Dance of the Democrats

[Guest guest]

S

Sat, 24 Sep 2005 03:37:23 EDT

Dance of the Democrats

 

 

My choice of all of them would be Al Gore. If bush had not been put

into office illegally by the supreme court,

 

*

9/11 probably would not have happened,

*

we would definitely not be in Iraq and he would not have lied to

us about reasons,

*

he would be doing whatever he could about global warming, and

working with the rest of the world

*

he would not allow all our wildlife to be sold off,

*

funds would not have been slashed for the levees,

*

and he would have made appointments for the best person possible

instead of paybacks for unqualified idiots.

*

We would not have to worry about our civil rights getting trashed,

*

and we would not have trillions of dollars in debt due to war to

halliburton and cheney or bechtel, etc.

*

He would uphold the constitution by appointing supreme court

justices who do not demean civil rights.

*

The rest of the world would still love us --

*

and we would have someone we could be proud of.

*

We'd probably have some type of affordable health insurance for

all unless the idiot republicans voted against it.

 

I have a friend who hates paying money to the poor because some take

advantage she says. Yet she is okay with a war costing

billions/trillions of dollars -- when it was not a mistake, was not

bad intelligence...but they purposely lied to us about reasons. So she

prefers the money go to halliburton/cheney and a war of lies than poor

or needy because there are some who slip through the cracks and take

advantage. These people that think that way call themselves the

" moral " half. <sigh>

 

The dance of the Democrats

 

With his approval ratings stuck around 40 percent and a new poll

showing that fewer than half of all Americans believe the United

States will win the Iraq war, George W. Bush is the one who ought to

be sweating these days. But why are the Democrats in Washington

looking every bit as uncomfortable as the president does?

 

They're having to take sides. The Republicans' flip-flopping charges

against John Kerry were often overstated and unfair, but there's a

kernel there that's true: Politicians, and not just Democratic ones,

don't like getting pinned down too hard on things, especially when

there's no easy answer, when political calculations point in two

different directions and when the ultimate ramifications of coming

down on one side or the other will depend on events outside of your

control. And this week in Washington -- first with the votes on John

Roberts, now with the Cindy Sheehan's visit to the capital --

Democrats in the Senate are being asked to take sides.

 

On Sheehan, they're steering clear or hedging their bets. As Knight

Ridder reports, neither Howard Dean, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry nor

Russ Feingold will attend this weekend's big antiwar protest in

Washington. The Village Voice reports that Clinton and Reid did make

time to meet with Sheehan in Washington yesterday, but Clinton made

sure to sit down with members of the American Gold Star Mothers on the

very same day. After the meetings, Clinton said that she has been and

remains critical of Bush's handling of the war, but she continues to

resist calls to set a timeline for bringing the troops home. " I think

it is a much more complicated situation, " she said.

 

Voting on the Roberts nomination has proved to be a little

" complicated, " too. Democrats are doing a dance. When everyone from

Howard Dean to Democratic Leadership Council president Bruce Reed is

calling for a no vote on Roberts, you'd think it would be hard for

even the most conservative Democratic senator to vote yes. But at

least 11 Democrats will vote in favor of Roberts' confirmation --

including Feingold, the only Democrat in the Senate to call for a

timetable leading to the withdrawal of troops from Iraq.

 

Why is Feingold voting for Roberts? At yesterday's session of the

Senate Judiciary Committee, he said that he wanted to set a precedent

for Republicans to vote for a " Democratic John Roberts " sometime down

the road. But Feingold -- and other Democrats who vote yes on Roberts

-- may have a more immediate goal in mind: If they vote for Roberts

now, they may think, they'll be better positioned to lead the charge

against Bush's next nominee. As for the 12 Democrats who say they'll

vote no on Roberts? That list is heavily populated with senators --

Clinton, John Kerry, Joe Biden -- who are looking to run for the

presidency in 2008. You need the Democratic base to get through the

primaries, and you can't keep it by voting to confirm a chief justice

who may end up trying to reverse Roe v. Wade.

 

Or can you? As Markos Moulitsas Zúniga explains, Democrats looking for

purity from their presidential candidates are going to have a tough

time finding it in the 2008 field. Clinton, Kerry and Biden will vote

no against Roberts -- and John Edwards says he would, too, if he were

still in the Senate -- but they all voted to authorize the use of

force in Iraq. Feingold voted against the war, but he'll vote for

Roberts. Wes Clark doesn't have to vote on Roberts, but he equivocated

about the war and now is urging Democrats not to push for a timetable.

There's always Dean, who opposed the war from the beginning and has

called for a " no " vote on Roberts, but he says he's not running in

2008. What's a Democrat to do? Writing in the New York Post, Deborah

Orin says to keep an eye on Al Gore.

 

-- Tim Grieve

 

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/index.html?blog