Democrats Can’t Come Together On Domestic Agenda
First we had the new Democrat controlled congress’ first 100 hours which produced a bunch of nothing, None of it has been implemented, it died in the senate.
Then we had a series of Iraq War resolutions which also went nowhere, the only thing they accomplished was to show the American people they want to lose the war. The Democrats are split on what to do with Iraq.
Now the Democrats are moving back to their domestic agenda and we find out they can’t decide on what to do at home either.
It sounds to me like they are having a hard time with decision making now that they have some power. How can we let people that can’t make tough decisions regain the presidency. I don’t believe we can.
The ironic thing here is I think the Republicans are starting to regroup and come together again, and the Democrats are starting to split. Hopefully this is the case, it will be very interesting to watch this play out.
Here is an article about the Democrat domestic agenda quagmire from politico.com:
Dems Split on Domestic Plan
House Democrats are working to get back on message after a month of discord over the Iraq war and drift on domestic issues. But party leaders remain divided over the smartest strategy for advancing a broad agenda that can pass the Senate and help hold vulnerable House seats. Read more…
Hillary Clinton Forgets Part Of Her Past, Conveniently
This is from the New Hampshire Union Leader:
Hillary Reinvents Her Past To Gain Voters
By ROBERT D. NOVAK
WHILE Hillary Rodham Clinton came out second best to Barack Obama in their long-range oratorical duel at Selma, Ala., the real problem with her visit there a week ago concerned her March 4 speech’s claim of her attachment to Martin Luther King Jr. as a high school student in 1963. How, then, could she be a “Goldwater girl” in the next year’s Presidential election?
The incompatibility of those two positions of 40 years ago was noted to me by Democratic old-timers who were shocked by Sen. Clinton’s temerity in pursuing her Presidential candidacy. Barry Goldwater’s opposition to the 1964 voting rights bill was not incidental to his run for the White House but an integral element of conscious departure from Republican tradition that contributed to his disastrous performance.
Of course, no political candidate should have to explain inconsistencies of her high school days. What Hillary Clinton said at Selma is significant because it betrays her campaign’s panicky reaction to the unexpected rise of Sen. Obama as a serious competitor for the Democratic nomination.
The Clinton game plan for returning to the White House reflected tactics used in 2000 when she parachuted into New York to tie up campaign money, secure support from important Democrats and discourage potential opponents for the nomination. It seemed to be working on the national scene, discouraging longtime Presidential aspirants. Former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner, Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana and former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack dropped out, and Democrats who dared to run were being snowed under by the Clinton tide.
Clinton’s plans were transformed by the advent of Obama, an African- American threatening the hard allegiance of black voters forged by Bill Clinton. On one hand, the Clinton campaign has attacked Obama and his supporters. On the other hand, she has sought to solidify her civil rights credentials.
Speaking at Selma’s First Baptist Church on the 42nd anniversary of the “bloody Sunday” freedom march there, Sen. Clinton declared: “As a young girl age 16,’ I had the great privilege of hearing Dr. King speak in Chicago. The year was 1963. My youth minister from our church took a few of us down on a cold January night to hear King . . . And he called on us, he challenged us that evening to stay awake during the great revolution that the civil rights pioneers were waging on behalf of a more perfect union.”
Young Hillary Rodham answered that challenge the next year as the 17- year-old class president at Maine East High School in the Chicago suburbs. She described herself in her memoirs as “an active Young Republican” and “a Goldwater girl, right down to my cowgirl outfit.” As a politically attuned honor student, she must have known that Goldwater was one of only six Republican senators who joined Southern Democratic segregationists opposing the historic voting rights act of 1964 inspired by King.
Hillary headed the Young Republicans at Wellesley College as a freshman before defecting to the Democrats there. But when in 1969 at age 22 she was the first Wellesley student to deliver the commencement address, she did not place civil rights first. She talked about a demonstration in Founder’s parking lot at the college that “protested against the rigid academic distribution requirement” and supported “a pass-fail system” and “a say” in “academic decision making.” That was not quite Martin Luther King’s agenda.
