The latest embarrassment for Congress and the Republican party was revealed today when it was reported that Idaho Sen. Larry Craig had recently pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct for tapping the foot of a police sergeant in an adjacent stall of a men's room at the airport in Minneapolis.
According to court papers that made the news, the sergeant recognized the foot tapping as a common solicitation for lewd behavior. Craig's office responded that the police interpretation was in error and the guilty plea was a mistake.
Now, talk show hosts and pundits across the board are calling for Craig's resignation, which we should hear about -- yea or nay -- in a day or two.
I'm not so sure about the resignation idea, myself. The fact is that he has shamed his wife, children, state and the institution of the Senate and caused further damage to his party. If he thinks that's worthy of resigning, then so be it. His decision, not ours.
My own opinion is that once someone has paid their debt to society, then he has a right to make his living. Same with NFL quarterback Michael Vick, who pleaded guilty today to animal cruelty charges. A lot of people don't think he should be allowed to play pro football anymore. I think Vick has a right to earn his livelihood the way he sees fit. On the flip side, of course, the NFL has a perfect right to not want to associate with his kind. But to ban him is going a little far. But that's just an aside.
As for Larry Craig, a Senator since 1991, we have a much stronger antidote: the ballot box. Craig is up for re-election next year and, should he dare run, he should be defeated. In the primary.
There's a heck of a lot in the Senate that needs to be cleaned up. The lesson of the 2006 election results has been that we've turned power over from the party of corruption to the party of dangerous stupidity. Some improvement. And it won't be much of a choice in 2008 if, in the primaries, we don't deem to get rid of the bad apples currently in office in the Senate. Remember what a bunch of fools these people appeared to be in recent debates or statements regarding Iraq, terrorism and illegal immigration.
In no particular order -- and without respect to when they're up for re-election -- the ones who really need to go are Republicans Pete Domenici of New Mexico, John McCain of Arizona, Arlen Spector of Pennsylvania, Ted Stevens of Alaska, George Voinovich of Ohio, and John Warner of Virginia; and Democrats Joe Biden of Delaware, Barbara Boxer of California, Robert Byrd of West Virginia, Richard Durbin of Illinois, Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, Pat Leahy of Vermont, and Harry Reid of Nevada.
That's six Republicans and seven Democrats (in total, 13 percent of the chamber) who need to be sent packing just because they're idiots. That's completely away from where you and I might land on others simply based on ideology.
But we have to get them out, along with their House cohorts, in the primary season, or the choice we have in 2008 will be no choice at all.
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Was that Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust" that we could hear playing in the offices of Democrats today?
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, he of the hear no evil, see no evil and remember no evil congressional testimony, announced that he will resign effective next month -- those advance dates always given usually have as much to do with accrued vacation/sick day time as it does with smoothing the transition.
Why is it, after so many examples, that people in high government office believe they can get away with obfuscating issues when the opposition smells scandal?
All Gonzales had to do in response to the wiretaps story is continue to insist that he had a different interpretation than liberal congressmen and let them stew. And all he had to do with the firing of the U.S. attorneys was say that the president had a right to hire and fire whoever he wants in that job for any reason. Instead, he had nothing to do with it. Yeah, sure.
President Bush's legacy will be unfinished when he leaves the White House in 2009. If Iraq ends well, he could end up being highly thought of by history. But a sad tale is that of the four friends who he brought with him from Texas, only one -- adviser Karen Hughes -- left in good standing. Harriett Miers left after that silly appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court, for which she was completely unqualified.
Karl Rove left, like Gonzales, as a continuing target of liberals. As noted in a previous post, he was a master at winning elections, but turned out to be a poor policy adviser.
You expect more from your close friends. It used to be said everyone who touched Bill Clinton ended up tainted. The same now goes for George Bush.
Monday, August 27, 2007
Friday, August 24, 2007
Iraq All Over the News
It's been all about Iraq, this week anyway.
We started the week with the soldiers of the 82nd Airborne Division describing their experiences in Sadr City and their resulting negative viewpoints regarding the future of our efforts in Iraq, went on the President Bush going to the Veterans of Foreign Wars to make what seems to be his annual case for the military operation, continued with Democratic senators Carl Levin and Hillary Clinton calling for the removal of Iraq Prime Minister al-Maliki, added very odd plans by presidential hopeful Barack Obama and GOP Sen. John Warner to draw down our troop levels, and finished the week with a downer of a National Intelligence Estimate on the political prospects of the Iraqi government.
Some of these developments have already been discussed here.
But let's take on some of the more recent ones. Concerning the removal of al-Maliki, the National Intelligence Estimate certainly makes the case. There is probably no one serious in America who wants him to stay in office, having either helped or been unable to stop the infiltration of the government and security forces by Shiite extremists backed by Iran.
However, President Bush in his VFW speech had it right. The United States military deposed Saddam Hussein to establish democracy in a difficult part of the world, and we can't suddenly undo our work by strong-arming al-Maliki out of there. It's not for Carl Levin or Hillary Clinton, or George Bush, for that matter, to decide. It's for the Iraqis. Our efforts, and our comments from our political leaders, should be designed to nudge the current government in the right direction and help develop credible alternatives the next time Iraqis go to the polls.
On the troop drawdowns: Obama suggested that pulling a brigade or regiment or two out of Iraq each month might be an acceptable rate. Warner advised President Bush to announce by Sept. 15 a token withdrawal of U.S. troops by Christmas.
