By popular demand: This post gets its own thread - re the Cindy Sheehan Dem defection poll

[warren pease]

So, after reviewing comment to my post on the Cindy Sheehan/Dem defection poll thread, I've concluded that ONE (1) entire person (who shall remain nameless to protect his/her reputation for sound judgment) has requested that I give the post its own thread. Now who am I to screw with the combined will of ONE (1) entire member of the DU community? So, by popular demand, here 'tis for your reading/commenting pleasure. And if you don't like it, keep yer damned opinions to yourself... :toast:

wp


Post follows:


Cindy rocks, while Nancy just kind of rolls around like an untethered salt water mussel in a riptide

So, a poll asking respondents their opinion on Cindy Sheehan’s defection from the Democratic party over the Dems' awful vote to give BushCo every single thing it wanted in funding for the continued Iraqi occupation, but without that onerous timeline nonsense that would have “tied the president’s hands in time of war” and failed to adequately “support our troops.”

The president should have more than his hands tied up, although the hands would be a good start if they eventually led to the neck and the noose.

Support for the troops has become such a reflexive part of the lexicon that I can imagine it will soon be used to condemn buying a hybrid, bouncing a check or missing a couple of days work with a mild case of the flu. Can’t make it to work? You’re not “supporting our troops.”

Don’t ask how the troops are related to this stuff; nor should you ask how giving BushCo all that money and demanding no withdrawal commitment in return -- which will get them killed as quickly and frequently as possible -- is an act of supporting the troops.

So here’s what I think about Cindy Sheehan and her unwillingness to let a political party that’s betrayed her core principles try to use her for their own cynical PR purposes.

She’s an actual courageous, morally and intellectually honest, hard-headed woman who's willing to take on the responsibility of leadership and, in comparison, dwarfs our Madam Speaker, who's only fit to follow or get out of the way.

Cindy kicks ass; has for years; treats Bushie exactly as he deserves -- no respect, no compromise, no backing down.

Nancy, meanwhile, is just another political hack in silk blouses, tailored suits, modulated tones and $500 shoes -- mistaking method acting for moral authority, political ambition for political courage, and the trappings of power for the reality of leadership.

For all the inexplicable grief he gets around here, Dennis Kucinich will emerge from this latest shameful episode as he does from nearly all the rest -- on the side of political courage, with the added bonus of offering an extremely simple and effective alternative to the Dems' tired el foldo act. He understands why Democrats won in 2006, and it's not because they fellated Bushie throughout the campaign.

But Kucinich is simply overwhelmed by the astonishing number of BushCo enablers masquerading as members of the opposition party. There's what -- maybe a dozen members of the Democratic wing of the Democratic party in the House these days? Between them and Bernie Sanders in the Senate -- along with maybe Feingold if he stays on his current track -- there's a whole 14 or so progressives standing between Constitutional government and the fascist abyss.

Pelosi should be among them, should be their nominal leader, should be scared to death at the imminent prospect of one lousy little act of nature giving BushCo the excuse they need to invoke their latest takeover plan: blandly known as "National Security Presidential Directive/NSPD 51" and "Homeland Security Presidential Directive/HSPD-20." All these directives do is comprise the blueprint for giving our little Codpiece in Chief full control over all three branches of government, not just the executive, with such a takeover triggered by something as relatively normal as a California earthquake or a Florida hurricane. No "terraist" involvement, phony or otherwise, required.

But Nancy has no time for that nonsense; she has no time for impeachment, she says, because she's too busy doing the peoples' business. It might seem to some that the peoples' business would include preempting a fascist takeover of the entire federal government, but what she's actually referring to are things like a minimum wage hike and expanded funding for stem cell research bill (good ideas, which will die in the Senate, and which Bushie would never, ever sign in this lifetime anyway); allowing the government to negotiate directly with the pharmaceutical companies for lower drug prices for Medicare patients.

Before we go any further… What the hell does “allowing the government” to do something mean? Who does the “allowing,” and what other kinds of stuff do they allow? What do they deny? Is there a Bureau of Allowment somewhere in D.C.? Do you have to suck up to them to get anything done like the Dems do with BushCo? Does big Pharma have to give its consent before the feds are allowed to deal legal drugs on the cheap? I suppose the legal drug kingpins have given the GOP enough money over the past six years; y vou could make a decent case that “investing” that kind of money to “influence” policies that result in reduced regulatory scrutiny and more lucrative tax credits is a very reasonable cost of doing business.

