Hypocrisy

1. a pretense of having a virtuous character, moral or religious beliefs or principles, etc., that one does not really possess.

If there is one party who can really step into a mess, it’s the Democratic party.

If there is one party who can exploit that mess, it’s the Republican party. The republicans have a viciousness to them, a ‘pit bull’ streak that finds an opening and goes in for the kill. And like any wild animal when cornered, the attack is bloody and savage. Just look at the attacks on Nancy Pelosi over the last couple of weeks.

“I think this is the most despicable, dishonest and vicious political effort I’ve seen in my lifetime.”

“She is a trivial politician, viciously using partisanship for the narrowist of purposes, and she dishonors the Congress by her behavior.” -Newt Gingrich

Accusations of ‘viciously using partisanship’ from Newt Gingrich are not only comical but over the top,unabated, pure hypocrisy. Newt is the poster child for being the loudest one to complain, condemn and prosecute  someone else for doing exactly the same thing he was secretly doing.  As if his infidelity while his mission to attack Bill Clinton during the Lewinsky affair wasn’t proof enough of his hypocrisy, his problem of using tax-exempt funding to advance his political goals should have limited his ‘Pelosi dishonors Congress’ rhetoric. But, it didn’t.

Newt is old news though, an unimportant politically partisan pitbull hoping his hypocrisy has been forgiven. It hasn’t.  But what about newer more relevant GOP members?

“Lying to the Congress of the United States is a crime,” Boehner said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “And if the speaker is accusing the CIA and other intelligence officials of lying or misleading the Congress, then she should come forward with evidence and turn that over to the Justice Department so they can be prosecuted.”

He added: “And if that’s not the case, I think she ought to apologize to our intelligence professionals around the world.”

That’s right, Nancy Pelosi should apologize to the CIA from claiming that they have misinformed congress. It is a disparaging remark and like Boehner says, she needs to ‘put up or shut up’.

It doesn’t matter that Pelosi’s accusations that the CIA memo’s are misleading seem to be panning out or that even some Republicans agree that the briefing notes contain many errors, such as briefings that listed former Chairman Porter Goss as the head of committee when Rep. Pete Hoekstra had already taken over. Because Hoekstra says, those errors are meaningless

Of Course those errors are meaningless. It doesn’t matter that 2 separate briefings have a low-level staffer as  being in on the top-secret,code-word clearance briefings. It’s meaningless that this staffer says he was actually asked to leave, which would be expected since he  only  two walked members to the room. It doesn’t matter that this staffer,Paul Juola, has asked the CIA to “immediately correct this record.”

It doesn’t matter that former Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Bob Graham came out and said not only did the CIA hide details from him during his briefings, but that 3 of the 4 dates the CIA said they briefed Graham were in error

…he(Graham) asked agency officials to confirm how many times they briefed him on torture. They gave him four dates, but after Graham went through his personal records and disproved three of those dates, he said the agency admitted their mistake and confirmed that he had, in fact, received only one briefing.

When our intelligence agency says they briefed someone 4 times and they really only briefed them once, when they say the person who headed  the committee was someone who had already been replaced, when they say that they allowed a staffer in on a code-word clearance briefing, none of it is relevant, in fact it’s ‘meaningless’. But when you go out in public and say that the CIA is misleading congress, that disqualifies you as from continuing as speaker. Or so Newt Gingrich says.

“To have the person third in line to be president say that the CIA misleads us all the time is so utterly irresponsible and such an attack on the men and women who are risking their lives … that she disqualifies herself for being speaker of the House,”

Now, this has nothing to do with partisan attacks, Newt,Boehner and Hoekstra wouldn’t do that. No, they are truly outraged that someone would smear the CIA by claiming they have mislead congress on some issue…

Well, except when it’s Hoekstra, and the CIA has just destroyed torture video tapes that they were warned not to destroy. When that happens

…it’s important for Congress to hold this community accountable. This community did not tell — the CIA did not tell us about the existence of these tapes. They did not tell us that they were going to be destroyed. They need — there’s a Constitutional responsibility for them to keep Congress informed and they have not and we need to hold them accountable

Or so Mr. Hoekstra says.

It’s OK for Mr. Hoekstra to say the CIA  mislead Congress. Even better, when you are on Fox News being interviewed by Chris Wallace, it’s ok to get down right nasty on the CIA.

