July 29, 2010--162 Republicans Can't Be Right . . .
. . . While 102 Democrats can't be wrong.
That's how many Republican members of the House of Representatives crossed party lines the other day to vote for the $59 billion Obama needs for his surge in Afghanistan. While 102 Democrats resisted their president to vote a resounding "no." (See linked New York Times article.)
These same 162 GOPers who voted in partisan lockstep for more than a year and a half against literally everything that Obama proposed from the economic stimulus plan to health care reform to financial reform to extending unemployment benefits finally found something of Obama's to love.
To quote John McCain from another time on another but related subject, these Congressmen voted to bomb, bomb, bomb Afghanistan and the border region with Pakistan. All to take out the remaining 50 or so Al Qaeda fighters.
Thus far, if you've been counting, we've spent slightly more than $1.0 trillion there and in Iraq. Now add the new $59 billion to that.
All this for Afghanistan and Pakistan where it would appear from recently released documents, which the Obama administration first tried to squelch and then after they were published claimed "there's nothing new" in them, that things on the ground and politically in the region are going horribly wrong.
Our erstwhile ally, Pakistan, we now can see from these War Logs, is torn by an internal struggle where its vaunted and powerful intelligence service is not only corrupt but provides direct aid to the Taliban, redeploying to them the bribe money we are paying to the Pakistan government to keep them nominally on our side.
Perhaps, I am hoping, among the 102 Democrats who voted against continuing this tragic folly or among Democrat members of the Senate who also want to end the madness, maybe there is someone like a Gene McCarthy who will step forward soon to challenge Barack Obama for the 2012 nomination.
I voted for Obama with considerable enthusiasm. Here clearly was a very smart guy who knew his history, who seemed to have his self-esteem in check, and who would work smart to repair the economy, take care of some long-deferred domestic business (like expanding health care), and above all get us out of the ruinous Bush wars.
Yes, there is a sheaf of half-compromised legislation on the good side of his ledger; but his team does not have the chops to effectively manage these initiatives nor respond to the daily grind of real and political crises. In fact, his administration has the bad habit of frequently shooting itself in its foot. Most recent cases in point, the lame response to the Gulf oil disaster and the clumsy "firing" of Department of Agriculture employee, Shirley Sherrod.
And now the $59 billion tripling-down in Afghanistan. The graveyard of empires.
"Change I can believe in" to me now is beginning to mean someone other than Barack Obama as president.
That's how many Republican members of the House of Representatives crossed party lines the other day to vote for the $59 billion Obama needs for his surge in Afghanistan. While 102 Democrats resisted their president to vote a resounding "no." (See linked New York Times article.)
These same 162 GOPers who voted in partisan lockstep for more than a year and a half against literally everything that Obama proposed from the economic stimulus plan to health care reform to financial reform to extending unemployment benefits finally found something of Obama's to love.
To quote John McCain from another time on another but related subject, these Congressmen voted to bomb, bomb, bomb Afghanistan and the border region with Pakistan. All to take out the remaining 50 or so Al Qaeda fighters.
Thus far, if you've been counting, we've spent slightly more than $1.0 trillion there and in Iraq. Now add the new $59 billion to that.
All this for Afghanistan and Pakistan where it would appear from recently released documents, which the Obama administration first tried to squelch and then after they were published claimed "there's nothing new" in them, that things on the ground and politically in the region are going horribly wrong.
Our erstwhile ally, Pakistan, we now can see from these War Logs, is torn by an internal struggle where its vaunted and powerful intelligence service is not only corrupt but provides direct aid to the Taliban, redeploying to them the bribe money we are paying to the Pakistan government to keep them nominally on our side.
Perhaps, I am hoping, among the 102 Democrats who voted against continuing this tragic folly or among Democrat members of the Senate who also want to end the madness, maybe there is someone like a Gene McCarthy who will step forward soon to challenge Barack Obama for the 2012 nomination.
I voted for Obama with considerable enthusiasm. Here clearly was a very smart guy who knew his history, who seemed to have his self-esteem in check, and who would work smart to repair the economy, take care of some long-deferred domestic business (like expanding health care), and above all get us out of the ruinous Bush wars.
Yes, there is a sheaf of half-compromised legislation on the good side of his ledger; but his team does not have the chops to effectively manage these initiatives nor respond to the daily grind of real and political crises. In fact, his administration has the bad habit of frequently shooting itself in its foot. Most recent cases in point, the lame response to the Gulf oil disaster and the clumsy "firing" of Department of Agriculture employee, Shirley Sherrod.
And now the $59 billion tripling-down in Afghanistan. The graveyard of empires.
"Change I can believe in" to me now is beginning to mean someone other than Barack Obama as president.
posted by Steven Zwerling at
4:39 AM
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