The Obama plan would certainly end the surge, but would have an inverse impact to what he wants to accomplish, which is a soft landing for our exit that would avoid a Vietnamesque bloodbath. Not only will the bad guys be emboldened by our withdrawal, but the troops who remain while the rest ship out will have a corresponding decrease in ability to protect innocent Iraqis. And the fewer units in the field, the less capability they will have to adequately defend themselves. You just know that al Qaeda in Iraq and the Mahdi Army would both love to administer a coup de grace on our soldiers.
Remember the civilian contractors in Fallujah? You ain't seen nothing yet. Take those four unfortunate victims and multiply by a hundred. Or a thousand.
Warner, meanwhile, says we really only need to bring home 5,000 troops. Okay. For what purpose? To make him feel better? To improve GOP election prospects? To prop up public support for the president or his Iraq strategy? Huh?
Pure symbolism was supposed to have died at the end of the Clinton administration. Let's not bring it back.
If the GOP leader of the Senate Armed Services Committee can't come up with a substantive proposal, then it becomes clear why Congress is supported by only one in five voters. We here at home certainly deserve better.
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Do you think the Republican National Committee will make considerable use of Hillary Clinton's New Hampshire comments on a future terrorism attack helping GOP election prospects?
First, it shows that there's some default condition that makes Republicans better at dealing with terrorism. That's true only by historical accident in that 9/11 happened on Bush's watch right as the final touches were being put on an anti-terror strategy that started being formed under Clinton. And while it's a fact that Republicans are stronger by a wide margin on national defense, it's not necessarily so in the limited area of terrorism, where Democrats have yet to prove themselves under the current national anti-terror policy.
Second, and perhaps more damaging, is the concept that if we are hit hard next summer or early fall, that Democrats main concern will be the loss of their election hopes. That's the sort of thinking that voters have rejected numerous times over the years and could end up being a self-fulfilling prophecy.
We started the week with the soldiers of the 82nd Airborne Division describing their experiences in Sadr City and their resulting negative viewpoints regarding the future of our efforts in Iraq, went on the President Bush going to the Veterans of Foreign Wars to make what seems to be his annual case for the military operation, continued with Democratic senators Carl Levin and Hillary Clinton calling for the removal of Iraq Prime Minister al-Maliki, added very odd plans by presidential hopeful Barack Obama and GOP Sen. John Warner to draw down our troop levels, and finished the week with a downer of a National Intelligence Estimate on the political prospects of the Iraqi government.
Some of these developments have already been discussed here.
But let's take on some of the more recent ones. Concerning the removal of al-Maliki, the National Intelligence Estimate certainly makes the case. There is probably no one serious in America who wants him to stay in office, having either helped or been unable to stop the infiltration of the government and security forces by Shiite extremists backed by Iran.
However, President Bush in his VFW speech had it right. The United States military deposed Saddam Hussein to establish democracy in a difficult part of the world, and we can't suddenly undo our work by strong-arming al-Maliki out of there. It's not for Carl Levin or Hillary Clinton, or George Bush, for that matter, to decide. It's for the Iraqis. Our efforts, and our comments from our political leaders, should be designed to nudge the current government in the right direction and help develop credible alternatives the next time Iraqis go to the polls.
On the troop drawdowns: Obama suggested that pulling a brigade or regiment or two out of Iraq each month might be an acceptable rate. Warner advised President Bush to announce by Sept. 15 a token withdrawal of U.S. troops by Christmas.
The Obama plan would certainly end the surge, but would have an inverse impact to what he wants to accomplish, which is a soft landing for our exit that would avoid a Vietnamesque bloodbath. Not only will the bad guys be emboldened by our withdrawal, but the troops who remain while the rest ship out will have a corresponding decrease in ability to protect innocent Iraqis. And the fewer units in the field, the less capability they will have to adequately defend themselves. You just know that al Qaeda in Iraq and the Mahdi Army would both love to administer a coup de grace on our soldiers.
Remember the civilian contractors in Fallujah? You ain't seen nothing yet. Take those four unfortunate victims and multiply by a hundred. Or a thousand.
Warner, meanwhile, says we really only need to bring home 5,000 troops. Okay. For what purpose? To make him feel better? To improve GOP election prospects? To prop up public support for the president or his Iraq strategy? Huh?
Pure symbolism was supposed to have died at the end of the Clinton administration. Let's not bring it back.
If the GOP leader of the Senate Armed Services Committee can't come up with a substantive proposal, then it becomes clear why Congress is supported by only one in five voters. We here at home certainly deserve better.
---
Do you think the Republican National Committee will make considerable use of Hillary Clinton's New Hampshire comments on a future terrorism attack helping GOP election prospects?
First, it shows that there's some default condition that makes Republicans better at dealing with terrorism. That's true only by historical accident in that 9/11 happened on Bush's watch right as the final touches were being put on an anti-terror strategy that started being formed under Clinton. And while it's a fact that Republicans are stronger by a wide margin on national defense, it's not necessarily so in the limited area of terrorism, where Democrats have yet to prove themselves under the current national anti-terror policy.
Second, and perhaps more damaging, is the concept that if we are hit hard next summer or early fall, that Democrats main concern will be the loss of their election hopes. That's the sort of thinking that voters have rejected numerous times over the years and could end up being a self-fulfilling prophecy.
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