Jesus Christ! What an insane country, where the federal government one the one hand is simply a bribocracy, a shake-down outfit in decent suits; and on the other hand is arguably the most powerful political entity on the planet, but has to get down on a knee and beg an extortionist industry for its blessing in implementing a policy that might possibly cost that industry a penny or two per $10 million in profit.

Well, back to legislative priorities, such as Nancy’s support for "pay as you go" fiscal policies, meaning increases in the deficit to pay for supplementary funding for things like the Iraqi occupation are forbidden – things kind of like the thing the Dems just did… Oh, never mind.

Anyway, Cindy’s one of my true heroes. She gives Bushie no respect, which is exactly what the rest of these Democratic jellyfish ought to be giving him.

I’d support her candidacy for just about anything in a heartbeat. I’d support some genius political maneuver that somehow put her in the Speaker’s chair, and put Nancy back on the SF County school board.

Is there some rule of life that, in almost all situations – at least throughout my lifetime -- the wrong person holds the reins of power at exactly the wrong time, unleashing the demonspawn of right wing hell on the rest of us because the right person wasn’t there to put their fist through some fascist’s mouth or spray them with some old reliable demonspawn antigen from Vidal Sassoon and prevent the entire mess before it got started?

I think I’ll call it Warren’s rule of unchecked demonspawn behavior, and the missing jaw breakers who could have fixed everything by putting their combined fists through the face of a certain Ivy League cowpoke nitwit from Kennebunkport, Texas, a small resort town on the mainland where the idiot scions of the ruling class go to abuse drugs and alcohol, where the women are loose but a little slack-jawed and low on the IQ scale, and where the police are well-paid to look the other way.

That’s kind of long for the name of a rule. Check back later and I’ll see what I can do.


wp

[Edgeoforever]

1. I respect Cindy. Nancy consistently voted against the war - so attacking her

personally is unwarranted.

[mike_c]

2. I disagree-- Nancy Pelosi is ineffectual at BEST, and complicit...

...in crimes against humanity at worst.

[warren pease]

4. Well, I'm actually attacking her professionally...

I think her priorities are mainly bogus, except for that first 100 hour thing which did well with polls and focus groups but didn't stand a chance of surviving Bushie's veto pen. And this crap about impeachment being "off the table" before she even took the Speaker's chair was a classic case of unilateral disarmament, just a strategically insane announcement to the opposition that her most effective weapon wouldn't be deployed.

And if ever in US history an administration deserved impeachment -- from Bushie on down to at least the top ten felons and incompetents -- this one is it. How many impeachable offenses does one administration get to commit before the hammer finally comes down? Once again, only Kucinich has addressed the core problem with BushCo -- which is their continued presence in the White House. And impeachment, even if ultimately unsuccessful, addresses three key issues:

- There must be accountability for running a pure rogue state, starting with grand theft election (two counts); shoving the Constitution through the shredder; invading a sovereign nation on phony intel; permitting the single worst act of terrorism on their watch, and with -- best evidence suggests -- their complicity; torturing disposable little brown people in off-shore hell-holes using taxpayer-funded sadists; outing a covert CIA operative who was actually working on tracking WMDs in real terrorist networks (unlike the bullshit they pawned off about Saddam); putting cronies in key positions, where many survived long enough to do serious damage ala "Great job, Brownie" and his unparalleled leadership during the Katrina mess; willful environmental destruction by a) giving tax breaks to Hummer buyers, b) refusing to sign any international treaty or protocol that would "compromise" the American lifestyle by limiting greenhouse gas emissions, c) screwing up the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, eliminating nearly all EPA oversight and enforcement, and d) gagging NOAA's leading climatologists lest they speak of the human causes of global climate change. And that's just a small, random sample of their high crimes and treasonous policies.

- It keeps them busy with legal matters when they would otherwise be spending their time as they usually do: figuring out new and ever-more damaging ways to screw up the country and the rest of the planet.

- There must be precedent set through the impeachment of this truly awful pack of thieves and traitors, lest future megalomaniacal fascists get the idea that they can get away with this shit, too.


But that's not going to happen, at least on Pelosi's watch, because "we don't have time" for impeachment when there's so much other work to do -- like voting to give BushCo everything it wants to continue its genocidal practices in Iraq, with no end required.