WALLACE: Congress man Hoekstra, Hayden appeared this week before your committee. Are you satisfied that over the years the CIA acted in good faith?

HOEKSTRA: No, I’m not. There are certain statements that might have been misleading to Congress as to exactly what existed. I think you’ve got a systemic problem here. I think the community is incomPetent. It is arrogant. And it has developed — it’s become political. This — you know, you take a look at wmd in iraq. They were wrong.

Hoekstra went even farther than just calling them arrogant,incompetant and saying that they have mislead congress , he also said

…you’ve got a community that’s incomPetent. They are arrogant and they are political, and they don’t believe that they are accountable to anybody. They don’t believe that they’re accountable to the president. They’ve clearly demonstrated through the tapes case that they don’t believe they are accountable to Congress. And when we are at war, that is a terrible position for the intelligence community to be. If they had done what they are supposed to do on the tapes, keep us informed, listen to the kind of recommendations that my colleague Jane Harman made to them, we wouldn’t even be having this discussion today. But because of their arrogance and their willingness to move independent, that’s it.

The CIA? they’re political? They don’t believe they are accountable the President much less Congress? They’re incompetent?  These are just a few of the things that are OK to say about the CIA, unless of course you’re Nancy Pelosi.

Quick question, if the CIA mislead Congress, destroyed evidence… are arrogant,political,incompetent and admittedly prone to briefing errors.. why exactly are we or the GOP taking anything the CIA says over Nancy Pelosi?

It wouldn’t be to get the stink of another political land-mine off of them would it?

“..when you say that the community is incompetent, I’m telling you I don’t have confidence in the community. You know, I have high confidence that the community continues to be broken and is not giving us as policymakers the information that we need to make good decisions.-HOEKSTRA

Hypocrisy

“She is a trivial politician, viciously using partisanship for the narrowist of purposes, and she dishonors the Congress by her behavior.” -Newt Gingrich

1. a pretense of having a virtuous character, moral or religious beliefs or principles, etc., that one does not really possess.

UPDATE

Yes, the CIA has lied to Congress and covered it up. I think Newt might be the one who should step down and go back into hiding, after apologizing to Pelosi of course…

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What the hell is wrong with Democrats? I don’t mean the vindictive bobble-head Pelosi, I’m talking about the idiots that are screwing up health care and trying to break California’s bank.

First we have democrats and union workers out in California crying foul that the The Govenator is forcing all state employees to take 2 days off a month without pay. So Arnie took them to court and won. Now the Democratic controller is refusing to follow the plan, which is forcing Arnie to go back to court and sue them again. I understand that huffing and puffing by the unions on this, it’s what they do.  But one woman is quoting as saying,

“It feels like we’re being punished because we chose a career in state government,” said Shelia Byars, 47, a hearing officer at the Department of Motor Vehicles in Van Nuys.

Ok first, NO ONE chooses a career  with the DMV. No one sits as a little girl or boy and dreams of that career.  I don’t know who she is trying to fool with that, I can only assume she is trying to fool the same people with her reason for not wanting to take the time off.

Byars, who expected to lose $400 a month, was among about a dozen union members protesting outside the agency’s office in downtown Los Angeles. She said it didn’t make sense to close 180 DMV locations because they collect revenue for the state through licenses and registration fees.

2 days off a month, equals a loss of $400? WTF? DMV workers make $200 a day? Damn, I’m going back to Cali…  I don’t think so.

What this stingy woman and the rest of the unions are missing is that  7.8 million American have been forced from their full-time job and into a part time position. 3.6 million American have completely lost their job since the recession started. California’s unemployment rate is over the national average of 7.6 at 9.3%.  On top of that they have a $42 Billion budget shortfall. But instead of thinking about all the people who are losing jobs

right and left, all of the people who will lose jobs if California doesn’t find $42 billion, the Democrat controller and the California unions are forcing the Government to spend more money and more resources to force them to follow a court order saying they must take 2 days off a month. It’s 2 days a month! The alternative is being forced to take 30 days off each and every month!  Christ! It’s take a village people, we’re all going to have to work together to help each other get through this. We’re all in an extreme emergency situation here,  I know it’s going to be hard, Believe me I KNOW. But look at the alternative, complete collapse of the state of California where all governmental agencies are closed. Imagine what life would have been like without the police during the riots or without the fire department during any year of fires. If the state controller won’t reduce the payroll of the states 15,000 workers then maybe 15,000 people should switch positions with 15,000 of the unemployed workers that are dying for some kind of job.

