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Politics : I Will Continue to Continue, to Pretend.... -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sully- who wrote (18911)	3/23/2006 7:57:25 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

WE LOVE SENATOR CENSURE Byron York The Corner One more interesting thing about the DailyKos poll, this one about the Democratic presidential race. To no one's surprise, Russell Feingold is the Kossacks' choice; his support in the last six polls dating to last July has gone from ten percent to 16 percent to 19 percent to 30 percent to 48 percent today. He is far, far ahead of the second-place finisher, Wesley Clark, who reached 35 percent last fall but is now at 15 percent. Next is Mark Warner, with 11 percent, and then John Edwards, with seven percent. Among other candidates, Hillary Rodham Clinton, the far-and-away frontrunner in polls of Democrats as a whole, has hit a new low in the Kos community. She was never very high, but her support has gone from ten percent last fall to two percent today -- behind the "Other" and "No Freakin' Clue" categories, but ever-so-slightly ahead of John Kerry and Joseph Biden, who each have one percent. corner.nationalreview.com

To: Sully- who wrote (18911)	3/27/2006 12:51:40 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Feingold Campaigns For Retreat From Iraq -- In Iraq By Captain Ed on War on Terror Captain's Quarters We used to say that American politics stopped at the water's edge, a reminder that we confine our policy debates within our own borders and project a united front abroad. That splendid tradition died a few years ago, starting with Jimmy Carter's open conflict with Bill Clinton in North Korea and Haiti and escalating during the war on terror. However, American politicians have at least understood that when traveling to the war zone, the troops and the public expect them to stick to supportive statements and not engage in protests against our mission. At least, they used to understand that -- but Wisconsin Senator and 2008 presidential hopeful Russ Feingold decided to make his visit to Iraq a soapbox to bolster his anti-war credentials: <<< The increasingly rancorous public debate in the United States over the war spilled into Iraq during a news conference Saturday with two visiting lawmakers who are outspoken in their opposing stands on the issue. Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a longtime supporter of the Bush administration's Iraq policy, and Russell Feingold (D-Wis.), who voted against the invasion and has spoken out against the war ever since, said they had come not to air their divergent views but to urge Iraqi politicians to speed up the process of forming a government. But during questions from reporters, they argued -- cordially and pointedly -- over such issues as the timing of any withdrawal of U.S. troops and whether their continued presence is doing more harm than good. Feingold said he believed "a large troop presence has a tendency to fuel the insurgency because they can make the incorrect and unfair claim that the U.S. is here to occupy the country." "I think that it's very possible that the sectarian differences are inflamed by the fact that U.S. troops are here," he continued, adding that their long-term presence "may well be destabilizing, not stabilizing." >>> John McCain declined to get any further into the argument, telling reporters that the debate belonged on the Senate floor. It certainly didn't belong in Baghdad, where our troops have put their lives at risk to make their mission a success, and where the terrorists could find encouragement in his repetition of their own propaganda. Even Rep. Tom Udall, Feingold's Democratic colleague from New Mexico and a member of the delegation in Baghdad, noted that Feingold had broken the tradition of avoiding disagreements abroad, especially in a war zone. Wisconsin voters should be ashamed of their Senator. It's bad enough that Feingold is using an extra-Constitutional censure against George Bush in order to bolster his candidacy. Now he has to take his defeatist demands for retreat into the war zone while we're fighting al-Qaeda and attempting to rebuild Iraq into a representative democracy. It's a shameful episode that may not have any equivalent in American history. The Senate should immediately consider a censure of Russ Feingold for his shocking political exploitation of what should have been a nonpartisan investigatory trip to Baghdad. The Senate needs to set an example of how lawmakers traveling to Baghdad should comport themselves while representing America in Iraq. Using such a trip as a soapbox in this manner should not be tolerated. UPDATE: Udall may have noted that Feingold broke tradition, but that didn't stop him from chiming in himself. Chris at In The Bullpen notes in an e-mail that Udall also told reporters that the US should abandon Iraq: <<< "The longer we say, as President Bush did this week, that we're going to be there until 2009, what incentive is there for the Iraqis to step forward?" said Udall, who voted against going to war and who has advocated rapid troop withdrawal for many months. On Saturday, Udall used the term "redeploy" instead of "withdraw," explaining US forces should be moved to Kuwait and nearby nations to "get the best result for our troops and the Iraqis." >>> We should censure Udall, too. These arguments could easily have waited until both were back in the US. Instead, the two Democrats decided to grandstand on the backs of our troops. captainsquartersblog.com washingtonpost.com inthebullpen.com jpost.com