While Clinton was re-inventing her past, her campaign was shaken by the first serious, public internal Democratic criticism of the Clintons since the 1992 Presidential campaign. The sharp rebuke of Hollywood producer David Geffen, the erstwhile Clinton friend now backing Obama, was approved unanimously by a campaign conference call presided over by consultant Mark Penn. Bill Clinton was not on that call. But the former President, described by Democratic sources as “incandescent” over Geffen’s remarks, recommended the harsh response.
Hillary Clinton’s road to the White House is not going as planned. Instead of a steady procession to coronation at the Denver convention, she is involved in a real struggle against credible opponents led by Obama. No wonder she and her handler were tempted to imply the existence long ago of a teenager in Chicago’s suburbs who never really existed.
Robert D. Novak is a political columnist and commentator on the FOX network.
Hillary Clinton Quotes FDR…..Partly
So Hillary gave a speech the other day and quoted FDR. She was using this quote to slam the president. Big surprise there. But she conveniently left out the next paragraph of the quote because it goes against the anti-war left.
Here is an article from nypost.com:
What Hillary Left Out
March 10, 2007 — Sen. Hillary Clinton presumed the other day to give a think-tank audi ence a history lesson. But it turns out that the would-be president is herself in need of some tutoring.
Appearing before the Center for American Progress, Clinton quoted extensively from President Franklin Roosevelt’s speech to the nation two days after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
“We are now in this war. We are all in it, all the way. Every man, woman and child is a partner in the most tremendous undertaking of our American history,” FDR told an anxious nation that had just entered World War II.
Added Clinton: “That was presidential leadership that understood that when American soldiers are in harm’s way, we are all at war.”
Of course, there was something else Roosevelt understood about war and presidential leadership – as does the current commander-in-chief, George W. Bush: When you find yourself in a war, you fight to win.
As FDR put it in that same speech: “The United States can accept no result save victory, final and complete . . . The sources of international brutality, wherever they exist, must be absolutely and finally broken . . . We’re going to fight it with everything we got.”
Hillary conveniently chose not to quote from that part of the speech.
Which no doubt explains why, when asked point blank whether she believed America should win the war in Iraq, she hemmed and hawed, refusing to answer directly.
No surprise there – the word “victory” has apparently vanished from the vocabulary of just about every Democrat on Capitol Hill.
That much is obvious from the cut-and-run timetables unveiled by Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other top House Democratic leaders – legislation that might more accurately be labeled the Insurgents Victory Act.
In yet another bid to undercut the president – to say nothing of the generals in the field and the troops they command – Pelosi & Co. propose a measure that would set a strict timetable for the total withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, starting as early as four months from now.
Even if the troop surge in Baghdad and Anbar Province succeeds – as initial indications suggest it is doing.
Indeed, Pelosi would set the latest date by which all U.S. troops must leave Iraq as the end of August 2008 – just before the start of the presidential general-election campaign.
Talk about using the war for partisan political purposes.
Bush – showing appropriate presidential leadership – immediately vowed to veto the measure, should it actually pass both houses of Congress.
And with good reason.
Bad enough that the Democrats’ proposal would handcuff Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq.
It would also telegraph to the terrorist insurgency and the warring militias just how long they need to keep inflicting American casualties before a weak-willed congressional majority pulls out.
Say this for Hillary Clinton and the rest of the Democrats – they’ve decided to stop hiding behind symbolic resolutions. Instead, they’ve made clear, in no uncertain terms, that for them, victory in Iraq is not an option.
FDR would have been appalled.
Rightly so.
New Hampshire Voters, Hold Onto Your Wallets
You asked for it New Hampshire, you are going to get it. This is what happens when Democrats control everything. Who do you think pays the taxes raised on buisnesses? You do, they pass the cost on to you. These taxes proposed below are all taxes on the average citizen.
From the New Hampshire Union Leader:
AMONG THE bills introduced this legislative session to “raise revenue” for the state (increase taxes) is House Bill 820, titled “An act establishing a tax on candy.”