The second part of my “WTF are you doing Democrats?”, is the news that new health provisions have been inserted into the Stimulus.

The bill’s health rules will affect “every individual in the United States” (445, 454, 479). Your medical treatments will be tracked electronically by a federal system. Having electronic medical records at your fingertips, easily transferred to a hospital, is beneficial. It will help avoid duplicate tests and errors.

Being able to track medical records,tests and prescription is such an amazing accomplishment that I can’t understand why we have done it yet. I used to work in a pediatrician’s office and I can’t count the number of times a newborn would come into the office for treatment and we would have not one single record of what the baby was seen for in the hospital, what medications it was one, what immunization they’d had, what tests have been done. So many of those children had to repeat bloodtests,needles,xrays all because there is no easy way to get health records from ER’s or even other doctors. So that reason for the upgrade is not only commendable, but it’s long overdue. It’s the 2nd part that is shocking.

But the bill goes further. One new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective. The goal is to reduce costs and “guide” your doctor’s decisions (442, 446)

…

Hospitals and doctors that are not “meaningful users” of the new system will face penalties.  “Meaningful user” isn’t defined in the bill. That will be left to the HHS secretary, who will be empowered to impose “more stringent measures of meaningful use over time” (511, 518, 540-541)

What in the hell are you doing Democrats! This is effectively turning all health care into an HMO and we already know how shitty those are. In fact as democrat’s we’re supposed to be against businesses inferring in our lives and making our decisions for us. This is not what I signed up for when I said I would like to see a congressional/governmental-type health plan that is open to the nation. About the only thing that will make me change my stance and start rooting for this piece of shit is the snotty GOP member who says “I told you so.” like a snarky little bitch. Because no,  you didn’t tell me so. But you have fucked this whole thing up with your incessant whining about the Dems wanting some slight equality between the rich and the poor. It’s because of that whining that in order to get any kind of health reform we have to save massive amounts of money 1st and to do  that, we have to cut care. Your “I told you so” is nothing more than a self-fulling prophecy.

We should allow the doctors treating the patient to make the decisions on what the patient needs. Insurance adjusters or a government oversight committee have no business even dreaming of doing this. Unless of course you want to try a pilot program 1st and see how well it works, like say the Congressional Health Plan. Let them try this new criteria out for 12-24 months and the report back how well it worked out.

I still believe that there is a way to blend  both great health care and reasonable costs.

“..the federal government pays two-thirds of the premium and the Congressman pays the other one-third. This is comparable to insurance offered by many private employers.

It is legitimate to suggest that uninsured workers have the right to buy into one of the plans covering federal employees as a viable option for obtaining affordable health insurance. Since the group (all federal employees) is so large, the premiums are somewhat lower than policies offered to self-employed individuals or to the employees of small companies.

My mother has some of the best insurance I have ever seen, not only because of it’s cost but because of it’s coverage. Where did she get such great insurance and why is it so affordable? Because she was a mail carrier for 20 years and all mail carriers were allowed to buy into a fantabulous policy at an affordable rate because there were so many of them. Don’t tell me this couldn’t work on a national level! Don’t tell me that the US Postal Service is better at getting something done than the rest of us.

This single issue is enough for me to write and call my representatives and demand they vote NO the stimulus. I can overlook the retarded non-porkpork projects that the emotional stunted at 4 years old, Nancy Pelosi demands to be in there. I understand where her vindictiveness is coming from. For 8 long and painful years it was hard being a Democrat and being forced to swallow the lies,criticism,fear mongering and fraud thrown at us. It was hard to stand by and watch bills and money get passed around like drunken whores and having to stay quiet for fear that you would be labeled unpatriotic and told repeatedly that your service to your country was insufficient. To be slaughtered in public over and over for demanding a plan of action from your President in a post war Iraq,demanding fraud and theft be reigned in and daring to  so much as question your president. After 8 years of this kind of oppression it was bound to happen that once the Democrats won a victory, they would put the most vile of them all in charge to headbutt and kick the loser while he was down.  I understand this, even more I predicted it. I’ve said countless times to Republicans that eventually they would be on the bottom and when that happened,  the ones they oppressed for so long would stick it to them every chance they got. Like my screaming about the falling economy… it was just laughed at.

