by GEF @ 9:52 AM MST
When the question was put to Clinton, she reverted to her usual cautious equivocation, saying: “It is very difficult to know what we’re going to be inheriting.”
Obama dodged, too: “I think it would be irresponsible” to say what he would do as president”.
WASHINGTON — President Bush has no better friends than the spineless Democratic congressional leadership and the party’s leading presidential candidates when it comes to his failing Iraq policy.
Those Democrats seem to have forgotten that the American people want U.S. troops out of Iraq, especially since Bush still cannot give a credible reason for attacking Iraq after nearly five years of war.
Last week at a debate in Hanover, N.H., the leading Democratic presidential candidates sang from the same songbook: Sens. Hillary Clinton of New York, and Barack Obama of Illinois and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards refused to promise to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq by 2013, at the end of the first term of their hypothetical presidencies. Can you believe it?
When the question was put to Clinton, she reverted to her usual cautious equivocation, saying: “It is very difficult to know what we’re going to be inheriting.”
Obama dodged, too: “I think it would be irresponsible” to say what he would do as president.
Edwards, on whom hopes were riding to show some independence, replied to the question: “I cannot make that commitment.”
They have left the voters little choice with those answers.
Some supporters were outraged at the obfuscation by the Democratic front-runners.
On the other hand, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, and Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., are more definitive in their calls for quick troop withdrawals.
But Biden wants to break up Iraq into three provinces along religious and ethnic lines. In other words, Balkanize Iraq.
To have major Democratic backing to stay the course in Iraq added up to good news for Bush.
Now comes a surprising Clinton fan.
President Bush told Bill Sammon — Washington Examiner correspondent and author of a new book titled “The Evangelical President” — that Clinton will beat Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination because she is a “formidable candidate” and better known.
Sammon says Bush revealed that he has been sending messages to Clinton to urge her to “maintain some political wiggle room in your campaign rhetoric about Iraq.”
The author said Bush contends that whoever inherits the White House will be faced with a potential vacuum in Iraq and “will begin to understand the need to continue to support the young democracy.”
Bush ought to know about campaign rhetoric. Remember how he ridiculed “nation building” in the 2000 presidential campaign? Now he claims he is trying to spread democracy throughout the Middle East.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is another Democratic leader who has empowered Bush’s war.
Pelosi removed a provision from the most recent war-funding bill that would have required Bush to seek the permission of Congress before launching any attack on Iran. Her spokesman gave the lame excuse that she didn’t like the wording of the provision. More likely, she bowed to political pressure.
Is it any wonder the Democrats are faring lower than the president in a Washington Post ABC approval poll? Bush came in at 33 percent and Congress at 29 percent.
Members of Congress seem to have forgotten their constitutional prerogative to declare war; World War II was the last time Congress formally declared war.
Presidents have found other ways to make end runs around the law, mainly by obtaining congressional authorization “to do whatever is necessary” in a crisis involving use of the military. That’s the way we got into the Vietnam and Iraq wars.
So what are the leading Democratic White House hopefuls offering? It seems nothing but more war. So where do the voters go who are sick of the Iraqi debacle?
It’s clear that Democrats are not ready to lead in 2008.
Most of the Republican front runners aren’t ready to lead either in 2008.
However the underdog Ron Paul is looking better and better every day!
2008 Ron Paul for President!
Here’s a real good Ticket for 2008: “RON PAUL AS PRESIDENT AND “NEW POLITICIANS” TO REPLACE TREASONOUS GOP and DEM INCUMBENTS IN THE HOUSE and SENATE IN 2008.”
This would ensure that the GOP get a bloody beating in 2008 and the Democrats won’t be able to establish more of the same!
Keep Paul. His attitude towards gay marriage and reproductive choice make him a non-starter.
Kucinich is on the right path. And over in Gopperdom, Chuck Hagel was making more and more sense (which is why he’s retiring, no doubt.) And all of them who say we’ll be in Iraq till 2013 are LIARS anyway; we have neither the military strength nor the resources to carry on for more than about 1 more year, and everybody knows it.
Helen Thomas with slinky toys…zzzZZZ*???! 😆
It doesn’t get any better than this GEF. This is the straight skinny from the grand old Lady of the White House press conferences. Helen has been instilling fear in Duhbya since day one of his residency and these slinky losers will soon be feeling the same when the grass roots folks all stand up at once and, once again, make their wishes known.
Dennis Kucinich has a lot more support than the MSN will admit. I think that Ron Paul has a lot of good ideas, but the only way I’ll vote for him is if Kucinich is the veep. It would be the Republicans worst nightmare, with the exception of Helen Thomas…Heehehehehe
To like Helen Thomas is to like Ron Paul..
Ron Paul instills fear in both the Republicans and the Democrats as well.
This means to me that Ron Paul is the right choice for 2008 and the way mass media ignores him, they know it too!
I wouldn’t mind a Kucinich Veep at all.
Anyone who makes the right decision to Impeach Cheney(HR. 333) should be rewarded with Cheney’s job!
Hee hee hee! 😉
Paul is an old fashioned conservative, meaning letting the starving and indigent beg on street corners and in bread lines. But at least he’s a Constitutionalist, not a fascist. That’s where his popularity lies.
Kucinich, I don’t know so much about since the skinny on him seems to get lost in the Shillary selection process. It would be nice to get a return to a democratic Republic, but I fear we’ve reached a point of no return here.
Yep…All we need now is a couple of Faux Republican
senators… 😎
Jolly Roger,
Remember that the President is not the only person in government.
Whatever his attitudes towards Gays and Abortion rights, he is not the only one that has a say in government.
If anything you should focus your energy on the true culprits of law interpretation as well as reverse interpretations in order to create laws which they are not supposed to do(Congress’ job).
The culprit here is the Supreme Court and that should be your focus.
Dad2059,
That’s my point we need to restore the republic and that should be our first priority.
The Bush Administration and Congress have lead us too far into the pit of the UN and corporate globalism.
This is incompatible with American values and we are seeing that incompatibility in the polls as Americans are refusing to accept both the Bush/Cheney Administration and Congress’ current path.
If we cannot take our nation back from Corporatism then we cannot re-establish social programs and we will have even more starving and indigents in the street which we also saw with the Clinton presidency.
So our first priority should be to restore the Republic.