HB 820 is one of those bills the sheer needless complexity of which baffles the imagination. Rather than simply impose a sales tax on candy, the bill would require all sellers of candy — retailers, wholesalers and vending machines — to be licensed by the state. Candy vendors would then have to buy tax stamps for every individual piece of candy they sell. Yes, tax stamps, to be affixed to each piece of candy. (Fittingly, the sponsor of this new Stamp Act was born in England.)
The candy tax rate would be a whopping 50 cents per pound.
No, there are no exemptions for school children or non-profits. To raise money by selling chocolate bars, schools, scouting organizations and other groups would have to be licensed by the state. If they order their chocolate unstamped from an out-of-state vendor, they’d have to buy the tax stamps and stamp each piece.
This plan is only one of several tax-hiking bills sponsored or co-sponsored by Rep. Catherine Mulholland, D-Grafton. In addition to candy, Rep. Mulholland also wants to tax or further tax beer, cigars, snuff, chewing tobacco, all bottled beverages, entertainment admission charges, commercial and industrial property, vacation homes, luxury cars worth more than $30,000, estates worth more than $3 million, business payrolls higher than $10,000 a week, gambling winnings and “any item costing $10,000 or more.”
It is not surprising that a Democratic legislator would seek to tax so many of life’s pleasures and economic stimulants. This is the logical extension of the reasoning that produced last year’s (and this year’s) cigarette tax hike.
The question is whether the leadership of her party will doom their newfound majority by supporting these punitive measures to squeeze revenue out of people who engage in behaviors of which some Democrats disapprove.
Gov. Lynch Flip Flops On Budget Plan (New Hampshire News)
A little local news here. In New Hampshire we have a timetable imposed by the state supreme court to define adequate education, if the deadline is not met they will most likely impose a state income or sales tax. While it is bad enough the supreme court has overstepped it’s bounds and will create law where it has no authority to do so, it is equally troubling that our governor is wasting time flip flopping on his budget proposals as well as other issues. I believe he really wants these taxes to be imposed so he will get the taxes, and he can make it seem like it wasn’t him who introduced these taxes, it was the courts. So he is delaying, hoping and waiting for the new tax revenues.
From the New Hampshire Union Leader:
WE WONDERED how long Gov. John Lynch’s original education funding proposal would last once school board members started calling their legislators in protest. Answer: just shy of two months.
It’s nice to have a governor willing to listen to lawmakers and adjust his positions after hearing them out. It would be nice, too, to have a governor who better thought out his own proposals before making them.
First, Gov. Lynch was opposed to amending the state constitution to effectively overturn the state Supreme Court’s Claremont rulings. Now he’s pushing an amendment. First, he was against Health and Human Services Commissioner John Stephen’s GraniteCare plan. Now he’s using it to balance his budget. First, he was against Gov. Craig Benson’s plan to create a Web site where residents could go to compare prescription drug costs. Now he’s promoting it.
We could go on, but you get the point.
When Gov. Lynch proposed an across-the-board 5 percent increase in state education aid this year, it was a shock for a couple of reasons. One, it raised aid to communities that didn’t need or expect it while shrinking aid to those that arguably do need it and definitely expected it. Two, anyone could see that it would not fly in the Legislature.
Sure enough, nearly two months later the governor has reversed course. He won’t say exactly why he changed his mind, but rest assured that there was intense political pressure to give schools more money.
Gov. Lynch gets credit for shifting money in the budget without being overly concerned about upsetting the status quo. But you cannot ignore the status quo. He really should have done more to test support for his education funding plan before releasing it. We’ve lost two months in which the governor’s energies could have been focused on gathering support for the necessary constitutional amendment, but were instead diverted by a poorly conceived school funding plan that was dead on arrival.
An Interview With Sam Brownback
From realclearpolitics.com:
By Tom Bevan
(Editor’s note: I sat down with Senator Brownback in his Senate office last Wednesday.)
