THE DEMOCRATS ARE NOT LOOKING GOOD WITH THEIR LEADERSHIP OF THE CONGRESS.
OF ALL TIMES FOR THE DEMOCRATS TO LOOK LIKE A BUNCH OF WEAK-KNEED WHIMPS AFTER SUCH A BRILLIANT DEBUT, IS NEARING A POINT OF TRAGEDY.
EVERYONE KNOWS THAT THEY DO NOT HAVE THE VOTES NECESSARY TO BRING LEGISLATION TO THE FLOOR FOR A FULL HOUSE VOTE; THAT THEY DO NOT HAVE THE SIXTY VOTES REQUIRED TO OVERRIDE THE PRESIDENTIAL VETO IN THE SENATE; BUT TO EVEN CONSIDER THE ARMENIAN QUESTION IN THE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS MAKES FOOLS OUT OF THE CHAIRMAN AND THE SPEAKER AT A TIME OF PUBLIC CRISIS..
I am sorry to have to say that Nancy Pelosi is not the KNIGHT (RESS) IN SHINING ARMOR, or a member of the ORDER OF THE HATCHET, or even the ORDER OF THE GLORIOUS SAINT MARY, we hoped her to be. Whether or not she elected to withdraw from the spot light, or her colleagues pushed her gently into the shadows because of her femininity, I do not know.
But this I do clearly understand, when the Democrats squeaked by in the 2006, it had been so long since they had control of the Congress, they went a little overboard in making promises they could not keep; they did not have sufficient votes necessary to bring that legislation to the floor of House and put it to a vote.
Do you remember how many times we heard the Republican leadership of the last Congress plead for the Democrats to bring to the floor of the Congress for “an up or down vote" a piece of legislation or a nomination. That is precisely the position the Democrats are in right now.
In the Senate, they need 60 votes to override a presidential veto and they too do not have the necessary 60 votes.
To the unsophisticated, including some of the air heads who anchor news programs on cable and the network news, they express a vote that does not override the president’s veto of the S-chip program as a defeat for the Democrats. It is not a defeat for the Democrats; it is a defeat for the uninsured children of the country. When a heartless, calloused president who owes so much of his presidency to the insurance companies, stands up in front of the nation and says he does not want to see insurees change their coverage from private insurance to government insurance, he misses the point all together. These children do not have insurance. Their parents cannot afford to pay for the insurance, any insurance. Private insurance is beyond their financial reach.
Bush’s argument is as hollow as his head. But if you can find $197 billion to continue to supply the troops in Iraq, you can find $35 billion over 10 years to provide these kids at risk with the insurance they require to remain healthy.
I wanted Nancy Pelosi to manage an override. She needed only 10 more Republican to say that they cared enough about our children that they would vote for this vital piece of legislation without missing the point that Bush missed by a mile.
And Harry Reid is just as vanilla as he was when he was first elected Democratic leader of the Senate. I do not see a spark of optimism, of light, of enthusiasm, of wisdom, of leadership coming from either his actions or his words.
Democrats are going to face one of the toughest elections they have faced in some time. If Hillary is nominated, the Republicans will begin with kitchen sink and move down from there with the lies, misrepresentations, and conjured up tales intended to poke holes in her reputation, her capabilities, and her very heart and soul.
To my chagrin, Bush is even gathering steam on the subject of Iraq. The Washington Post comes out with a article indicating the surge is going better than it appears. I do not where the writers of this piece went to in Iraq or with whom they spoke while there, but while there is a definite decline in the number of car bombs, the suicide bombers and other civilian casualties in Baghdad, the civil war is being executed outside the areas where the U. S. surge is taking place.
In the south of Iraq, the war goes on as fiercely as before the surge. In the northwest, the Kurds and the Turks are on the verge of armed conflict with 60,000 Turkish soldiers poised on the border to attack at any given moment. What was once the settled part of Iraq now has become the front lines of a second and more complicated conflict?
What confuses me and many others is that while General David Patraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker gave a luke-warm report in September to the Congress, Lt. General Ricardo Sanchez stood at the podium of the Military Reporters and Editors Conference and contrary to Petraeus called the situation in Iraq a “living nightmare with no end in sight, “ and went on to say that entire Iraq misadventure was “a "catastrophically flawed, unrealistically optimistic" war plan, and never has devised a comprehensive national strategy to fight the war.”
Sanchez came down hard on the so called “surge,” denounced the current “surge” strategy as a “desperate” move that will not achieve long-term stability.”
The most senior of a long line of generals to come out overtly against the war, Sanchez did not exonerate the president or attempt to make excuses for him, “There was been a glaring and unfortunate display of incompetent strategic leadership within our national leaders,” he said, adding later in his remarks that civilian officials have been “derelict in their duties” and guilty of a “lust for power.” He went on to say that the incompetence exhibited by the civilian leadership would have led to a court maritaled under military rules.
He made one more key point in his speech: “National leadership continues to believe that victory can be achieved by military power alone.” “Continued manipulations and adjustments to our military strategy will not achieve victory. The best we can do with this flawed approach is stave off defeat.”
While Bush and his cabinet have verbalized this same argument I see nothing in this new strategy, lamely referred to as the “surge,” that will bring this disastrous war to an end and bring out soldiers home and out of harm’s way. Patraeus or no Patraeus, surge or no surge, we have been warned from our own general staff, the top echelon of the British military and a number of other experts in the field of military combat that we cannot nor will not achieve the victory that our GOP leadership in Washington so desperately desires regardless of the price in human life and national treasure.
Why did the Congress stop passing the legislation calling for our troops to begin withdrawing in an orderly and strategic fashion. The whole world realizes that Bush will veto every bill calling for a strategic and orderly withdrawal of U. S. troops and the whole world also knows that the Democrats do not have the votes necessary to override the veto. Do it anyway! Do it over and over again. Stop horsing around with issues like 100 year old genocide in Armenia and deal with the issues eating at the heart of the American people. 80% of the voters of this country want the Democrats to act on their promise to do everything within their power to cause Bush to “cease and desist” combat in Iraq and work on the political issues that are the true cause of the continued fighting between Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds.”
Everyone agrees that there is no military solution to the conflict and that before there can be peace between the ancient arch-enemies they must come to some resolution to the problems surrounding the issue of oil revenue sharing, changes in the constitution, power sharing and the build up to both the army and the police forces.
Al Maliki and his government has had months with little or no progress on the road to political reconciliation. The Iraqi Parliament took off one month for their summer recess with the whole country’s future in their hands, a whole docket full of irreconcilable differences to be addressed and a total lack of will to bring those differences to resolution.
If the Democrats want to bring this to a head, they must act boldly and decisively. While matters of international relations rest primarily with the executive branch of government, if the next report from Patraeus exhibits little or no progress, the Democrats should put together an Iraq Study Group of its own. Biden, Hagel, Lugar, Kennedy, Pelosi and Reid would be the best blue ribbon candidates to go to Iraq and establish meetings with all factions of the Iraqi conflict including the leaders of al Qaeda, the insurgents and the militias as well as the major clerics from all “denominations” of Islam. The key is for this group to meet until they resolve all of the issues that are presently dividing the country—if they can be resolved. If they cannot be resolved, if agreement cannot be reached, if any one of the groups refuses to cooperate—leave and immediately move to cut off funding except for the funds necessary to bring our troops safely and securely home.
9:47:19 PM 
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