You may infer from all the above that I don't like her politics or how she runs the House -- particularly the latter, since she's incapable of controlling the yellow dog Dems (or whatever the hell color they are) who constantly subvert any efforts by House liberals to pass a single piece of progressive legislation. Can you imagine Tip O'Neill or Sam Rayburn taking any shit from these clowns? They'd simply make sure there was no money for public works projects flowing into their districts until they figured out who was running the show.

Can you see Pelosi doing that? It's laughable. And it has nothing to do with gender; it has everything to do with competence, understanding the application of power, knowing where the leverage is with the COLOR HERE Dog Dems, learning a few inconvenient facts the honorable congressman probably would prefer were kept private, and lowering the boom when the right wing Dems get out of line. That's a Speaker's job description; not playing nice with the felons in the White House. And that's where she fails professionally, imo. When Southern conservative Dems inexplicably vote for a progressive bill, I'll know she's finally learned how to do her job. Until then, she's just an amateur trying to make it in the big leagues, and we're all suffering through her learning curve.


wp

[knight_of_the_star]

13. I disagree partially

While I do respect Cindy, I think that you're giving Pelosi a bit more flak than she does deserve, I think that she was back-stabbed by Emmanuel and others within the party and no matter how good a leader is if they have people who have no interest of following them then all the competence, charisma, and everything else does not matter. That and blackmail and threats only work if the person on the other end has reason to fear them, the independent nature of Democrats in this case is a double-edged sword, allowing for strong people to step forward and play hardball but at the same time makes it hard to bring people to fall in line.

[ComerPerro]

19. basically, the people who attack Pelosi have no real grasp or understanding of how politics works

Its the easiest thing in the world for Sheehan to sit back and attack the Dems for "not doing enough". Its easy to sit and say they have blood on their hands for not immediately using some magic bullet to stop the war, stop the deaths, and bring everyone home in the blink of an eye.

The House Dems she now freely trashes on a regular basis have been against the war from the beginning, which dates back to long before Cindy even cared. These members of Congress were opposing the war long before Cindy's very brief career as an activist even started.

[warren pease]

20. "...no real grasp or understanding of how politics works."

Gee, where have I heard that before? Being one of those hopelessly naive relics of days gone by when a person's word actually meant something, I have certain expectations. One of the most vital of those is that when somebody says they're going to pursue a course of action by which they hope to achieve certain results, and have the nerve to not only rant away on a blog or at a bar but actually run for office asking voters to give them the political power to actually implement that course of action, and then get elected on those very proposals --- Well, as I say, I have certain expectations.

And this pack of miscreants and liars and enablers and lightweights and phonies and smug little frauds isn't meeting them. I honestly don't give a rat's ass for the tired old cliches that characterize the Dems as "political geniuses" and gloat about "just wait until they bring the hammer down" and claim that "Pelosi's got it all figured out" and blah, blah, blah. What I DO know is this, from a piece on smirkingchimp.com posted last Friday:



The Final Insult: Dems Brag to Press About Deceiving the Public on Iraq
by David Sirota | May 25 2007

In case you believe the malarkey being spewed by the House Rules Committee about the rule vote yesterday not really being the vote to give President Bush a blank check, take a look at the Washington Post and the Associated Press today. I reported this at the beginning of the day yesterday and was then criticized by House Rules Committee Chairwoman Louise Slaughter (D-NY). Now, though, it seems at least some major news organizations have caught on that I was exactly right. In the process, they are reporting what will be recorded in history as the final insult of it all: Democrats running to reporters bragging about their own brilliance in deceiving the public.


According to the AP:

"In a highly unusual maneuver, House Democratic leaders crafted a procedure that allowed their rank and file to oppose money for the war, then step aside so Republicans could advance it."

And here's the worst part of it all - Democrats are now bragging about it. Not only have they sent out a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee fundraising email attempting to confuse voters by claiming with a straight face that they really stood up to President Bush. But most insulting of all, they are actually running to reporters to pat themselves on the back for engineering a procedural pirouette designed to confuse the public.

You can read the whole sordid piece here: http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/7689 -- if you have the stomach for it."



So this is what we're dealing with. Those people for whom their word is their bond? A dead or dying breed. An honest politician? Still defined as one who stays bought. The Democrats as political geniuses, dealing BushCo the death of a thousand cuts, using the power of the purse to end the Iraqi genocide? More like a party whose subpoenas are simply ignored, and whose "requests" for testimony under oath are the stuff of mad, late-night giggling sessions in KKKarl's office.