I understand her and some of the other Democrats cathartic need to ‘dance in the end zone’. So even though some of the planned projects, while creating jobs, could wait, I’m not ready to throw the entire stimulus out. For the same reason, I am not ready to throw it out because of the idiot tax-cut concessions that had to be made because whether they work or not, the GOP just has to have them in there. But this shit about letting a outside agency that has no direct knowledge of the situation at hand, deciding over the doctors and experts on hand which is the proper course of treatment will force me against this package.

I don’t know what the Democrats are thinking. Californians democrats would rather the entire state shut down than have 2 days off a month and Tom Daschle would rather a panel of ‘Joe the Plumbers’ decide our health care treatments.

This is not my idea of hope.

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Coming off a huge political map changing election, the first thing President Obama should do is walk into Nancy Pelosi’s office and demand that she, as the Speaker of the House, have a press conference and take blame for the mortgage failures that lead to the financial meltdown. No, he shouldn’t have Pelosi summoned to the Oval Office, he should walk himself into her lair. After he is finished making it clear to her who the democrat in charge really is, they both need to walk over to John Boehner office and demand the same thing.

In the spirit of true bi-partisanship it’s time for both sides to stop pointing the finger and just admit that they both screwed up. The Democrats wanted anyone and everyone to own a home so they helped to make the rules to buy homes a little bit weaker. The Republicans wanted less regulation and more money and saw an opportunity with the increased mortgages and opened the deregulated door to abuse. The only people that really care who opened which door are the guilty ones. The rest of us just want someone to stand up and fix the problem.

President Obama, coming to these 2 leaders instead of making them come to him sends a message. Coming off a massive election, he is the most powerful man in the world right now. With his massive wins not only with the popular vote, but the electoral college vote as well, he can get anything done at this moment. For him to walk over to Pelosi and Boehner puts the onus on them. His demands will either be met, or he will leave their office, hold a press conference explaining what he was doing and make sure that they are not elected when their terms are up.

Right now, in this country we don’t need to spend the time,money or effort on a bipartsian investigation that will conclude both parties are equally responsible. Let’s cut to the chase and get past the blame and onto fixing the damn problem.

With this new bipartisan love fest, all three can get together and find out just where in the hell $2 trillion went…

Nov. 10 (Bloomberg) — The Federal Reserve is refusing to identify the recipients of almost $2 trillion of emergency loans from American taxpayers or the troubled assets the central bank is accepting as collateral

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Back when the country was deciding on that $700 billion bailout, there was another bailout going on that wasn’t really talked about. For the $700 billion one, the Troubled Asset Relief Program,TARP, Treasury Secretary Paulson and The Fed, Ben Bernanke, were screaming for transparency, oversight, and protection.

`We Need Transparency’

“We need oversight,” Paulson told lawmakers. “We need protection. We need transparency. I want it. We all want it.”

They wanted it, they begged for it, they were asked who they loaned $2 Trillion dollars to and told the person asking …. no comment.

Wait…what?

The idea behind not telling anyone who received the money from the bailout we don’t know about is if people and other buisness’ knew, it will hurt the person or entity getting the loan. I guess government welfare isn’t just embarrassing to the poor.

The lack of transparency is also to keep corporate banking secrets within the corporation and not in the public where anyone can see it. I can understand that part. I guess we, John Q. Public, don’t really need to know who we’re loaning trillions of dollars to or what we can expect from them in the form of collateral and a return of the loan. But I would hope that someone would know.

Turns out, someone does so we don’t need to question it any longer.

In an interview Nov. 6, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank said the Fed’s disclosure is sufficient and that the risk the central bank is taking on is appropriate in the current economic climate. Frank said he has discussed the program with Timothy F. Geithner, president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and a possible candidate to succeed Paulson as Treasury secretary.

“I talk to Geithner and he was pretty sure that they’re OK,” said Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat. “If the risk is that the Fed takes a little bit of a haircut, well that’s regrettable.” Such losses would be acceptable, he said, if the program helps revive the economy.

See, Barney Frank says that it’s all probably OK. He’s pretty sure The Fed priced the assets for the collateral accordingly, he’s pretty sure The Fed is giving it to worthy banks, and he’s pretty sure The Fed isn’t giving it to any ‘golden parachutes‘. Well, Ok he isn’t really sure about any of that because The Fed has refused to answer any questions on the $2 trillion subject, but if Barney says it’s probably safe, why do we need to question anything? Especially when there are more pressing question like what President Elect Obama’s policy for the missile shield will be, or who his chief of staff will be. Priorities man, Priorities. Shrouded in total secrecy is what the current administration has cultured and continues to grow, and it’s worked out swimmingly so far.

