May 25-26, 2008
May 25 02:35 Easy Fisking May 25 03:50 Murtha Must Be Boiling May 25 12:40 Gottwalt LTE Well Worth Reading May 25 16:39 Obama's Postpartisan Facade Fading Fast May 25 20:47 Obama: That Pesky Hillary Just Won't Go Away May 26 11:02 Not So Smart After All? May 26 23:26 Seattle's Do-Nothing Congressman-for-Life
Easy Fisking
When John F. Kerry writes an op-ed , fisking it is extremely easy. This time is no different. It doesn't take long before spotting Senn. Kerry's first false premise:
When Bush accused "some", including Obama, Bush aides explained, of "the false comfort of appeasement," McCain echoed this slander. "What does he want to talk about with [Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad?" McCain asked, fumbling to link Obama to the Iranian president's hateful words. Soon, a GOP talking point was born.First off, people have talked with Iran. That's what's "failed. Miserably." Secondly, we knkow that terrorists think that Americans are paper tigers. At least, they used to think that during the Clinton administration . They didn't think twice during Jimmy Carter's administration, either. Apparently, Sen. Kerry still hasn't learned the principles behind the Reagan Principle.
Lost in the rhetoric was the question America deserves to have answered: Why should we engage with Iran?
In short, not talking to Iran has failed. Miserably.
The Reagan Principle is what I call President Reagan's habit of not negotiating with evil empires until that evil empire was scared out of its wits. Sen. Kerry obviously didn't remember that Reagan didn't have a summit with the Soviets until his second term. Reagan's not having a conversation with the Soviets didn't seem to turn out too badly.
Bush engages in self-deception arguing that not engaging Iran has worked. In fact, Iran has grown stronger: continuing to master the nuclear fuel cycle; arming militias in Iraq and Lebanon; bolstering extremist anti-Israeli proxies. It has embraced Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and spends lavishly to rebuild Afghanistan, gaining influence across the region.Sen. Kerry says that President Bush "Iran has grown stronger" because of President Bush's not sitting down with Ahmadinejad. While it's true that Iran is stronger than it was 4 years ago, that doesn't prove that it's a result of President bush not having a summit with Ahmadinejad. In fact, I'd suggest that Sen. Kerry can't prove that meeting with Ahmadinejad wouldn't have more disastrous consequences than not meeting with him.
In fadct, Sen. Kerry should study this history lesson about JFK and Kruschev :
MR. SPIVAK: Mr. Vice President, according to news dispatches Soviet Premier Khrushchev said today that Prime Minister Macmillan had assured him that there would be a summit conference next year after the presidential elections. Have you given any cause for such assurance, and do you consider it desirable or even possible that there would be a summit conference next year if Mr. Khrushchev persists in the conditions he's laid down?Here's JFK's response to Nixon's answer:
MR. NIXON: No, of course I haven't talked to Prime Minister Macmillan. It would not be appropriate for me to do so. The President is still going to be president for the next four months and he, of course, is the only one who could commit this country in this period. As far as a summit conference is concerned, I want to make my position absolutely clear. I would be willing as president to meet with Mr. Khrushchev or any other world leader if it would serve the cause of peace. I would not be able wou- would be willing to meet with him however, unless there were preparations for that conference which would give us some reasonable certainty, some reasonable certainty, that you were going to have some success. We must not build up the hopes of the world and then dash them as was the case in Paris. There, Mr. Khrushchev came to that conference determined to break it up. He was going to break it up because he would, knew that he wasn't going to get his way on Berlin and on the other key matters with which he was concerned at the Paris Conference. Now, if we're going to have another summit conference, there must be negotiations at the diplomatic level, the ambassadors, the Secretaries of State, and others at that level, prior to that time, which will delineate the issues and which will prepare the way for the heads of state to meet and make some progress. Otherwise, if we find the heads of state meeting and not making progress, we will find that the cause of peace will have been hurt rather than helped. So under these circumstances, I, therefore, strongly urge and I will strongly hold, if I have the opportunity to urge or to hold, this position: that any summit conference would be gone into only after the most careful preparation and only after Mr. Khrushchev, after his disgraceful conduct at Paris, after his disgraceful conduct at the United Nations, gave some assurance that he really wanted to sit down and talk and to accomplish something and not just to make propaganda.