Which ought to be enough to drain away what's left of their self-respect. But it gets immeasurably worse. They're now officially on record as the party that runs to the press to brag about the brilliance of using their majority not to end the war, but to create a cynical con that makes it seem as if they oppose the war, while actually helping BushCo continue it.


But then again, I don't know shit about how politics works, so I suppose I'm missing some vital point here.



wp

[ComerPerro]

21. your article is bullshit and was debunked fully in another thread.

[warren pease]

23. Debunked?

No, it was actually sliced, diced, and held up to intense scrutiny. Some people felt it was bullshit, although if you read the reasons for labeling it bullshit, most are either the kind with only a subject line and no message (see above), or those who reflexively call bullshit on anything questioning Democratic motives, strategy, ability or effectiveness -- best evidence notwithstanding.

For these people, facts, apparently, are trumped by belief systems -- which is one of the defining characteristics of religious nuts, btw, when confronted with hard, peer-reviewed, reproducible scientific data that suggests their treasured little bible fairy tale is, to use the word of the hour, bullshit.

So I'd be pretty damn careful about claiming bullshit and expecting people to just cower in abject subservience to the voice of the master, no matter how much, ummm, bullshit that voice is dishing out. Not even the most strident critics had a factual basis for their objections to Sirota's article, nor to his cites from the AP and Washington Post.

Nope. It was all bullshit because, well, it had to be bullshit because to admit the possibility that it was factual would force people who have spent the past six years justifying Democratic malfeasance and incompetence, while trying to deny their Dem heroes' obvious stark terror for the ham-fisted idiot thugs on the right side of the aisle -- and whose only real opposition comes from some very notable Democrats like Kucinich, Lee, Lewis, Waxman, Woolsey, Waters, occasionally Conyers and maybe half a dozen others fighting the good fight every single day against not only the GOP fascists but the milquetoast "leadership" of their own party.

Must be a hell of an exhausting day for these people, but at least they retain their dignity and personal integrity and the rewards of standing for something worthwhile. This would be in stark contrast to the rest of these moral nonentities, who only stand for their own reelections, and feel for some unfathomable reason that the best way to accomplish that is to ride the coattails of the most unpopular man on the planet. And that's about what you'd expect these political geniuses to regard as a "can't lose" campaign strategy.


wp

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

3. If they believe in the Constitution, the Dems there

MUST follow the will of the people, which means getting out of Iraq NOW.

[Selatius]

6. Well, they're not following the will of the people, sorry.

They need to be booted out along with the rest of the Repubs.

[Tarheel_Dem]

5. While I greatly admire Cindy Sheehan's courage, I'm not....

ready to throw Nancy Pelosi overboard. Does anyone here recall how we used to bash the republican majority for voting lockstep, time after time after time. Well, unfortunately, Dems don't do that, and they never will. I feel sorry for the majority whip who tries to use blackmail and other untoward tactics to try and force the Dems to vote the party line, it would be akin to trying to herd cats, ferchrissakes.

All that being said, I do wish the Dems who voted for another blank check would have summoned some courage & listened to "we the people" on this one.

[warren pease]

7. Well, you don't get to have it both ways...

On the one hand, "I feel sorry for the majority whip who tries to use blackmail and other untoward tactics to try and force the Dems to vote the party line..." Which is pretty much the job description of a majority whip of either party, and of the Speaker if the whip fails to get the job done.

On the other hand, "...I do wish the Dems who voted for another blank check would have summoned some courage & listened to "we the people" on this one." Well, they didn't because they didn't have to. Very few politicians are going to do anything whatsoever for reasons other than positioning them better for reelection. Pressure is required to get them to do the right thing, even if they only cave to it one vote out of 20.

Pressure needs to come from above, through the party leadership, or from below, from the proles like us who vote for them. In this case, the proles were all over them but they were mainly the lefty proles, whom the Democrats have had the luxury of completely ignoring for generations because, realistically, who the hell else are we going to vote for, the goddamn GOP? So pressure from the left is like no pressure at all.

That leaves pressure from party leadership, and yes, IMO it's part of the very essence and nature of modern hard-ass politics that leadership uses whatever leverage they can find to get the votes they need to accomplish the objective -- and if that's "blackmail and other untoward tactics" to get these arrogant little self-aggrandizing Southern shits to "vote the party line," then I'm all for the use of any tactics that produce the overall effect of ruining BushCo's day, week, month and, hopefully, year.

I mean, what the hell is this, a professional ethics class? This is the modern application of Machiavelli's principles of the acquisition and maintenance of political power, and it sure as hell isn't a career for saints.