RCP: I wanted to quickly touch on a bunch of issues to give our readers a better idea of who you are as a person, who you are as a candidate. But I want to start with last week: are you surprised by the showing you put up in South Carolina and at CPAC, or was that expected?
BROWNBACK: No…we’re on a nice slow build, and it’s going well. We’re running third in Iowa in the polling, moving up in South Carolina. I find what I’ve got to do is introduce myself to places, talk about my message and my vision for the future and we start moving. And at CPAC, with values voters, I’ve worked that set of issues a lot, I believe in it, and I think the field is looking for a true conservative candidate.
RCP: What’s the most important issue in the 2008 race, for Republican voters and for you?
BROWNBACK: Well, most important issue for me is rebuilding the family and renewing the culture. That may seem a little out of step, but it’s just…it’s like you’ve got a football team that’s got a great quarterback, great defense, great running back on and no line. And so you’re looking at it and you’re always saying, “we’ve gotta have our quarterback performing and he’s not performing so well.” Why isn’t he? Well, he doesn’t have any time to throw the ball. You gotta build the line.
And that basic family unit has been under enormous pressure and difficulty for a long period of time. It then creates problems in the education system; it creates problems in the prison system. And we’ve gotta rebuild that.
If you’re out there traveling right now the top issue is Iraq and immigration, as far as what people are asking about. They do recognize the inherent problems and the long term difficulties that our families and the cultural structure have been in.
RCP: Let me ask you about those two subjects, because I think you’re perfectly in sync with the base on a lot of social, cultural issues, but Iraq and immigration are two places where you’re probably a little bit out of sync. You’re not in favor of the surge, and you said the other day you’re in favor of breaking the country up into three parts –
BROWNBACK: Not breaking it up: three states, one country. You give regions to Sunni, Shia, and Kurds already have their region.
RCP: And is that maintaining current troop levels or is that doing redeployment of any kind?
BROWNBACK: Yes (Editor’s note: The Senator’s response here is indicating support for maintaining current troop levels). We’re going to be there for some period of time to make this work. And part of my not supporting the troop surge is 1) I think it delays us getting the actual political solution, 2) I don’t think we can impose a military solution in the region, and 3) to maintain the level of support we can’t get in the situation we’re headed into now – one party is for it and one party is against it.
We’re not going to be able to maintain political support here for the length of time we’re going to have to maintain it to get this done.
And I think it is past time we reach out to Democrats and say, “what will you support?” Not what are you against – I understand that part of it – but what will you support? And really get into the details with them of what you would actually do.
RCP: Do you think there is support for a plan like yours, possibly in conjunction with Senator Joe Biden who has proposed something similar?
BROWNBACK: Yes, I do. And I think there is with Democratic leadership, because they’re in a box politically, too. They can’t be seen as weak on terrorism, but they also get these free shots, “well I’m against the surge” – and the public is too – “but that doesn’t mean I’m against the war.” But what are you for? And it’s just evolving into this one-party-is-for-it-and-one-party-is-against-it, and you just can’t sustain public support going that route.
We’ll win if we can keep standing. And that’s what we’ve gotta do. So that’s why I’ve been pushing this political solution here and there. But we cannot cut and run, otherwise you’re going to leave a civil war in the middle of the Middle East.
RCP: Are you in favor of sitting down with Syria and Iran?
BROWNBACK: I’m in favor of the neighbor’s conference. I am not in favor of diplomatic relations with either of these countries, and particularly you’re going to be rewarding the Iranians at the very time that we’re trying to put pressure on them to stop the nuclear weapons development, to stop the terrorism that they’re doing. But I think we should have the neighbor’s conference, which is hosted by Iraq. We’ll see if they’re going to participate (Editor’s note: Iran officially agreed to attend the conference the next day.)
This is the same sort of thing we did prior to going into Afghanistan. We talked with Iran about that prior to going in.