MR. KENNEDY: I have no disagreement with the Vice President's position on that. It, my view is the same as his. Let me say there is only one uh, point I would add. That before we go into the summit, before we ever meet again, I think it's important that the United States build its strength; that it build its military strength as well as its own economic strength. If we negotiate from a position where the power balance or wave is moving away from us, it's extremely difficult to reach a successful decision on Berlin as well as the other questions.Nixon and JFK seemed show that they shouldn't meet with Kruschev without there first being preparations done at the ambassador and SecState levels. It appears as though Sen. Obama and Sen. McCain didn't learn that lesson. I'd suggest that they both learn history better if they're going to deal with a hostile world.
One lesson that liberals apparently haven't learned from the 1990's is that talking with Iraq allowed them to bribe foreign 'dignitaries' with the OFF money. Clinton kept on issuing threats, followed by Saddam making a token gesture, followed by his not obeying the latest UNSC resolution. Some good talking with Saddam did.
We also know that talking and negotiating with the North Koreans didn't prevent them from acquiring nuclear weapons.
If talking with our enemies is the be-all, end-all, then the UN should be Utopia. It isn't. It's a festering sewer of corruption and inaction. It's a joke to serious diplomats and statesmen.
Here's something that must be answered:
Direct negotiations may be the only means short of war that can persuade Iran to forgo its nuclear capability. Given that a nuclear Iran would menace Israel, drive oil prices up past today's record highs and possibly spark a regional arms race, shouldn't we be doing all we can to avoid that conflagration?Ahmadinejad is this century's Hitler. What makes anyone think that anything but military strikes will prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons? Here's what President Bush rightly said to the Knesset:
Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: "Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided." We have an obligation to call this what it is, the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history. (Applause.)What "ingenious argument" would Sen. Obama or Sen. Kerry use to persuade Iran that they're heading down the wrong path? Taking a pacifist's approach is the best path to a peaceful world is the path that arrogant men take. History has proven that approach to be a fool's approach.
During the Reagan administration, Sen. Kerry said that installing the Pershing II missiles in Europe and developing SDI would lead to a dangerous escalation in the Cold War. Eight years later, the Soviet Union had crumbled just like the Berlin Wall had been torn down.
It's obvious that Sen. Kerry will still stay on the wrong side of history because he hasn't learned from history. That isn't just stupid, it's insanity.
Posted Sunday, May 25, 2008 2:36 AM
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Murtha Must Be Boiling
Last week, when Gen. David Petraeus testified on Capitol Hill, Gen. Petraeus could report alot of positives . As a result, Sen. Carl Levin had to make a stunning admission. Here's what Sen. Levin said:
"Regardless of one's view of the wisdom of the policy that took us to Iraq in the first place and has kept us there over five years, we owe Gen. Petraeus and Gen. Odierno a debt of gratitude," said Sen. Carl Levin. "And regardless how long the administration may choose to remain engaged in the strife in that country, our troops are better off with the leadership these two distinguished soldiers provide."John Murtha must've been upset when he read that quote last week. Murtha spent almost 2 years telling anyone who'd listen that there wasn't a military solution to Iraq. Now that the Surge has worked, it's impossible to argue that we didn't need a military component to solving the troubles in Iraq.
Because of his arrogant predictions, Murtha should be subjected to healthy helpings of ridicule. In fact, if you couple Gen. Petraeus' testimony with Amb. Crocker's statement , you'd have to conclude that the Surge is succeeding on all fronts:
U.S Ambassador Crocker spoke as he visited reconstruction projects in the southern city of Najaf. "There is important progress for the Iraqi forces in confronting the Sunni and Shiite militias," he said, speaking Arabic to reporters. "The government, the prime minister are showing a clear determination to take on extremist armed elements that challenge the government's authority...no matter who these elements are."What this means on the political front is that (a) people can't deny that Sen. McCain was the first politician to call for this strategy and (b) McCain's policy worked. This is important because he'll be rightly hailed as the man who got things right in Iraq when everyone was getting it wrong.
