I guess it turns into something more like a waffle, shuffle or sidestep. Let's take the case of Rep. James Walsh (R-Onondaga, N.Y.).Last Monday, Walsh said he now favors a gradual withdrawal of U.S. troops and will support votes in Congress to force the issue. This was after he returned from Iraq, his first trip since 2003.
He reported his own change of heart:
That sounds so good and promising. I think I've found this Friday's Real Republican. I'm falling over myself looking for a blank copy of a Citizen's Medal of Intellectual Integrity certificate and a pen to fill in the Congressman's name.Things have not changed substantially in Iraq . . . It's a very, very dangerous place, if not the most dangerous place on Earth. Governance is a serious issue. They are stumbling toward democracy.
What occurred to me while I was in Iraq is that it's time. We've done enough. No country has done more than we have for Iraq. The question I kept coming up with is how much do we have to give Iraq to make things work? I think we have given enough.
I think we need to let the president know that if he doesn't start taking troops out, then Congress will use the power of the purse to do it. . . . We need to start reducing our troops. . . . These guys have done everything we asked them to do, over and over again. They are absolutely brilliant. And it's unbelievably hostile conditions there.
I heard Petraeus. I agree with much of what he says. But his focus is the military. And as I've said many times before, this will require a political, not a military, solution.
The big question is whether the Sunni and Shia can get a deal. I think they can. But the Shia government needs to be pressured by us. And I think the way to do that is to start bringing our troops home.
That's the message we have to give to the Iraqis. You've got to find a way to power-share and begin to reconcile with the Sunnis.
And, just then, I see a comment by one of Walsh's constitutents, named Once-A-Repub, who clues me in:
I don't know why the hardline rightwingers are so upset at Walsh. He always says one thing and votes another. He won't vote for withdrawal. He will vote against it on procedural issues. He'll vote for a Republican bill that leaves the troops in Iraq to the number before the surge. So, he's really voting his rightwing conscience, supporting Bush's White House. You wait and see. He'll do the Walsh shuffle, say one thing and do another. just like with Stem Cell Research. How many times has he said he is for stem cell research, but every time one comes on the floor he votes against it. It's the Walsh shuffle. It's one step to the left and three steps to the right with a little dip in between. I can find some solace in the fact that it has taken him this long to come to a conclusion his opponent Maffei has had all along. Conservative means being cautious not slow. While Walsh has played semantics with his constituents, saying one thing and voting another, men are dying and our country is declining in power. So don't worry my good friends on the right, he doesn't mean it.Darn! One more week in my weekly quest for an honest, intelligent and courageous Republican leadership turns up unfulfilled. Wait until next week, I guess...
Gradual is not nearly good enough.
ReplyDeleteJohn Edwards Does Not Betray Us!
ReplyDeleteHOW LONG DO WE HAVE?
ReplyDeleteThis is the most interesting thing I've read in a long time. The sad thing about it, you can see it coming.
I have always heard about this democracy countdown. It is interesting to see it in print. God help us, not that we deserve it.
How Long Do We Have? About the time our original thirteen states adopted their new constitution in 1787, Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh, had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years earlier:
"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government." "A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury."
"From that moment on, the majority always vote for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally
collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship."
"The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years"
"During those 200 years, those nations always progressed through the following sequence:
1. from bondage to spiritual faith;
2. from spiritual faith to great courage;
3. from courage to liberty;
4. from liberty to abundance;
5. from abundance to complacency;
6. from complacency to apathy;
7. from apathy to dependence;
8. From dependence back into bondage"
Professor Joseph Olson of Hemline University School of Law, St. Paul, Minnesota, points out some interesting facts concerning the 2000 Presidential election:
Number of States won by:
Gore: 19
Bush: 29
Square miles of land won by:
Gore: 580,000
Bush: 2,427,000
Population of counties won by:
Gore: 127 million
Bush: 143 million
Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by:
Gore: 13.2
Bush: 2.1
Professor Olson adds: "In aggregate, the map of the territory Bush won was mostly the land owned by the taxpaying citizens of this great country. Gore's territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in government-owned tenements and living off various forms of government welfare..." Olson believes the United States is now somewhere between the "complacency and apathy"
phase of Professor Tyler's definition of democracy, with some forty percent of the nation's population already having reached the "governmental dependency" phase.
If Congress grants amnesty and citizenship to twenty million criminal invaders called illegals and they vote, then we can say goodbye to the USA in fewer than five years.
I think I'll zone out during next week's exercises in Democratic cowardice, er, I mean... introductions of anti-war legislation.
ReplyDeleteFrom WJH's comment, what do we learn about the GOP mind?
ReplyDeleteDemocracy is slavery to special interest groups.
ReplyDelete50 people can decide what 49 people must do. That is slavery to opinion. Opinion is never fact.
Opinion is supported by nothing except the desire of people to believe in something, or control the actions of others, because they feel their opinion is correct.
Other options are now available for a better form of government, than the current dis-functional one.
I think you've found the GOP's Biden (except that he should be saying he's for the President's plan while voting against the President if he were a true political opposite to Biden--in other words, the GOP's "Biden" should be voting with Democrats--instead both sides of the aisle are voting with the President).
ReplyDelete