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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (95042)	1/28/2005 10:23:16 AM
From: James R. Barrett	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 108807

"The election in Iraq will be interesting, and what happens afterwards will be even more interesting." Not only interesting but also entertaining. The Shiites will slaughter the Sunnis and they will call it the "final solution". This will be best for all concerned Americans.

To: epicure who wrote (95042)	1/28/2005 10:37:54 AM
From: Oeconomicus	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

Hoping for failure still, I see. Just like Ted Kennedy and the gang of 13. Joe Lieberman gets it. Joe Biden gets it. Even Hillary gets it. Lucky for the GOP, most Dems don't. Harry Reid's Choice online.wsj.com January 28, 2005; Page A8 The previous Senate Democratic leader, Tom Daschle, is pursuing life in the private sector after, well, let's call it an involuntary retirement. His successor, Harry Reid of Nevada, now has to decide if he wants to lead his party with the same strategy. Mr. Reid is getting lots of advice from his peers, notably Ted Kennedy. The old liberal chieftain has been giving speeches trying to rally his party's remnants for one more attempt at total, unrelenting opposition to President Bush. For the flavor of his counsel, we suggest readers look at Teddy's January 12 speech to the National Press Club. His message is that the recent election essentially meant nothing. "We as Democrats may be in the minority in Congress, but we speak for the majority of Americans," declared the man who has four fewer Democratic Senate colleagues than he did before November 2. "Iraq is George Bush's Vietnam," he added, elaborating in another speech yesterday that "the war in Iraq has become a war on the American occupation." This, on the eve of an election in which millions of Iraqis will risk their lives to create a new self-governing country (see above). He also called for a precipitous American pullout that coincides with the wishes of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, among others who are assassinating Iraqi democrats. Meanwhile, back in the Senate, 12 Democrats and "independent" James Jeffords voted this week against Condoleezza Rice's nomination to become Secretary of State, and eight voted in committee against Alberto Gonzales to be Attorney General. Two of them, California's Barbara Boxer and Minnesota's Mark Dayton, didn't merely say they disagreed with Ms. Rice on Iraq but also called her a liar. "I don't like to impugn anyone's integrity," Mr. Dayton said, "but I really don't like being lied to repeatedly, flagrantly, intentionally." He's apparently referring to the prewar claims of WMD stockpiles in Iraq that John Kerry, Bill and Hillary Clinton, and everyone else in Washington once thought existed because Saddam Hussein had booted out U.N. inspectors and failed to obey 17 U.N. resolutions. It seems clear that, even so soon after the election, the Kennedy-Dayton Democrats are determined to be the antiwar, or maybe just the anti, party. It's also obvious that not all Senate Democrats think this is the best way to behave, either for the country's sake or for their own prospects in 2006. Joe Lieberman seems to be one of the doubters, giving a passionate speech this week urging his colleagues to confirm Ms. Rice. We suspect others have similar qualms, but as a Democrat it's hard to speak up against the Kennedy-Dayton-Moveon.org desire to stand athwart history yelling "stop!" As the new Senate leader, Mr. Reid is going to have to decide whose side he's on. From his days as minority whip, he knows that the Daschle strategy of fighting everything cost Democrats two seats in 2002 and four more last year. More broadly, Democrats have now lost three national elections in a row, the last two in part because of perceptions that they were weak on national security. Maybe it's time to try something else. Democrats could even try to work with the White House to solve some problems, and get some credit for doing so. Certainly that strategy might help some individual Senators running for re-election to keep their seats. The Kennedy Democrats are betting that Iraq will become such a quagmire that they can safely run against the war and prosper in 2006 on a voter backlash. But even if they're right about Iraq, it's just as possible that voters won't want to reward Democrats who sound like they're cheerleading for America to fail. Tom Daschle lost his majority and then his own career taking Ted Kennedy's advice. Democrats who want their party to succeed had better hope Harry Reid doesn't make the same mistake.