Reply #32: ROBERT - - - - PARRY - - - - on what was MISSING from the first 100 hours...........

[Faryn Balyncd]

As usual, William Pitt hits the nail on the head:

"Before anyone in the Democratic caucus breaks an arm patting himself on the back, however, one all-important area must be addressed. The Democrats campaigned on all the issues they managed to legislate this week, including ethics reform, but the issue of Iraq and their promises about same stood out above all else. At this moment, their intentions towards addressing this problem remain murky."

And here's what Robert Parry has been observing:


http://www.consortiumnews.com/2007/010307.html

ROBERT PARRY on what is missing:

"As the Democrats regain control of Congress for the first time in 12 years, the party leaders still don’t seem to understand the forces that sent them into the wilderness in 1994 or the reasons they were summoned back in 2006.

"Typical of their cluelessness was a “100 Hours Survey” distributed by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in mid-December. The survey asked Democratic contributors to rank nine priority issues in order of importance for the new Congress..........The issues included raising the minimum wage, financing stem-cell research, revising the Medicare prescription drug program and stiffening ethics rules. The only national security issue on the list was the implementation of all the remaining – but unspecified – recommendations of the 9/11 Commission.

"No reference was made to ending the Iraq War, launching investigative hearings on President George W. Bush’s actions, reasserting checks and balances on the Executive, or restoring constitutional safeguards that have been overridden during the “war on terror,” such as the habeas corpus right to a fair trial......................Though many issues on the DCCC’s priority list surely have merit, what’s missing is any commitment to the larger purpose of the American Republic......,..."


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complete article: www.consortiumnews.com/2007/010307.html

Americans, including millions of normally Republican voters, did not throw out the GOP so that Democrats could murmur bromides while doing nothing of substance to stop the war and reverse the Bush/Cheney constitutional abuses.

If Democratic leaders heed the pseudo-centrist, do-nothing advice of the DLC, rather than the clear demands of the American majority to end the war and reign in Bush/Cheney, the support of the American people will be transient.