Remember, Iraq is more three groups held together by exterior forces than it has so much of a country allegiance. The Kurds would rather be separate, but they’re held in there by the Turks. The Sunnis would probably rather be separate – unless they could run the whole country – but they’re held in there by the Gulf States. We don’t know if the Iranians are trying to get the Shia to split off or take over the whole country. So the exterior forces around Iraq are significant and important on what happens for the future of Iraq.
RCP: Back to immigration real quickly. We all know the general outlines of the debate: either for a “comprehensive” program or against. You’re in favor the former, in favor of increasing the number of work visas –
BROWNBACK: Yes. I’m also strongly in favor of increased enforcement. I voted for the fence, I’ll fund the fence, I believe that’s a key part of getting people into a regularized system. But I think once you move them to a regularized system, you’re going to have to up the numbers that you allow legally for some form of work visa program. It’s going to need to be simple; you’re going to encourage people that are low skilled workers that they don’t have to get a lawyer to get into the system. They can come here and work and go home.
A key part of that is getting the Social Security system to where that number means something. Everybody shows up with a Social Security number, but a lot of them are bad numbers. And that employer needs to be informed immediately when they send in that Social Security number whether this is a good or a bad number.
RCP: Politically, the issue is obviously one the Republican base is very much against. How damaging is it to the Republican Party in the long term to take on the perception of being against immigration?
BROWNBACK: Everybody will say that they’re not opposed to immigration; they’re opposed to illegal immigration. That’s what I’m saying. Let’s go that path then. Let’s create a legal system that can work. To do that you’re going to have to up your numbers and make the system simpler, particularly for low low-skilled, low-wage type jobs.
RCP: So, John McCain is talking about bringing his bill, McCain-Kennedy, back up for a vote. Is that a proposal that you would vote for?
BROWNBACK: I’m working right now with my Republican colleagues to put together a comprehensive bill that would work with the administration and that would get, hopefully, 40 Republicans to pull together on in the US Senate.
RCP: Do you think it’s important for the Republican Party to pass an immigration bill this year?
BROWNBACK: I think it would be good, but it can’t be just any bill. I think it’s also feasible to do it, but it can’t be a bill that rewards illegal activity. That’s what we’re working on. We’ve got a coalition of people that have gone to our leader to talk about building a group within the caucus that includes the various spectrums to see if we can together come up with a comprehensive bill. And I think we’re going to be able to do it with Arlen Specter, Mel Martinez, Jon Kyl, and I hope John McCain will be involved in the process too.
RCP: Do you think the passage of such a bill will adversely affect how you’ll run in places Iowa and South Carolina with the Republican base?
BROWNBACK: (Pauses) I don’t know. Immigration is a volatile issue, but we’re in the middle of it now, and probably the worst thing to do is to not do anything. Everybody recognizes the current system is not working the way we want it to work. It has huge flaws to it, we need to do something.
RCP: We’re running out of time. To give our readers a better a sense of who you are, tell me one thing about yourself that only people who know you well know.
BROWNBACK: (Pauses) Ah, boy…
RCP: It’s not meant to be a trick question….
(Laughter)
BROWNBACK: Well…
RCP: Let me rephrase then: what’s the one thing you’d like people to know about you that you don’t think they necessarily do know at this point?
BROWNBACK: Well, most people generally don’t know I had melanoma in ’95. Not that I’m asking for sympathy or that it’s any great task – it’s simple cancer and we caught it early – just that it had a big change in my life. It caused me to look at the end of life, particularly in those periods when you’re not sure how much, how far this thing has gone. And it’s really made me look at the end of life and ask, “was I pleased with how I was doing in my life?” And I wasn’t.
It made my faith real, changed my perspective, got me working on a lot of issues; human rights, human dignity, life questions that before I’d been supportive of but I hadn’t been dedicated to. It made me really try to focus on what are the key things: Fighting for life, fighting for marriage, fighting for the child in Darfur, the person that’s trafficked.
It got me involved in the basics, what were the core issues. And there are a lot of issues, but at the end of the day the fact that we abort nearly a million kids a year, that you’ve got a genocide going on in Darfur, that you’ve got hundreds of thousands of little girls aged ten to fifteen being trafficked into brothels or forced prostitution in the world. You gotta do something about that.
