"Playing Politics" is pressuring Congress for war in Election Season

[Armstead]

President Bush is now whining that Democrats are now "playing politics" with the Iraq War.

Mr. Bush, I beg to differ. It is "playing politics" to launch a campaign for a war of choice during the months immediately preceding the 02 Congressional election.

It was "playing politics" to use the fear of the American people to drum up support for GOP candidates who will blindly support a war for dubious reasons.

It was "playing politics" to portray any Democratic candidate as being "soft on terrorism" if they dared to question your reasons for war. It is even worse to do that to those Democrats who did support your demands for war powers.

This doesn't excuse those Democrats who caved into the pressure. However, that is a very small example of political cowardice compared to the bullying form of "playing politics" that the administration engaged in in the fall of 2002.

IMr. Bush, if the Democrats are now "playing politics" and "rewriting history" in your view, it is merely the laws of Karma. What goes arond comes around.

[Burning Water]

1. It's really too bad that

the Dems didn't have the courage of their convictions at a time when it would have counted for something. While needed, what they are doing now is a day late and a dollar short.

[Armstead]

2. I agree but it pales in significance to the original pressure

My point was that Bush is now complaining about "playing politics with the war" but he was the one who originally "played politics" to sell a war using the artificial timing of a sudden "grave threat" during a campaign season.

[Burning Water]

8. No, I don't think it pales

in significance. Sure, Bush timed it to put pressure on the Dems. That's what politics is about. You don't give your opponents a even break. Nasty, yes, but the nature of the game. If the Dems would have voted against the war after they had been safely re-elected, then it was cowardly not to reject it before the election. I've got not respect for them, at all. I'm just glad that, now that they think it is safe, they are doing the right thing.

I wonder what will happen to them if Bush manages to slime his way out of his current mess. It won't be the first time he's done so, if he does. Will they flip again? Will they stand firm? I'd bet on the former, but I hope we never have to find out for sure.

[Armstead]

9. I think there's nothing lower than using war that way

I was and am very critical of the Democrats who caved in during that period.

However, I can at least understand why they felt they had no choice, so close to 9-11, and with Patriot Fever and the Fear factor running so high among voters.

But it was indecent to put them in that position over war. That's a whole different ballgame than trotting out something like Social Security Reform as a pre-election campaign issue.

Something as serious as war should have been debated when the immediacy of an election was not the overriding motivation of either side.

[Burning Water]

12. Politics is a dirty business.

Of course you put your opponents on the spot,if you can. Surely you don't think Democratic politicians are above doing the same. And, when you think about it, why shouldn't politicians have to feel the heat for their decisions?? If they can't stand the pressure, why are they in politics.

Cowardice, however, is forever, and we now know what our Democratic "leaders" are made of, same as we do about the Repukes. I'll vote for them, but I'm going to hold my nose doing it.

[CatWoman]

10. That's what politics is about

no it isn't.

That's what being a cowardly, craven, rotten filthy war monger is all about.

[Burning Water]

13. Nice cats

I've got three.

The Democrats were still cowards. I can't argue with your statement, except to say politics is a dirty game.

[CatWoman]

3. From today's E.J. Dionne

The big difference between our current president and his father is that the first President Bush put off the debate over the Persian Gulf War until after the 1990 midterm elections. The result was one of most substantive and honest foreign policy debates Congress has ever seen, and a unified nation. The first President Bush was scrupulous about keeping petty partisanship out of the discussion.

The current President Bush did the opposite. He pressured Congress for a vote before the 2002 election, and the war resolution passed in October.


The bad faith of Bush's current argument is staggering. He wants to say that the "more than a hundred Democrats in the House and Senate" who "voted to support removing Saddam Hussein from power" thereby gave up their right to question his use of intelligence forever after. But he does not want to acknowledge that he forced the war vote to take place under circumstances that guaranteed the minimum amount of reflection and debate, and that opened anyone who dared question his policies to charges, right before an election, that they were soft on Hussein.

By linking the war on terrorism to a partisan war against Democrats, Bush undercut his capacity to lead the nation in this fight. And by resorting to partisan attacks again last week, Bush only reminded us of the shameful circumstances in which the whole thing started.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/14/AR2005111401018.html

[Armstead]

6. I's sooo glad that Dioonne said that. ....It is the core of this IMO

Considering that we had managed to co-exist with the "threat" of Sadaam for a decade, it would seem that they could have at least waited a few months and "rolled out" the marketing campaign until the new Congress was in session.

They fact that Sadaam "coincidentally" because an immenent threat just as an important mid-term election was approaching seems to be so transparently political that it ought to be one of the central points being made now, IMO.

[kentuck]

4. I think this is worth pointing out...

How this president played politics with this "war". We all remember the color coded alerts. Their hypocrisy knows no bounds.

[Armstead]

7. The real color alert should be Black....In mourning for democracy

[converted_democrat]

5. Wow, you are sooooooo on the money!!!! I never thought of it like that!n/t

[Armstead]

11. Kick because I'm pissed at the RW spin