Besides, what’s there to worry about…Barney Frank said he’s pretty sure it’s ok.

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UPDATE

It’s getting worse.

The original idea behind the bi-partsian $700 Billion bailout plan was for the Governement to step in and buy up some of the troubled assets that were hurting banks,thus damaging the market. That was the plan as we and Congree were told.

But that’s not what has been going on, even with the full transparancy. What I don’t understand, is why is noone saying anything about it?

This morning Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson addressed a skeptical press about the latest plans for those 700 billion dollars that were appropriated for the “TARP” — or Troubled Asset Recovery Program. Now Paulson says Treasury won’t buy those “Trouble Assets” — one of the many metamorphoses this program has had in its young life.

Wait..What? You asked for a blank check for $700 Billion. Said that it would be used to buy up troubled assets, even called the program the “TROUBLED ASSET RECOVERY PROGRAM”..but a few weeks later you decide you aren”t going to buy ‘troubled assets’ anymore.

They are buying bank stock, not troubled assets. We probably shouldn’t call it the TARP anymore. Instead, they are focused on a capital purchase plan (CPP) which is the widely reported $250 billion plan to use taxpayer money to purchase a stake in banks

If you’re sitting there reading this, you might be thinking exactly what I’m thinking and that’s
“What the Fuck?”

When did this happen? Who decided this?

The original CPP participants were told about the program at a closed-door meeting at Treasury and no minutes have been released on what was said during the meeting.

So, a secret,behind closed door meeting with no record of it every taking place. Now I know you are asking yourself the same thing I am.. “Is Dick Cheney a shape shifter?”

Is it a coincidence that there is all the secrecy with The Fed and the Treasury Secretary when over the last 8 years, we have seen the most secretive and powerful Vice President in history? I don’t think so.

All shape-shifter joking aside, this is getting pretty damn serious. We’re buying banks.

There is roughly $125 Billion left out of the $700 Bailout, that’s not being used for what it was named after and what it was promised for. There is another ‘open-door’ program going on behind the backs of everyone that has a tab of over $2 Trillion so far that we know. Both programs seem to working on the idea of ‘out of sight, out of mind’. Neither the ‘out in the open’ TARP program nor the other ’secret-key-holders only’ program seems to have any oversight whatsoever.

The Big 3 auto companies are withering and dying and begging for a hand and are being told ‘Yeah, sorry guys but we’re not socialist, and you’re not a bank so it’s sink or swim for you.”

Folks, while we were all worrying about whether or not Barack was a socialist because he wanted to help poor kids have healthcare, while we were distracted by some ridiculous campaign rhetoric, the biggest ‘bait and switch’ in American history has been playing out.

What is going on!?! I have always been a middle of the road democrat. I fall on the liberal side for some issues and the conservative side for others. While I’ve never ruled out voting for a republican, I have only ever voted democrat. I have spent the last few years gorging myself on the Bush’s admin polices, actions, cronyism, incompetence and deceitfulness just to vomited out tirade after tirade about the illegality of the man and everyone surrounding him. I have taken criticism for speaking out against a sitting President and have been called unpatriotic because I asked questions and didn’t support the ridiculous answers given. I have become polarized against the GOP over the last 8 years because of the likes of Cheney, Rove, Rumsfeld, Gonzales and Libby. For many millions of middle of the road democrats it has been a long 8 years, a tough 8 years hell, even a painful 8 years. But I have waited for the day when finally I get to do my part to rid the country of a Republican President and switch things up a little to help us get back a little closer to center.

So why I am looking at John McCain to be the next president?

What is wrong with this picture? I am attacking the only man who can bring about the change I so crave. I am attacking in the same way I attack Gonzales and his 72 “I don’t recall’s”. I am attacking him the same way I attacked Scooter Libby’s “The vice president told me to leak classified information to discredit Wilson”. I’m ranting about him the same way I ranted about “Good job Brownie”.

Why do I loathe and distrust the only democratic hope for president?

Because I know nothing about him. Well, I know that he will say whatever he needs to about any issue just to get votes. If your area doesn’t like off-shore drilling when comes there and gets in front of a TV or reporter he’ll tell you that he doesn’t approve of it either.