RCP: Do you think the Bush administration has done a good enough job on those issues? They’ve taken a stand, more so that previous administrations, on what’s gone on in Darfur. President Bush has talked about and done work on trafficking. How would you rate the administration’s performance on some of these issues that you now say are the basics and the core of what you believe?
BROWNBACK: I think they’ve done a very good job, in that they’ve overcome the inertia of the system to deal with problems like this, and overcoming that inertia is incredibly important. They could have feigned philosophical grounds for not doing these things and just said, “it’s not vital and strategic to us what happens in Darfur.” That would have been a perfectly legitimate philosophical position, but it wouldn’t have stood very well in your heart after you’re out of office.
And so they’ve engaged. And they’ve engaged on trafficking, and they’ve engaged aggressively. I do think there’s a need for continuance and for stepping it up even further.
On the life issue, we’ve made strides that we haven’t made in 30 years. We passed and signed partial birth abortion and the unborn victims of violence act. We haven’t had pro-life legislation pass on the offensive like that for 30 years. I do think there’s a lot more we can do on the life agenda.
RCP: Senator Brownback, thank you very much.
Tom Bevan is the co-founder and Executive Editor of RealClearPolitics. Email: tom@realclearpolitics.com
Cheney Fights Back At Congress
It’s been so frustrating to hear the Democrats ripping the president and his policies over and over again with very little response from the administration. I believe that Americans have heard this negativity for so long without anyone in the administration defend themselves that it has turned most people against the president. If they would fight back more often maybe Republicans would still control the house and senate.
Finally Dick Cheney is fighting back.
Here is an article from yahoo.com:
Cheney: Congress undermining U.S. troops
WASHINGTON – Vice President Dick Cheney challenged lawmakers Monday to prove their support for U.S. troops and the war on terrorism by approving the Bush administration’s requests for financing military action in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“When members of Congress pursue an anti-war strategy that’s been called ‘slow bleeding,’ they are not supporting the troops, they are undermining them,” Cheney said in a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
Cheney spoke at the start of a week in which the House plans to begin work on legislation providing nearly $100 billion for the rest of this year’s costs of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, President Bush‘s full request for funds.
“Anyone can say they support the troops and we should take them at their word, but the proof will come when it’s time to provide the money,” Cheney said.
House Democratic leaders want to add provisions to the measure requiring the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops by the end of August 2008 and possibly by the end of 2007. Some anti-war Democrats prefer limiting the funds so the administration would essentially be forced to remove U.S. forces, a strategy that party leaders have abandoned.
“We expect the House and Senate to meet the needs of our military and the generals leading the troops in battle on time and in full measure,” Cheney said, accusing some legislators of giving lip service to proclamations of support for U.S. soldiers.
“When members speak not of victory but of time limits, deadlines and other arbitrary measures, they are telling the enemy simply to watch the clock and wait us out,” he said.
Has The Global Islamic Jihad Fractured
From americanthinker.com:
Has The Global Islamic Jihad Movement Fractured
By Ray Robison
Even as the leadership of the Democrats sets timetables for withdrawal from Iraq, the sands have shifted and leaders of the Global Islamic Jihad Movement are displaying signs that their own alliance has fractured. Some pundits have described the Democrat leadership’s position over the war on terror as “snatching defeat from the jaws of victory”; a cynicism that perhaps never sounded as plausible as it does this week. But to understand how this Islamic jihad movement has splintered, we must understand how it fits together. Read more…
Democrats Are In A Tight Spot
This is from realclearpolitics.com:
Dem Congress Haunted By Dukakis, Mondale, And Carter
By Peter Brown
You can see the ghosts of Michael Dukakis, Walter Mondale and Jimmy Carter hanging over the Democratic Congress. Their past presidential standard bearers’ image of weakness on national security is giving today’s Democratic lawmakers pause.
Even as Democratic leaders try to cut off funds for U.S. troops in Iraq, they are pulling their punches to avoid evoking those memories, which have been political poison for the party.