"You are not going to hear me say that Al Qaeda is defeated, but they've never been closer to defeat than they are now," Crocker said.
President Bush gets low grades on Iraq because he didn't win the insurgency, not because the American people are anti-war. I've said it before that they're just opposed to losing wars.
Another politician that deserves ridicule is Sen. Amy Klobuchar. Here's what she recently said :
"America needs a change of course in Iraq," Klobuchar said. The measure "continued an open-ended commitment with no clear transition to Iraqi authority," she said. "My priority is to transition to Iraq authority by beginning to bring our troops home in a responsible way."Why does Sen. Klobuchar think that we need to change course away from a winning strategy? That's just plain stupid. Frankly, at this point, I'm not convinced that she's knowledgeable enough to talk beyond that day's talking points. It isn't that I think she's stupid. It's that I think she's that ignorant at this point.
She certainly doesn't have a command of national security issues that Norm Coleman has.
Last summer, I was optimistic that the Iraq War could be turned into a positive for the GOP presidential nominee. It appears as though that's certain to happen. That's why Rep. Murtha and his MoveOn.org friends must be steaming.
Posted Sunday, May 25, 2008 3:53 AM
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Gottwalt LTE Well Worth Reading
Rep. Steve Gottwalt's LTE is well worth the reading but he's being a bit modest in the editorial.
One of the things that Steve didn't include in his LTE was his leadership in getting Justin's Bill signed into law. Justin's Bill is the silver lining to a very dark cloud.
Justin's Bill came as a result of Justin Pearson's tragic drug overdose death. Justin got addicted to painkillers, then found easy access to other painkillers via the internet.
Justin's Bill tightens up laws so that people have a much more difficult time buying painkillers and other addictive drugs. Before Justin's Bill, people "could order a three-month supply of oxycontin" without visiting a doctor. Prior to Justin's Bill, there weren't laws on the books that helped prosecute the companies or the abusers. Now there are.
In passing this bill, Rep. Gottwalt worked with Mr. Liberal himself, Sen. John Marty. More impressive is the fact that US Sen. Norm Coleman is carrying this legislation in the US Senate. Harry Reid doesn't dare not scheduling this for a vote.
BTW, this is just another way in which Sen. Coleman is working on things to improve the lives of Minnesotans. This shouldn't go unnoticed.
Another thing that Rep. Gottwalt should get credit for is his work on health care policy. Steve is one of the experts on health care in the legislature. Steve played an important role in getting the tax credits put into the bill so that unisured families can buy their own private insurance rather than them just get shoved onto the Medicaid rolls. This is a big step in the right direction.
One of the things that Steve didn't talk about in his LTE is why we got the property tax relief we got. That only happened because Republicans insisted on permanent relief instead of the DFL's flimsy 'fly-by-night' plan . Here's what the DFL's plan from last year consisted of:
Marquart's proposal would cost $543 million, most of which would come from a new, higher income tax rate on couples earning more than $400,000 a year. The new property tax relief money would spend:The property tax plan passed this session is permanent tax relief. That's different from the DFL's 2007 plan. here's what Rep. Ann Lenczewski said about last year's plan:
- $223 million to increase refunds.
- $133 million to lower school levies.
- $83 million to increase aids paid to local governments.
- $104 million to fill gaps while the property tax system changes.
However, that relief will not come if money is not available to fund it.In other words, this year's deficit would've done in the DFL's property relief package, though you can be sure that they would've still fought for increasing LGA. The tax increase 'offset' would've been permanent, though.
True compromise happened because the House GOP stood with Gov. Pawlenty after he vetoed several DFL bills. It also didn't hurt that Gov. Pawlenty had something that the DFL wanted, namely Central Corridor.
Now it's time to put Republicans back in the borrowed seats from the 2006 election.