If your area seems to be ok with the idea, he’ll tell that well, he’s not really against off shore drilling.

If your for the rights of the people of the country and don’t believe the government should be able to do wiretap and listen in on it‘s citizens phone calls and the telecom companies shouldn’t get immunity, then he is with you. If you think that telecom companies should get retroactive immunity for illegally wiretapping the public and are for a bill that allows the government to keep on tapping it’s people, then he is with you too.

If you are against dirty politics in a campaign race and are just plain tired of the mudslinging. Obama is right there with you. In fact he doesn’t miss the opportunity to call people out for making things dirty. Of course it doesn’t bother him to go out imply that the only woman running has PMS when he said… ’periodically’ she has her ‘up’s and down’s’.

What is it about him that people support so whole heartedly. Yesterday’s headlines were, PELOSI HOLDING FIRM, BLOCKING OFFSHORE OIL DRILLING VOTE followed by “Obama shifts position on offshore oil drilling… *” If that is not the biggest slap in the face to Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats, what is? The FISA vote obviously wasn’t a hard enough slap because they just took it and kept going, so what will they do this time?

My guess? Nothing. What can they do. Dean and Pelosi did all they could to get one person out of the race that people knew everything about it in favor putting in the man no one, not even his ‘grass roots’ know anything about until he decides to tell them. But even that doesn’t matter because in the next town or the next speech he’ll just change his mind and tell those people what they want to hear. Even his pastor told us he would do that. Why nobody believed the man’s spiritual adviser to him and children for 20 years is still a mystery to me.

How can I vote for a man that has no one stance on any issue? Whose only accomplishment so far is that he can read a script off the teleprompter and make me believe him the same way Heath Ledger read his script and made believe he really was as evil as the Joker.

Maybe that’s what it is. In our fast-food, Hollywood celebrity sycophant society, we are drawn to the one who gives us the best ‘after school special’ speeches. We don’t have to hold him to those speeches and promises, because it’s TV and this is just a role he’s playing and like any good actor he can say what he wants and we forget what he just said the last time we saw him. Just look at Kevin Costner’s speeches in Bull Durham

and JFK

See, we can believe both depending on what ‘role’ he’s in. We don’t have to know what he truly stands for, we just have to believe in him.

The sad fact is we didn’t know anything about Obama when this all started. But he could sure talk. We threw out the people who had been around, who were known to the world, who policies and ideas and votes we could track and trace. We wanted flash and pizzazz and we got it. The republicans tried to do the same but ultimately chose the one with a past and a congressional record that is as long as War and Peace. Funny how the Democrats mocked them for this. Mocked the GOP for thinking they could put an old man with a 30+ year public past up against the new and fresh no-name from Chicago.

What I wouldn’t give now for someone with an actual stable record. Someone I can trust on Thursday to say the same thing on Friday.

Obama isn’t Presidential because of his senatorial voting, his political history, his 300 advisers, his “meet the Messiah” world extravaganza… he’s presidential because he watched “Jeb Bartlett” and learned how to give a good “episode ending, goose-bumpy” speech. So let’s reward him for that. But let that reward be an Oscar or an Emmy and save the Oval Office for someone with an actual plan.

Breaking news: The Surge worked.

Actually it’s not so breaking.  The results have been apparent for several months now.  Civilian casualties are down, military casualties are down, and acts of violence in general are down.  Iraq is no paradise, but on the other hand it’s not quite the hell on earth that could have safely described it in 2006.  It’s hard to argue now that it was the wrong strategy, so let’s take a look down memory lane and see who opposed it eh?

Senator John Kerry:  “The simple fact is that sending in over 20,000 additional troops isn’t the answer–in fact, it’s a tragic mistake. It won’t end the violence; it won’t provide security; …it won’t turn back the clock and avoid the civil war that is already underway; it won’t deter terrorists, who have a completely different agenda; it won’t rein in the militias.”

Kerry’s fellow Democratic Senator from Massachusetts, Ted Kennedy, declared the surge, “an immense new mistake.”  Kennedy actively tried to fight sending any more troops.

Senator Christopher Dodd, former Presidential candidate and onetime threesome partner with the previously mentioned Senator Kennedy:  “We don’t need a surge of troops in Iraq–we need a surge of diplomacy and politics. Every knowledgeable person who has examined the Iraq situation for the past several years–Baker and Hamilton, senior military officials, junior officers–has drawn the same conclusion–there is no military solution in Iraq. To insist upon a surge is wrong.”

