Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold on the proposed “compromise” between President Bush and the Democratic leadership for the Iraq supplemental:
I cannot support a bill that contains nothing more than toothless benchmarks and that allows the President to continue what may be the greatest foreign policy blunder in our nation’s history. There has been a lot of tough talk from members of Congress about wanting to end this war, but it looks like the desire for political comfort won out over real action. Congress should have stood strong, acknowledged the will of the American people, and insisted on a bill requiring a real change of course in Iraq.â€
I have to agree with Sen. Feingold here. President Bush gets everything he wants out of this bill – namely a blank check for funding the next year of the war – and Democrats get worthless “benchmark” language.
I understand that we don’t want to get the “Don’t support the troops” label, but we should be less concerned about labels and more concerned about listening to what the overwhelming majority of the American people want: and end to this war.
I live in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Milwaukee, WI with my wife Jen, our daughter Emerson, and sons Carter and Colton.
so the majority of americans want out of iraq and yet the people who are supposed to represent our interests – congress critters – and the guy who was “elected” to lead us – el presidente – won’t do what we want.
why do you think that is?
democrats seem to be little better than republicans.
Because most of them are typical politicians, not leaders. They don’t actually have their own ideas on how things should be. They just go with whatever the latest polls or campaign contributors say. As such they don’t want to be on the record for anything that could be used against them later if the electoriate changes its mind or that could be taken out of context.
This is the same reason that a bill that trashes the constitution gets called the patriot act or numerous bills that allow the trashing of the environment to have names suggesting they are saving it.
Feingold is an actual leader who has his own ideas and tries to convince the electoriate, that his ideas are correct.
Bruno, if they always voted the way of the polls, we wouldn’t be having this conversation about the Iraq supplemental.