 years old can't speak out, what chance do we have for the ones who are in office? Like the ones who are in Congress now who, emboldened by widespread public approval of their plan to bring the troops home ... this week abandoned that plan. You see, you don't get to become the worst president ever without a little help from the other side. - Salon, "When Democrats collapse", by Bill Maher

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/05/25/carter/

The Democratic freshmen on Iraq
A list of how the House of Representatives' new Democrats voted on the Iraq war supplemental Thursday night.

Editor's note: The 2006 midterm congressional elections brought a wave of freshmen Democrats to the House of Representatives, at least partially because of the country's discontent with the Iraq war. So how did those new Democrats vote Thursday night on the compromise Iraq war supplemental, which antiwar forces opposed because it didn't include the timetable for withdrawal that had been in the original supplemental President Bush vetoed? A list is below. Twenty-three of the freshmen voted against the bill; 17 voted for it.

Michael Arcuri, D-N.Y. -- Nay
Bruce Braley, D-Iowa -- Nay
Kathy Castor, D-Fla. -- Nay
Yvette Clark, D-N.Y. -- Nay
Steve Cohen, D-Tenn. -- Nay
Joe Courtney, D-Conn. -- Nay
Keith Ellison, D-Minn. -- Nay
John Hall, D-N.Y. -- Nay
Phil Hare, D-Ill. -- Nay
Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii -- Nay
Paul Hodes, D-N.H. -- Nay
Henry Johnson, D-Ga. -- Nay
Ron Klein, D-Fla. -- Nay
David Loebsack, D-Iowa -- Nay
Jerry McNerney, D-Calif. -- Nay
Christopher Murphy, D-Conn. -- Nay
Patrick Murphy, D-Pa. -- Nay
Ed Perlmutter, D-Colo. -- Nay
John Sarbanes, D-Md. -- Nay
Carol Shea-Porter, D-N.H. -- Nay
Betty Sutton, D-Ohio -- Nay
Peter Welch, D-Vt. -- Nay
John Yarmuth, D-Ky. -- Nay
Jason Altmire, D-Pa. -- Aye
Nancy Boyda, D-Kan. -- Aye
Christopher Carney, D-Pa. -- Aye
Joe Donnelly, D-Ind. -- Aye
Brad Elsworth, D-Ind. -- Aye
Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz. -- Aye
Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y. -- Aye
Baron Hill, D-Ind. -- Aye
Steve Kagen, D-Wis. -- Aye
Nicholas Lampson, D-Texas -- Aye
Tim Mahoney, D-Fla. -- Aye
Harry Mitchell, D-Ariz. -- Aye
Ciro Rodriguez, D-Texas -- Aye
Heath Shuler, D-N.C. -- Aye
Zackary Space, D-Ohio -- Aye
Timothy Walz, D-Minn. -- Aye
Charles Wilson, D-Ohio -- Aye

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/05/25/freshmen_votes/index.html?source=rss

I'm still increduluous. And disappointed. And really, really, really angry.

TC

[Phredicles]

1. Thanks; I especially appreciate Maher's remarks.

[acmavm]

2. I am angrier now than I was after the 2004 election. Then it was the crooks

and criminals from the other side that screwed us over. This time, it's my own party.

And that I will not accept. I am seriously confused as to what to do in 2008.

[Nite Owl]

3. I still can't believe what they did

and to top it off the congresswoman that I worked so hard to put in office voted Aye (Gillibrand, NY). The first thing she went and did was join the Blue Dogs, that should have said it all and this shouldn't be such a shock. While what we had was worse no way am I going to work to get her in again or send her any money. My time and money is going to candidates that will do as they say consistently like Dennis. Her excuse is she always said she wouldn't defund the troops. A GOP talking point. She says that they expect the repukes to join with them in September so they will try again for the timelines. What are they smoking down there?

[Totally Committed]

4. kick for the Sunday morning crowd

TC