And if Pelosi can't handle that simple fact, then she can't handle her job. And if she can't handle her job, and in fact thrive in it, BushCo is going to keep on getting exactly what it wants, on any issue, no matter who's in the majority.

You may think there's only about 20 months to go, so how bad can it get. I would argue that their departure is by no means a given. And as evidence, I would point to the recent power consolidation moves I mentioned in the OP, namely "National Security Presidential Directive/NSPD 51" and "Homeland Security Presidential Directive/HSPD-20," which combine to give little Busholini full control over all three branches of government, not just the executive, in an "emergency" -- AND HE GETS TO DEFINE THE EMERGENCY. Does a right wing coup announce itself much more explicitly than that?

So, no pressure from voters in the middle, token pressure from the left -- completely ignored as always -- and insufficient pressure from party leadership. And these people who bend morality for a living and locked their consciences up in impenetrable vaults upon assuming office are suddenly supposed to just do the right thing because it's the right thing to do?

Nonsense. These people need to be seriously messed with to get them to break with their personal traditions of cowering at BushCo's feet and vote against the administration's wishes. Pelosi needs to figure out how to do her job pretty damn quickly or she may show up for work one day, only to find the doors locked and armed guards posted to keep all Democrats out.

Paranoid? BushCo isn't capable of such actions? They're the very embodiment of governmental moderation?


We'll see. I'd vastly prefer to be a certified drooling paranoid than watch BushCo make a clairvoyant out of me.



wp

[Madspirit]

8. k&r...n/t

[EFerrari]

9. K&R

Nicely done, warren. :)

[Psyop Samurai]

10. Wow... you don't mess around...

Recommended, and off to view your journal.

[warren pease]

11. No, I don't, at least when I think somebody deserves a decent defense..

And if ever there were such a person, Cindy Sheehan is the one. I would suggest that she's done more to put a human face on the anti-war movement, and on the ultimate cost of war to those left holding the pathetically trivial folded flags, and to place the blame exactly -- EXACTLY -- where it belongs...

Her presence in the public conscience is worth that of 100 Nancy Pelosis, who wouldn't know political courage if it bit her in the ass. I'm so very, very sick of those who swear the Dems have this fantastic, all-encompassing plan to rid the world of BushCo, but it just isn't obvious to the rest of us idiots, whose attention spans are too short to have the patience required to sit back and let the grand plan unfold.

Nonsense. There is no grand plan; there is no political courage on either side of the aisle; there is no political leadership on the Democratic side -- there is only the systematized bribery known as campaign financing, and the politics of appeasement, and the go-along-get-along back-slapping as Dems and GOPers all sit down together at the Georgetown Houston's franchise, and hugging Bushie as he makes his regal way down the aisle for yet another state of the union lie-fest, and constantly running for reelection, which eliminates any last traces of political integrity, and the snide bastards even ran bragging to the press about how they (the Dems) pulled yet another fast one on the saps who put them in office, fools like us thinking they actually meant it when they vowed to end the Iraqi genocide.

On the other hand, Cindy Sheehan could give them all a graduate course in ethical behavior, courage of convictions, acting out of conscience rather than expediency and, introducing an absolutely foreign concept, how to look yourself in the eye first thing in the morning and know you're still going to be able to do so late that same night.


All that, and a shameless kick too because I think this thread actually deserves one.



wp

[SPKrazy]

12. Cindy is right!

voting for funding for the war was a mistake

no ifs ands or buts

or bidens

[stevedeshazer]

14. You nailed it, my friend

For the record, this is the first and only Cindypalooza post I'll make.

[magellan]

15. Holy crap, that's good!

And if I'd seen it sooner I'd have recommended it. So here's a little kick instead for saying what needs to be said and doing it so well.

[warren pease]

18. You're too kind ;-)...

My contribution to the revolution as a 57-year-old recovering violent anarchist is trying to put into words what the younger version of me used to put into throwing bricks and overturning police cars, which were first set on fire for maximum visual effect and TV exposure -- stupid bastards the TV newsies were and remain, doing our PR work for us.

Those were the days when, despite the fact that we were probably as ineffectual as we are today at actually accomplishing any tangible objective, the simple act of pissing on the Man and his symbols of statist power was so much fun that inciting the robocops (or the tac squad, as they were then called) to new heights of impotent rage was worth the occasional bump on the head or a night in the drunk tank. And only the rookies showed up without football helmets, shin guards, steel-toed boots, and whatever else in the way of Goodwill-bought body armor we could find.

