animaux

Sep 24, 2003

Touchy, touchy, touchy

The GOP, feeling the heat over the failures of Bush's War, lashed out against
Sen. Kennedy
(http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=584&ncid=584&e=2&u=/nm/20030923/pl_nm/iraq_usa_congress_dc).

The Iraq conflict spilled onto the Senate floor on Tuesday as Republicans and
Democrats slugged it out over comments by Sen. Edward Kennedy that the war was a
"fraud" launched for political reasons.

In bitter exchanges, Republicans said Kennedy should be rebuked and said he was
hurting U.S. troops, while Democrats charged that Republicans were trying to
divert attention from rising costs and shortcomings of President Bush's effort
to rebuild Iraq.

Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat, told the Associated Press in Boston on
Thursday that "this was made up in Texas, announced in January to the Republican
leadership that war was going to take place and was going to be good
politically. This whole thing was a fraud." Texas is Bush's home state.

So what where the GOP arguments? Get this:
Senate Armed Services Committee (news - web sites) Chairman John Warner, a
Virginia Republican, talked of a serviceman's "young wife surrounded by small
children" who "hear that this whole thing has been a fraud. Is that safeguarding
those put in harm's way? I say no."

Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison complained that Kennedy was making "a slur"
on her home state of Texas "to say this plot was made up" there.

In the House of Representatives, Majority leader Tom DeLay, a Texas Republican,
called Kennedy's statements "as disgusting as they are false," and said Kennedy
owed Bush and the country an apology.

So, the GOoPers argue, saying the president waged war under false pretenses for
political reasons 1) endangers the troops, somehow, 2) slurs Texas because --
I'm not sure why, and 3) is "disgusting".

Yeah. This is disgusting (http://lunaville.org/warcasualties/Summary.aspx). Five
soldiers dead in the last four days is disgusting. $7.25 billion a week on an
unencessary war is disgusting. The stiffling of the Kay Report
(http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=536&e=3&u=/ap/20030924/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/iraq_weapons_hunt),
which was supposed to expose Saddam's extensive WMD program (after moving the
goalposts away from finding actual weapons), is disgusting.

And I find it disgusting that Republicans, faced with pointed criticism, can do
no better than whine about the "tone" of Kennedy's critiques.

They need to own up to their president's ****up. They need to justify the loss
of each and everyone of our soldiers' lives.

But I won't hold my breath.

http://www.dailykos.com/archives/004292.html#004292