I continue visiting the House floor to listen to the Iraq debate. I've been reading a lot about history and, increasingly, about the institution of Congress; about men and women who served in the House and Senate during great moments in history. What a sense of motivation it gives me. I've been the reading the Doris Kearns Goodwin story of Lincoln and his war cabinet - a delicious work of history that I'm rationing, so I only read a few dozen pages a night to make it last.
Wednesday night I stopped by the House floor, and as luck would have it Dave Reichert, a Republican out of the Seattle area, invoked Kearns and her work on Lincoln as justification for the war and a rationalization for voting against the resolution.
My mouth agape, he noted Lincoln was against the Mexican-American War but claimed he never voted to deny troops the support they needed. He ignored, of course, the fact that the Bush administration and the Republicans allowed us to send our young men and women to battle without proper equipment, in spite of Congress giving all the money that was requested.
This is not a few months after the outbreak of hostilities. This insurgency in Iraq has now gone on longer than the entire Civil War and longer than World War II - with no end in sight. Years after the original deployment, we have patiently given more than enough money to the Bush administration and the Republican Congress, whose mismanagement shortchanged the needs of our troops.
The entire Middle East is threatened with a crisis. In Iraq Al Qaeda, once unknown, now flourishes along with sectarian violence and warring factions. If conditions continue to spiral out of control, wasting our resources, weakening our international position, emboldening our enemies and breaking faith with our military (and the American people), we will create a crisis that threatens America.
I met Reichert's opponent, Darcy Burner, on the campaign trail last year. She came within an eyelash of defeating him, despite his being a powerful and entrenched incumbent awash in money and the leverage of the majority party. She almost won in part because of her clear, unequivocal opposition to what the Bush administration and their supporters, like Reichert, have created.
Less than four months after the election, I wonder what some people in the Seattle area must be thinking when they listen to Mr. Reichert's rationalizations.
|
|
|
Permalink :: 3 Comments :: Post a Comment
|
In order to post a comment, you must be logged in. If you have a member account, please log in to comment.
If not, you can make an account right here. It's quick and free.