Posted Sunday, May 25, 2008 12:41 PM
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Obama's Postpartisan Facade Fading Fast
Sen. Obama has crafted an image that he isn't a partisan and that he's squeaky clean ethically. This Newsweek article will quickly dispel that myth. It also might force Sen. Obama to fired his chief strategist, David Axelrod. At minimum, it'll cause some serious embarrassment for him after he attacked John McCain on the issue of lobbyists running McCain's campaign. Here's what Newsweek is reporting:
When Illinois utility Commonwealth Edison wanted state lawmakers to back a hefty rate hike two years ago, it took a creative lobbying approach, concocting a new outfit that seemed devoted to the public interest: Consumers Organized for Reliable Electricity, or CORE. CORE ran TV ads warning of a "California-style energy crisis" if the rate increase wasn't approved-but without disclosing the commercials were funded by Commonwealth Edison. The ad campaign provoked a brief uproar when its ties to the utility, which is owned by Exelon Corp., became known. "It's corporate money trying to hoodwink the public," the state's Democratic Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn said. What got scant notice then-but may soon get more scrutiny-is that CORE was the brainchild of ASK Public Strategies, a consulting firm whose senior partner is David Axelrod, now chief strategist for Barack Obama.At minimum, Axelrod's saying that he "never lobbied anybody in my life" is parsing that would make a Clinton proud. It's interesting that the Obama campaign picked someone with lobbyist ties, especially after boasting about how he wouldn't put up with lobbyists.
Last week, Obama hit John McCain for hiring "some of the biggest lobbyists in Washington" to run his campaign; Obama's aides say their candidate, as a foe of "special interests," has refused to take money from lobbyists or employ them. Neither Axelrod nor his partners at ASK ever registered as lobbyists for Commonwealth Edison-and under Illinois's loose disclosure laws, they were not required to. "I've never lobbied anybody in my life," Axelrod tells NEWSWEEK. "I've never talked to any public official on behalf of a corporate client." (He also says "no one ever denied" that Edison was the "principal funder" of his firm's ad campaign.)
But the activities of ASK (located in the same office as Axelrod's political firm) illustrate the difficulties in defining exactly who a lobbyist is. In 2004, Cablevision hired ASK to set up a group similar to CORE to block a new stadium for the New York Jets in Manhattan. Unlike Illinois, New York disclosure laws do cover such work, and ASK's $1.1 million fee was listed as the "largest lobbying contract" of the year in the annual report of the state's lobbying commission. ASK last year proposed a similar "political campaign style approach" to help Illinois hospitals block a state proposal that would have forced them to provide more medical care to the indigent. One part of its plan: create a "grassroots" group of medical experts "capable of contacting policymakers to advocate for our position," according to a copy of the proposal. (ASK didn't get the contract.) Public-interest watchdogs say these grassroots campaigns are state of the art in the lobbying world. "There's no way with a straight face to say that's not lobbying," says Ellen Miller, director of the Sunlight Foundation, which promotes government transparency.
Frankly, I think Axelrod is history. While it might be true to say that he hasn't lobbied anyone, people won't care. I suspect that they'll focus more on his running a company that was registered as a lobbying firm in NY. I don't think that people are turned off by lobbyists the way do-gooder organizations want us to believe. What they've got a problem with, though, is when someone sells themselves as above partisanship and in purer than the driven snow, only to find out that he's an old-fashioned Chicago machine politician.
This ties into Michael Barone's article about why people don't think Sen. Obama is trustworthy. In that article, Barone explains that Jeremiah Wright hovers over Obama even though people aren't talking about him. That's because they didn't believe Sen. Obama when he said that he hadn't heard Wright's inflammatory, racist sermons.
Axelrod's saying that he hasn't lobbied anyone will draw a similar reaction from voters. They'll likely see this as just another attempt by the Obama campaign to say one thing while doing the opposite. This is the Obama campaign giving voters another reason to not trust him.
More importantly, this puts Sen. Obama in full retreat mode. He can't avoid this story because it goes to the heart of his campaign. He must deal with it ASAP. Most importantly, he must deal with Axelrod quickly before Axelrod is the only thing reporters will talk about. The longer he keeps Axelrod around, the longer Obama can't talk about his message.
