http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/print?id=2805714
Pelosi Won't Block Funding to Stop Iraq Troop Surge....Okay, let me get this straight. These were the guys it was so important to elect to Congress. But we're to understand clearly that they're not expected to do anything. They're not even expected to have any ideas about what they would do if there were, in Sawyer's wooly phrase, a "conflagration."
Nancy Pelosi Tells ABC News' Diane Sawyer That Bush 'Has to Answer for This War'...Nancy Pelosi says she won't block funding for additional troops.... Democrats in Congress would not be held responsible for putting the soldiers in the troop surge in additional harm's way by blocking funds....
Sawyer: Are you going to move to cut off funding for troops going into Iraq as part of the surge?
Pelosi: Democrats will never cut off funding for our troops when they are in harm's way, but we will hold the president accountable.... That's why Congress will vote to oppose the president's escalation, from the standpoint of policy. We will have our disagreement.
Sawyer: But short of that -- questions posed, resolutions passed -- short of that, are you acquiescing in the surge if the pocketbook is the only other control mechanism?
Pelosi: The president knows that because the troops are in harm's way, that we won't cut off the resources....
Sawyer: You have talked about beginning withdrawals in four to six months. Everyone would like to know, what would you propose that we do if suddenly it looks like a complete conflagration? What is the Democratic plan in the event of that?
Pelosi: First of all, [it is] the president's war. He's the one without a plan....
Sawyer: Can you fathom any circumstance under which you would say, "No, leave troops there?"
Pelosi: Well, you always evaluate circumstances as they are a threat to the United States and what we do must make the American people safer, not weaken our military, and bring stability to the region.
And they're going to insist on using migraine-inducing cliche phrases, over and over. "In harm's way" -- the reek of beery war-buff sentimentality off that one is enough to choke a turkey buzzard. I guess it's the new "boots on the ground."
Comments (10)
nothing nothing can be done
to get the american people out of HAMS way
Posted by js paine | January 19, 2007 5:34 PM
Posted on January 19, 2007 17:34
"the reek of beery war-buff sentimentality"
Yes, nicely said, Michael. Harm's Way: Pelosi should christen a street in her district by that name, say, with a bag of plasma. These cliches are the mutterings of a hollow land and its hollowest elites.
It's infuriating to see these faux governors pretending the war is someone else's fault. In fact, even apart from their eager concupiscence in 2003, the subsquent misery of Iraq and of its invaders has been leveraged by the Dems as an electoral gift, the happiest of outcomes: a welcome plague. All that sorrow is their sugar.
Simpering moral accomplices, they belong at the Hague right alongside Bush. You mentioned the other day that we might return the favor of being hated by Democrats; Pelosi makes it easy.
Posted by Reechard | January 20, 2007 1:29 AM
Posted on January 20, 2007 01:29
To their credit, the Democrats really didnt run against the war. Even Murtha just wants to redeploy to the bases and monitor the civil war. These power brokers in both parties are caught between a fragmented ruling class and AIPAC on one side and an uppitity hoi polloi on the other side. Neither the Empire nor Zionism will survive walking away from Iraqi oil and Iraq, respectively. It's a serious problem for them, and probably "us". I will admit that while being morally conflicted, living in the belly of the beast has been pretty sweet.
Posted by Jesus Reyes | January 20, 2007 4:10 AM
Posted on January 20, 2007 04:10
Our 24/7 dumbed-down infotainment media has consistantly (and inaccurately) portrayed democrats generally, and Murtha's Airwar Plan specifically, as being the left "antiwar" camp. Thus the supposed "mandate to end the war" you keep hearing lackwit pundits blithering on about. Empty catch-phrases like "in harms way" are just easy for empty talking heads like Sawyer to focus upon.
Posted by AlanSmithee | January 20, 2007 9:30 AM
Posted on January 20, 2007 09:30
jesus
" Neither the Empire nor Zionism will survive walking away from Iraqi oil and Iraq.."
now that mate may be too strong a statement
walk away they could with ease from the oil
in fact keeping the oil of meso potamia
off the global markets
has lots of "special rooters"
on the other hand
now
walking away
FROM IRAQ ITSELF
has to be loked at carefully
by all board members of the empire
hence the surge
which is really the cover for a pause...
to actually get a handle on the cascade apres walk away
so they can jointly
bi partisanly
plan accordingly
ah ..
indeed t'is time for
the vital center of empire
to "trim sails"
Posted by js paine | January 20, 2007 11:41 AM
Posted on January 20, 2007 11:41
Reechard:
I thought something similar when all the feminist blogs started crowing about what a breakthrough it is to have Pelosi wearing the crown. These are spaces in which I can't get a dialogue about election reform going to save my life. Pelosi is now officially the feminist version of "I got mine." Who needs proportional representation or other reforms to increase voter turnout and the numbers of women getting elected to office (the latter is a well-documented result in several nations that employ proportional representation) ? Pelosi pulled herself up by her own bootstraps, so why can't the rest of the sisters do it for themselves under our fabulous current system ?
Gack.
Posted by ms_xeno | January 20, 2007 11:55 AM
Posted on January 20, 2007 11:55
Pelosi is now officially the feminist version of "I got mine."
Succinctly put, Ms X.
Posted by AlanSmithee | January 20, 2007 8:36 PM
Posted on January 20, 2007 20:36
Most purely mechanical (or too clever by half) schemes of uplift of one's kind end up morphing int\
o sclerotic knee jerk reaction. FYI, an interesting essay on related themes...
Posted by sk | January 21, 2007 10:44 AM
Posted on January 21, 2007 10:44
I'm with you, Ms X. Pelosi's turbo McMansion feminism may be more enlightened than, say, the buckshot worldview of D. Cheney. But as you pithily say this championing her on identity grounds is just more "I Got Mine."
Posted by Reechard | January 23, 2007 12:55 AM
Posted on January 23, 2007 00:55
Jesus:
"To their credit, the Democrats really didnt run against the war."
I think they eagerly accomodated the war in 2003 for insulation against the usual 98-lb. weakling charges, heightened as never before by 9-11. In 2006 they tried to have it both ways: Look at us, we're the patriots who'll do anything for our troops, unlike that incompetent who has led us into a morass--a morass from which we will never waver in our proud commitment, etc.
I find it hard to give them the least credit as these gambits are wagered in others' tears.
Posted by Reechard | January 23, 2007 1:13 AM
Posted on January 23, 2007 01:13