The Gift Of 20/20 Hindsight

[proud2BlibKansan]

by John Bruhns

Democrats in Congress have a new plan to win back the White House. The strategy is to avoid any war-funding showdown with President Bush that would take place anytime near election day. How will they do this? A plan is currently in the works to combine the remainder of the FY 08' supplemental ($102 billion dollars for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan) with an additional $70 billion dollars in war funding that would fully fund the war into the next Administration. The idea is to appropriate all war funding as soon as possible in the hopes that voters will forget this betrayal by November.

It seems like a very backward strategy being that both Senators Clinton and Obama, to their credit, are both campaigning on a platform of withdrawing our troops from Iraq within their first 60 days of taking office.

I have no doubt that either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama will be a far better President than John McCain. My concern is that this plan from the Democrats to write a final blank check for the Bush presidency to continue the war/occupation of Iraq will cause an adverse effect and backfire in our faces.

How can the Democratic presidential nominee run on ending the war when his or her own party authorized approximately $170 billion dollars in unconditional war funding? My uneducated guess is that both Democratic candidates will obviously have to deviate from their party's plan in order to pack enough heat to credibly confront John McCain in the general election.

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Remember all the great stuff we heard back in 2006? "We will change course in Iraq and hold the Bush Administration accountable." All generic terms, but still very promising. Giving what we have seen and what we know now, is it wrong to feel disappointed, frustrated, and untrustworthy of the Democrats this time around?

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This is not an attack on all Democrats. Guilt by association is a terrible policy in my opinion. We have many great leaders in the Democratic Congress who have never stopped fighting to end the war in Iraq despite the possible consequences for drifting out of the party mainstream. The Out of Iraq and Progressive Caucuses are great examples. Give credit where credit is due.

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I'm not calling for "cutting off funding." Instead, I'm regurgitating the campaign slogans of the Democratic party in 2006. "Bring our troops home" "End the occupation" & "Hold the Bush administration accountable." Too bad it was "all talk & no action" on their part. This personifies everything that is wrong with government today.

The gift of 20/20 hindsight affords us the ability not to be fooled again. We don't have to be pundits or armchair quarterbacks. We can look back clearly at what we were promised, what was actually delivered, and decide if we want to take another risk by electing the same people who broke their commitment to us.

more. . . http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sgt-john-bruhns/the-gift-of-2020-hindsigh_b_97357.html

[Horse with no Name]

1. Congress has made a believer out of me

I believe they are ALL lying sacks of shit that can't be trusted any further than one can hoist them.

[proud2BlibKansan]

2. We can agree on that

And the thing that really frustrates me is that we are spending all this time debating a presidential candidate when who we put in Congress is far more important. And yes, I am guilty of worrying too much about who the presidential candidate will be.

[Horse with no Name]

3. I used to be concerned about that

but...thankfully, my expectations are pretty low at this point so anyone will do.:D