This fits into the meme of the wheels coming off Obama's campaign. Early this season, people were impressed with the campaign he ran. Then the Wright tapes came out. It's been downhill since. It's worth noting that the more reasons Sen. Obama gives for not trusting him, the more difficult it is for him to connect with blue collar workers. If there's anything they can't stand, it's being talked down to. Make no mistake about it: When Axelrod says that he "didn't lobby anyone", that's seen as a condescending statement.
That's why Axelrod likely will be gone by week's end. If he isn't, then we'll know that Sen. Obama has had another bad week.
Posted Sunday, May 25, 2008 4:41 PM
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Obama: That Pesky Hillary Just Won't Go Away
Barack Obama is really acquiring a whiny tone to his statements. It isn't appealing for the supposed unifier of all things political to have such a negative tone. This time, he's whining that Hillary is stirring up trouble with the Florida delegation to the Democratic Convention. Here's his latest whiny diatribe :
"The Clinton campaign has been stirring this up for fairly transparent reasons," Obama told reporters on the plane from San Juan, Puerto Rico, to Chicago, adding she had not done so earlier in the race when she did not need the delegates to win.It's rather slick that Sen. Obama didn't talk about the legality of not seating the Florida delegation. that's the last thing he wants to talk about. It appears as though winning is more important to Sen. Obama than is the potential disenfranchisement of almost 2 million voters. That's a pretty partisan move for THE postpartisan candidate, isn' it?
"Let's not...pretend that we don't know what's going on. I mean this is, from their perspective, their last slender hope to make arguments about how they can win, and I understand that," Obama said.
What's obvious to me is that Sen. Obama knows his momentum has disappeared. Sen. Obama knows that his momentum disappearing is making him look mortal, which can't help him this fall. The more mortal he looks, the less chance he has of winning this November.
He didn't get serious questions when he was the messianic candidate. The minute he started looking mortal, though, he started getting grilled on a daily basis. Since the grilling started, he's lost ground with blue collar workers. If that doesn't change, Obama can't win the November election.
Based on this article , it's obvious that Bill Clinton isn't about to stop pressuring Obama, either. Here's how he kept the pressure on today:
Speaking to a crowd of about 200 in Fort Thompson, S.D., Clinton seemed slightly subdued during his 30-minute speech, which largely focused on the issues important to the Native American community. As he wrapped up his remarks, a woman in the audience asked him a question about voting for Hillary Clinton.It must be frustrating for the Clintons to not get all the adoration in the press. I know that they got slapped pretty good for their scandals but they got kid glove treatment during his re-election campaign.
"If you vote for her and she does well in Montana and she does well in Puerto Rico, when this is over she will be ahead in the popular vote," Clinton said. "And they're trying to get her to cry uncle before the Democratic Party has to decide what to do in Florida and Michigan because they are claiming that it only takes 2029 votes on the first ballot to win, and it takes a lot more than that if you put Florida and Michigan back in. Well, they will have to unless we want to lose the election. I mean, look, so there is that that is going on."
The former president was strong in his assertion that his wife has the best chance to win against Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, arguing that many electoral map predictions have his wife winning more electoral votes than Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., the Democratic frontrunner, in a general election.
"She is winning the general election today and he is not, according to all the evidence," Clinton said. "And I have never seen anything like it. I have never seen a candidate treated so disrespectfully just for running. Her only position was, "Look, if I lose I'll be a good team player. We will all try to win but let's let everybody vote and count every vote.'"
Now they're finding out what it's like every day to be the GOP candidate. This isn't anything new for Republicans. It's what happens daily.
The funniest thing is that Billary is whining about the press coverage, Obama is whining about Hillary not rolling over and playing dead and John McCain just stays positive while he's campaigning.
Is it any wonder why John McCain is doing better than expected?
Posted Sunday, May 25, 2008 8:53 PM
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Not So Smart After All?
Jack Kelly has written a masterpiece column that's must reading for everyone. In it, Kelly essentialy says that Sen. Obama is too thin-skinned for a commander-in-chief. Here's the opening to Kelly's column:
What should be the theme song for Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign? Some think it should be Carly Simon's 1972 smash hit, "You're So Vain," (I bet you think this speech is about you).There are times when Sen. Obama sounds intelligent, like when he's reading a prepared speech. There are other times where he sounds like a less than educated man. I'm thinking specifically of the YouTube debate when he said that he'd meet with the axis of thugs without preconditions. I'm thinking of the ABC debate when he gave a flailing answer on the capital gains tax. I'm not saying that Sen. Obama is stupid. I'm simply saying that the packaged product is more appealing than the reality.
