Constructive gadfly
Published on September 16, 2007 By stevendedalus In Politics
 What’s the point of all these politicians going on junket tours at taxpayers’ expense other than for boasting rights that they are concerned for our troops. How many boring statements have you heard proudly announcing their third, fifth, eighth, or fourteenth trip simply to tell us it’s going well or badly? Warner returns concluding that a paltry sum of troops should be home for Christmas. Biden comes up with a partition plan and pushing for it time and time again. McCain has had a lovely day shopping at Baghdad’s flea market; oh, and by the way, [between grapes] the surge is working.

Without actually being embedded with a fighting unit, all politicians get to assess the challenges is from the perspective of the Green Zone—comfortably equipped with amenities—and the commanders there, dressed in battle fatigue but never face to face with an enemy.

The only civilians I ever witnessed in the Pacific was Bob Hope [ensemble] and Eleanor Roosevelt, both of whom, needless to say, never suggested a plan to end the war so troops could go home.

 

 


Comments
on Sep 16, 2007

Damn!  You are dangerous!

Because you are right. (correct, not politically).

on Sep 16, 2007
Thank you for the politically incorrect badge.
on Sep 16, 2007
I will never figure out how to be politically correct.  And while not as old, I am old enough now to not care.
on Sep 16, 2007
Ah, yes, the mellowing of old age, although most here would consider me cantankerous.
on Sep 16, 2007

Again we disagree.  I think it's the responsibility of EVERY Senator and Representative to go to Iraq, Afghanistan, and any other hot spot.  In watching speeches from the floor of the House and Senate online, I have seen the difference being there has made.  Sure, it hasn't converted any of them, but those who haven't been over there argue in tired bullet statements and from press releases (both those for and against it).

To me, a Senator or Housemember who speaks out for or against the war, but have never been in country are as useless as all the reporters who haven't been there either.

True, they never make it outside the greenzone, but neither to the reporters you expect us to believe either.

on Sep 17, 2007
Count one representative out: Dennis Kucinich.

He won't "dignify" the Iraq occupation with his presence.
on Sep 18, 2007
I think it's the responsibility of EVERY Senator and Representative to go to Iraq, Afghanistan, and any other hot spot.
Yeah, but it's like Saddam conducting a WMD inspection team. Congress goes where it's told--nowhere.