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My Townhall.com column on the president's speech is here.
Do your part to encourage a GOP filibuster of the no-confidence resolutions circulating in the Senate. A suggested "pledge" of non-support for senators supporting such a resolution as well as the NRSC if it supports them in their re-election bids is here. Along with votes on Supreme Court nominees, support of the war seems to me to be a "party" vote, and despite high regard for and friendship with some of the senators in question, if they don't get the war right, they won't get my money or my time.
Senator McConnell, Lott and Kyl are the three senior GOP senators. Try each of their offices at 202-225-3121.
Senator Ensign is chair of the National Republican senatorial Committee. His number is 202-675-6000.
The senators most likely to rethink their support for such a resolution after the testimony by General Petraeus that such a resolution would be an encouragement to our enemy are Minnesota's Norm Coleman, Maine's Susan Collins and Oregon's Gordon Smith. All three are serious senators and good people, but they need to rethink possible support for the resolution in light of the Petraeus testimony and the president's speech last night (and the reaction among Democrats --there is no middle ground between retreat and victory.) Senator Coleman's office number is (202) 224-5641. Senator Smith's office number is (202) 224-3753. Senator Collins' office number is (202) 224-2523.
And thank Senator Lieberman for trying to restore the bipartisan tradition on foreign policy, especially in times of war. His number is (202) 224-404. Some are hoping that the issue matters so much that, like Churchill, Senator Lieberman will cross the aisle. Though a "non-binding" resolution is not the occasion for such drama, who knows what the senator is thinking as his party slips further and further into the grasp of defeatism. (Senator Rockefeller's evident intent to damage the intelligence collection capabilities of the country might, however, be one such occasion.)
As I watched the Democrats last night I knew --again-- that the country will not "come together" over the necessity of victory. My friend the officer wrote below of the enormous tragedies and dislocations that would follow in the wake of our withdrawal from the region (including a Turkey-Kurdistan war that destabilizes NATO) but the ears of the Democrats are closed. All they can think of is wounding Bush, and attempting to discredit his legacy that they must realize is secure far beyond their maneuvers, which seems only to madden them more.
This deep derangement of a major political party is unique in American history --not even the southern Democrats of 1860 acted out of Lincoln-hatred when they split the Union, but out of a deeply misguided political theory and the desperation that economic and cultural attachment to slavery had bred.
This modern Democratic Party is almost all fury, a fury fueled by a collective though suppressed understanding that the holocaust of southeast Asia in the late '70s and the vulnerability of America on 9/11 are both burdens at their party's door. Watching their replay of the Vietnam-era tape means that there will be no "debate" on the war, simply the choosing of sides. Republicans who side with the Democrats on this the most important issue of the day should lose the support of their party.
For an extended discussion of the strategic situation the world finds itself in --delivered by Dr. Thomas P.M. Barnett, no fan of President Bush but also a realist on the state of the world and of the crucial nature of our efforts in Iraq-- read the transcript of the third of my series of interviews with Dr. Barnett on his book, The Pentagon's New Map.
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