Now, unfortunately, those same actions can get you sent to Gitmo, tortured until you reveal how you stole the nuclear launch codes from that drunken sailor at the shuffle board table. No credible launch code story, no end to the torture. no release date.

Ahhh... How just a few years of raw fascism can fuck up an otherwise perfectly enjoyable country.

Anyway, thanks for the compliment and I'll give the thread a little kick myself, mainly because I'm nothing if not a raging egomaniac who can't go a day without seeing his pseudonym in print.


wp

[EFerrari]

16. Warren!

:applause:

[yurbud]

17. we are seeing fundamental problem with two party system--like blacks have for decades

Once LBJ signed Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the GOP started their Southern strategy, blacks have been solidly in the Democratic Party, and Democrats have just as dependably for the last 20 or so years at least done their best to downplay black loyalty to the party and do as little for them as possible because where could blacks go? It would be masochism to go back to GOP, and filling a third party would just mean two major parties would be actively dumping shit on them instead of one.

The peace movement is the same. One party is owned by the military industrial complex and big oil, and the other would like to be. The anti-war movement is like the long time girlfriend of the football team captain that he slaps around because he's mad he can't get the head cheerleader to go out with him.

If we had a true multi-party democracy, where you could vote for a third party without being a spoiler, no one could take such a large constiuency for granted.

[symbolman]

22. First, I'm not attacking you

You make good points. BUT, what is with all these people saying that Sheehan was being USED by the DEMS?

I was THERE, I filmed the Downing Street Memos in the basement of the Congress, when she was INVITED, and given HIGH Visibility by the Democrats, since the Right wing would NOT listen to her.

I was THERE when they were HUGGING HER in the corridors of congress, trying to HELP HER.

There is NO CYNICISM whatsoever, all done with good intent.

I'm frankly tired of hearing this bullshit, it's ISN'T TRUE. (Once again, not going after you Warren Pease, I love your mind and posts, just the statement that I'm hearing everywhere.)

One might say that since the Dems lost Power they are of NO USE to Sheehan anymore, and so she's moved ON.

And she QUIT, but Immediately went right back on the talk circuit, to talk about QUITTING, and now she's NOT QUITTING?

Cindy Sheehan needs HELP, and not the kind of Help that so many Synchophants are giving her right now. She needs to go talk to a Counselor and get her shit together, she's been through TOO MUCH fo any Human to bear, not just the shit throwers, but the ones that PROP her up as she destroys her health and put her in an Insane No WIN situation.

If people REALLY cared about HER, they'd get her to a DOCTOR, put her in BED, and tell her she ain't going ANYWHERE until she's WHOLE AGAIN. I suspect that given the circumstances, she's been ridden like a HORSE by the movement, with no thought for her own well being, and hasn't even had the time to properly Grieve for her SON.

Hence the breakdown on the anniversary of her son's Birthday. It's obvious to anyone who might consider HER NEEDS as a Human Being, but of course I'll be trashed for actually CARING ABOUT HER.

All the same, the Dems DID NOT USE HER, that is total Bullshit, and defames the DEMS who are going through enough already.

Thanks for your thoughts though, I have nothing but respect for YOU WP :)

[warren pease]

24. Now THAT'S an interesting take on the whole Cindy deification movement...

And no offense taken, Symbolman. You've always been one of my favorites around here, thoughtful and well-spoken (written?), and you even managed to get me to use the "genocide" term in every article or conversation about the Iraq miasma.

Anyway, I agree she probably needs to cool her jets for awhile. I sure as hell would if I'd been through a tenth of what she's been through. This last vote must have felt like the ultimate betrayal. She finally gets a Congress who gets elected because people believed they would end the war, and then they pull this shit.

As I wrote in another post, what I really admire and value about her is her unique ability to put a human face on the victims of this horrible misadventure, and on the bottomless despair that a parent must feel as they get their pathetic little token folded up flag -- symbolizing as it does now only the depravity of American fascism and imperialism, and the bastards who brought it all on us.

I don't see how her behavior defames the Dems, though. They've done so much to assure their places at the great liars' dice tournament in the sky that the scorn of one more woman wronged couldn't possibly tip the scales toward defamation any further. But I assume you've pondered that one, too, so tell me what you're thinking.

Anyway, all the best. Nice to hear from you again.



wp

[ComerPerro]

25. fuckin a, you said a mouthful