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer (really, is that his real name?), when asked is she was worried that the gains of the surge might be lost if the troops were removed too hastily, “There haven’t been gains, Wolf…The gains have not produced the desired effect, which is the reconciliation of Iraq. This is a failure. This is a failure.”

Governor Bill Richardson, former Presidential candidate and yapping Vice Presidential wannabe had this to say on the surge:  “The president is wrong. We don’t need anymore troop surges, we need a diplomatic surge. We must get all our troops out of Iraq as soon as possible.”

Senator Joseph Biden, yet another former Presidential nominee, and currently running for either Obama’s Vice President or his Secretary of State, whichever will put him in front of the cameras the most, told this to Secretary of State Rice on the surge:  “We heard a plan to escalate the war, not only in Iraq but possibly into Syria and Iran as well…I believe the President’s strategy is not a solution, Secretary Rice, I believe it is a tragic mistake.”

And of course Senator Hillary Clinton, who tried to play the man in her ultimately failed Presidential race against Senator Barack Obama:  “Based on the president’s speech tonight, I cannot support his proposed escalation of the war in Iraq…The President simply has not gotten the message sent loudly and clearly by the American people, that we desperately need a new course. The president has not offered a new direction, instead he will continue to take us down the wrong road, only faster.”

There was some Democratic support however.  Senator Lieberman said this in support of the surge:  “it’s just unfair to our troops implementing the surge, to Gen. Petraeus, who helped create this totally different strategy — which is working — to essentially pull the rug out from under them, to take away their reason for fighting before they even have a chance.”

Oh wait, Lieberman is an independent now.  Although he caucuses with the Democrats he is regarded as traitor.  Quite a fall from being the Democratic Vice Presidential candidate 7 plus years ago.  But I don’t want to make it sound like only Democrats opposed the surge.  There was some Republican opposition as well. 

Retiring fence sitter and amateur historian Senator John Warner had this to say, “Young men and women of US forces and coalition forces should not be caught in the crossfire of a civil war prompted by who should have succeeded Mohammed in — what is it? — 650 AD?”

Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel, who teased the country on his decision to think about deciding to consider whether to entertain the notion of running for President, had this to say:  “This is a dangerously wrong-headed strategy that will drive America deeper into an unwinnable swamp at a great cost. We cannot escape the reality that there will be no military solution in Iraq.”

But right now, the opinions of those who matter most are the two Presidential candidates, John McCain and Barack Obama.  Come January of next year, no matter who wins, George Bush will be packing his bags and whatever White House towels he can get away with.  As he leaves, his policies leave with him.

McCain’s views on the surge are well known.  In fact, you could argue that he risked his political career on the surge.  But what did fellow contender, Barack Obama have to say?

Before the surge: “It is clear at this point that we cannot, through putting in more troops or maintaining the presence that we have, expect that somehow the situation is going to improve, and we have to do something significant to break the pattern that we’ve been in right now.”

After the surge was announced:  “I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq are going to solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, I think it will do the reverse.”

Of course you will have to look a little bit for Obama’s earlier comments now.  He scrubbed his website to clear out his previous anti surge comments.  Now, guess what?  The surge worked:  “In the 18 months since President Bush announced the surge, our troops have performed heroically in bringing down the level of violence. New tactics have protected the Iraqi population, and the Sunni tribes have rejected Al Qaeda–greatly weakening its effectiveness.”

Hey, anyone can be wrong.  It’s possible that someday I might be wrong about something.  It’s not likely, but never say never.  But it’s stunning when an entire political party is wrong about something so important.  The Democratic Party and the mainstream media was as one on the idea a year and a half ago that the surge couldn’t work and shouldn’t be tried. 

In this election, Barack Obama isn’t running on the experience card.  McCain has that locked up.  He’s running on his judgment. Because he opposed the war on Iraq, he is somehow supposed to have better judgment?  Sean Penn opposed the war too and he thought it was a good idea to marry Madonna.  His supposedly superior judgment had him opposing the surge too.

It wasn’t judgment that had Obama opposing the war,  it was the reflex of the anti-war left.  The same reflex that had him oppose the surge.  I’m still waiting for an example of his good judgment.