Most of us have a higher opinion of ourselves than objective circumstances warrant. But in few of us is the gap between how we view ourselves and reality as wide as it is with Mr. Obama.
Barack Obama is a bright, handsome, personable guy who gives a good speech (when he's working from a prepared text). But he's never actually done much of anything. The biggest tic on his resume to date is that he was president of the Harvard Law Review. That's impressive, but not exactly the stuff of Churchill, Roosevelt or Reagan, guys who could turn a phrase, too. Mr. Obama's self regard is such that he already has written two autobiographical books.
Little seems to annoy Mr. Obama more than when others do not hold him in as high esteem as he holds himself. Mr. Obama apparently was dozing in the pews when his pastor said America is no better than al-Qaida, and that our government created the AIDs virus to exterminate blacks. But his ears perked up when the Rev. Jeremiah Wright implied that he had been insincere in describing their relationship :
"That's a show of disrespect to me," Mr. Obama said.
Many is the time that Rush has ridiculed Obama when he's delivering a speech without a TelePrompTer. The ridiculing is well-deserved. When he's speaking off the cuff, he sounds less and less informed, there's alot more hesitation and umm's to his speech and he makes statements that later have to be retracted. His "57 states" comment leaps to mind.
The truth is that people are slowly figuring it out that Sen. Obama, while he is an intelligent man, is still an empty suit at this point. Had he gotten more seasoning, that would've undoubtedly have changed.
The Weekly Standard's Matthew Continetti has written a great editorial on behalf of the editors in which he exposes another Obama weakness. Here's the column's closing paragraph:
We keep hearing that this year's presidential election will be about judgment. If so: advantage McCain. For when it comes to the surge, not only have Obama and his party been in error; they have been inflexible in error. They have been so committed to a false narrative of American defeat that they cannot acknowledge the progress that has been made on the ground. That isn't judgment. It's inanity.there's an old saying that stupidity is what gets you in trouble. Pride is what keeps you there. It sounds exactly like what's afflicting Democrats, especially Sen. Obama, right now.
We can't afford more of that from the next commander-in-chief. Frankly, we can't afford more of the same from Congress either.
Frankly, it's time to change
Posted Monday, May 26, 2008 11:03 AM
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Seattle's Do-Nothing Congressman-for-Life
I've never hidden the fact that I don't think highly of Rep. Jim McDermott, especially after his trip to Baghdad right before the war started. Let's recall that Rep. McDermott said that he'd trust Saddam Hussein more than he'd trust President Bush :
The controversy ignited on September 29 when Bonior and McDermott appeared from Baghdad on ABC's "This Week." Host George Stephanopoulos asked McDermott about his recent comment that "the president of the United States will lie to the American people in order to get us into this war."In Rep. McDermott's mind, Saddam deserved "the benefit of the doubt" but it wouldn't surprise Rep. McDermott if President Bush misled "the American people" to take us to war.
McDermott didn't backpedal at all: "I believe that sometimes they give out misinformation...It would not surprise me if they came out with some information that is not provable, and they, they shift it. First they said it was al Qaeda, then they said it was weapons of mass destruction. Now they're going back to and saying it's al Qaeda again." When Stephanopoulos pressed McDermott about whether he had any evidence that Bush had lied, the congressman replied, "I think the president would mislead the American people."
An American official floating unsubstantiated allegations against an American president during a visit to Baghdad would be troubling enough. But McDermott compounded his problem by insisting, despite its twelve years of verifiable prevarication, that the Iraqi regime should be given the benefit of the doubt on inspections and disarmament. Said McDermott on "This Week": "I think you have to take the Iraqis on their face value."
That's awful on its own but it isn't the only stain on Rep. McDermott's thin record. Other than consistently seeing the United State through a hostile lens, what has Seattle's Congressman-for-Life done?
