A BLUE AMERICA POLICY CLARIFICATION-- BUSH DOG'S NEED NOT APPLY

In the last couple of days, in between Larry Craig's adventures in Republican Toiletland stories, we've had a few posts about the $50 billion supplemental to the supplemental. Basically Bush wants another $50 bil (on top of the outrageous $147 billion) for his war profiteering schemes in Iraq. Seventy of our kind of Democrats sent him a letter saying the only money they would vote to approve is money for a safe and speedy redeployment of our troops. Yesterday Ken did a piece on the GAO report that exposes the Bush Regime's blatant lies about how swimmingly everything is going in Iraq-- and how they are now trying to force the GAO to "edit" the report conform to Regime propaganda.

In lieu of impeachment, treason, and war crimes trials for Bush and his cronies, don't you think Congress should put their foot down now just and say no? Just "no." I know we're ready to say just no to anyone, regardless of political party, who votes yes on the Bush supplemental or on any compromise to funnel any more money into the Iraq war rathole. Of the incumbents Blue America has endorsed so far, 4 have already pledged to vote no on Bush's request for more money-- Steve Cohen (TN), who is under vicious attack from Harold Ford's rightist political machine, John Hall (NY), Jerrold Nadler (NY), and Hilda Solis (CA). I feel confident that our other incumbents, Carol Shea-Porter (NH), Patrick Murphy (PA), Tom Allen (ME), and Jerry McNerney (CA), will do likewise next week. If they don't, you still will be able to donate to their campaigns if you want to-- but not through Blue America. And the only incumbent currently scheduled for a Blue America endorsement and live session is our old friend Paul Hodes (NH) and he has already pledged to vote against any funding that isn't to bring the troops home. If I'm being too subtle here, Scarecrow has an explanation over at FDL.

Yesterday I was on the phone for a while with a campaign manager for a Democrat running for a House seat. He was speaking for himself and not his candidate. He told me that the problem in Iraq is very real and the dangers inherent to it are very grave and that the solution is not a soundbyte. All true, but not really relevant to what Congress can accomplish. The war was wrong when it was started and it is wrong now. The American presence there has always done one thing and one thing only: made a bad situation worse. There is no good answer to Iraq-- other than war crimes trials for Bush and Cheney, et al-- but there is one thing that must change and must change as fast as possible (tomorrow, next week, a month?) and that is the presence of American troops in Iraq.

Even a hack and tool like Ellen Tauscher (D-CA) recognizes the Bush Regime Greed Zone congressional dog and pony show for what it is. Not a word that comes out of Bush's mouth or the mouths of any of his cronies can be believed under any circumstances whatsoever-- which is why he should have been impeached and why an increasing number of people are seeing Nancy Pelosi as complicit in the Regime's crimes. Now Inside the Beltway war criminals are calling for the ouster of Bush's favored, hand-picked (not legitimately elected) Iraqi puppet, Nouri al-Maliki. Will he be the next Ngo Dinh Diem?

This morning's NY Times has three unrelated stories which should make every American furious enough to demand we get the hell out of Iraq-- a story about us re-doing the disaster known as the Iraqi police force; another in the endless tales of Bush crony corporate corruption in Iraq; and a thought piece on how the gulf between Sunnis and Shi'a has widened since Bush-- who had never heard of either before deciding to take over the joint-- came on the scene and destroyed civil society. These all point to what the cowardly Colin Powell told Bush before the invasion he supported (even if only reluctantly). Powell mixed up his duty to the citizens of the United States of America with his loyalty to the madman who had stolen the 2000 election and was determined to make a name for himself. By telling Bush that if he "broke" Iraq he would "own" it-- a concept that was certainly too abstract for a functional imbecile like Bush to understand-- Powell may have thought he had done his duty. He thought wrong.

There was one Iraq story in the Times that I absolutely loved. An airplane carrying right wing warmongers Mel Martinez (R-FL), Richard Shelby (R-AL), James Inhofe (R-OK) and Bud Cramer (D-AL) was shot at taking off from Baghdad and forced to take evasive maneuvers. These are 3 rubber stamp Republican senators and a Bush Dog, all 4 of whom very much deserving to be charged as enablers in Bush's war crimes. Of course, in something like this "almost" doesn't count.


UPDATE: KENDRICK MEEK COMES BACK FROM IRAQ READY TO JUST SAY NO

Congressman Kendrick Meek (D-FL) just came back from Iraq with a very different impression than Brian Baird. Baird, Jason Altmire and other Bush Dogs may happily go along with the regime's odious agenda, but Meek makes it clear that he has a more thoughtful-- and more sensible-- position.




UPDATE: VOTERS IN NORTHEAST MASSACHUSETTS CONSIDER DIFFERENT APPROACHES TO WAR FUNDING

The Blue America-endorsed candidate in next Tuesday's MA-05 primary, Jamie Eldridge opposes any more funding to escalate Bush's war agenda and only supports spending money to safely and redeploy our troops out of Iraq. Eileen Donoghue has essentially the same approach. James Miceli has the extreme Bush Dog point of view: let's see what General BetrayUs has to say. Front-runner Niki Tsongas, the one with the name recognition because of her former husband, the senator, also seems to be running with the Bush Dog crowd, as does Barry Finegold. If you'd like to express an interest in ending Bush's Iraq agenda, you can consider donating to Jamie's campaign.