There is strong support in the Democratic caucus for quickly phasing U.S. troops out of Iraq and redirecting U.S. foreign and military policy around the globe. Yet, the potential political ramifications have their leaders gingerly taking on the issue, even though most Americans say they want the troops out.
Even though current polls reflect public confidence in Democrats’ ability to deal with America’s enemies, history has not been kind to them.
* Democrats in the late 1960s and 1970s forced the phase-out of U.S. troops in the unpopular Vietnam War. But in the aftermath, voters viewed the party as reflexively wary of using force in U.S. interests;
* Carter presided over the Iranian hostage embarrassment that frustrated Americans for a year;
* Mondale and Dukakis opposed Ronald Reagan’s “peace through strength” policy that most analysts credit for victory in the Cold War
That is why until public support for the Iraq war soured, for decades polls had generally shown American voters wary of trusting the Democratic Party and its candidates with national security. Bill Clinton was elected at a time after the Cold War and before 9/11, when domestic issues were paramount.
This congressional uncertainty these days is readily apparent.
In the House, Democrats — with some Republican votes — easily passed a non-binding resolution of opposition for President Bush’s decision to increase troop levels in Iraq. But, the non-binding resolution could not even pass the Senate.
Democratic leaders had been so wary of being accused of not backing the troops or tying the hands of U.S. commanders that they had backed away from suggestions from some of their more anti-war members to try to cut off funding.
Last week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi finally unveiled legislation requiring the withdrawal of U.S. troops – in a year and a half. Many of her members wanted a much earlier cut off date.
Because even if the legislation were to pass Congress it almost certainly would be vetoed by President Bush, this whole dispute is mostly about political posturing for the 2008 presidential campaign.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is going ahead with the fall, 2008 cut-off measure because of pressure from inside the Democratic caucus, despite worrying it might provide the 2008 Republican presidential nominee ammunition to make the case that his Democratic opponent is no different than Carter, Mondale or Dukakis.
That could be a sore spot because the three leading candidates for the 2008 Democratic nomination – Sens. Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and former Sen. John Edwards — have scant military or national security experience.
Also, when it comes to trying to avoid dredging up old memories of conflicts between Democrats and the Pentagon there is the symbolic issue of gays in the military.
The current “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy was created by President Clinton, whose effort to rescind the ban on homosexuals serving in the military failed. It prohibits commanders from asking soldiers about their sexual preference, but bans GIs who disclose their homosexuality from serving.
Gay rights groups, which have become a key component of the party’s political base, have made eliminating “don’t ask, don’t tell” a priority. Yet, there has been little real effort to move legislation even though most congressional Democrats support the idea.
Ironically, their reluctance comes despite a Pew Center poll last year that found a majority of Americans say they would support allowing homosexuals to serve in the military. Perhaps the lawmakers are worried that people sometimes tell pollsters one thing and then do something very different in the voting booth.
Of course, there are almost two years left in which the Democratic Congress can work its will. Yet, the early signs are the leaders are going out of their way to avoid reminding voters why they once didn’t trust Democrats to sit in the Oval Office.
Peter A. Brown is assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. He can be reached at peter.brown@quinnipiac.edu
Fred Thompson Considering Bid For White House In ’08
I missed the interview with Fred Thompson on Fox News today, but i read the transcript here. He seems like he could be a more mainstream candidate than the second tier candidates I have been looking at( Hunter, Huckabee, Brownback). It will be interesting to see what happens if Thompson gets in the race.
I found this article about Fred Thompson on politico.com:
Insiders Map Plan for ’08 Thompson Bid
Fred Dalton Thompson was bored in the U.S. Senate and has had more fun playing District Attorney Arthur Branch on NBC’s “Law and Order.” Now, he’s a step closer to the ultimate audition: running for president of the United States.
Asked on “Fox News Sunday” if he is considering running for president in 2008, Thompson said, “I’m giving some thought to it. I’m going to leave the door open.” Read more…