Steve Beren's campaign has a summary of what he's been about this session:
Jim McDermott and his fellow Democrats took control of congress in 2006 with claims to a mandate and big promises, but the latest (May 20) Rasmussen survey found that voters have a very, very low opinion of congress. Excerpts from the report follow:There's a reason why Congress's approval rating is lower than President Bush's approval rating. The Democratic leadership has worked hard to 'earn' the reputation of being a do almost nothing congress. Their first year, their list of accomplishments was that they got a minimum wage bill passed. I noted at the time that that's only because they attached it to the Iraq War supplemental bill and while they included tax cut for small businesses. It's also worth noting that the Iraq War supplemental passed moths after President Bush proposed it.
"Just 13% give the national legislature good or excellent ratings, while 47% say it is doing a poor job...Over half of Republicans (58%) say congress is doing a poor job. That number has dropped slightly over the past month. Just 31% of Democrats give cngress poor ratings. That number has increased slightly over the past month... Just 12% of voters think congress has passed legislation to improve life in America within the past year. Most (61%) disagree and say congress has done nothing to improve life throughout the nation. Voters have little hope for the near future. Just 37% think it is even somewhat likely that congress will seriously address important problems in the next six months. Most (56%) say that congress is unlikely to face up to the issues of the day. Seventy-one percent (71%) think Members of congress are more interested in furthering their own political careers than helping people. Just 14% disagree."
That's congress for you. That's the Democrats. That's McDermott's congress: failure, disappointment, nothing to improve the nation, not facing up to the issues of the day, more interested in his own political career than helping people. That's McDermott, and that's McDermott's congress.
Another 'accomplishment' of this 'Do Almost Nothing Congress' is their letting the Patriot Act lapse, thereby blinding our intelligence agencies to huge amounts of intelligence. If terrorists hit us in the United States, the blood will be directly on the Democrats' hands.
Rep. McDermott has advocated single-payer universal health care, something that even its advocates say has its faults. Here's what an AMSA study said about single-payer:
Although there are some advantages and some disadvantages to each system, universal health care confers the greatest number of advantages. They include:Removing the profit motive for health care, or anything else for that matter, and that product will stop getting produced in a heartbeat. I'll bet the ranch on that. AMSA says that "the ability of government to purchase prescription medications in bulk would also help drive down health care costs" is a positive, then notes that "the corresponding drop in revenue for pharmaceutical companies could lead to a reduction in overall research and development." COULD lead to a "reduction in overall research and development"???
- Every individual would receive necessary medical coverage, regardless of age, health, employment, or socio-economic status.
- Health care spending would decline because centralized billing procedures would reduce administrative overhead. Consequently, a larger percentage of the cost of health care would actually be spent on patient treatment.
- Increased access to preventive care and the ability of government to purchase prescription medications in bulk would also help drive down health care costs. However, the corresponding drop in revenue for pharmaceutical companies could lead to a reduction in overall research and development , slowing down technological advancement.
- Patients can choose their physician and physicians can choose the most appropriate treatment for their patients.
- There would be a removal of profit-motive in health care . The driving force behind the health industry would be patient care and not profit maximization.
This is what Rep. McDermott's been pushing as long as I've seen him in the House or Representatives. It's a system with serious flaws. It hasn't worked anywhere it's been tried.
Jim McDermott's list of accomplishments is almost as thin as Barack Obama's, which is saying something considering Sen. Obama has been in the Senate 17 less years than has Rep. McDermott. It's time for Seattle voters to ask the question whether they want someone who's done next to nothing to continue representing them or if they'd rather have someone with a positive agenda representing them. If they want someone who'll actually get positive things done, then that eliminates Rep. McDermott from consideration.
Posted Monday, May 26, 2008 11:27 PM
Comment 1 by J. Ewing at 27-May-08 12:25 PM
Actually, if government would quit paying for prescription drugs, competition would force the price DOWN, not up. More importantly, if Congress would just start enforcing international drug patents, costs would come down considerably.
Comment 2 by Gary Gross at 27-May-08 12:45 PM
There you go again, forcing facts into this discussion.
