The Most Liberal Senator Ever?

According to the Republicans, Senator Barack Obama is the most liberal Senator ever. As the Republican shrills made the talk show rounds the common theme was a familiar refrain. Senator_______ (you fill in the blank with any Democratic nominee) is the most liberal Senator ever. I am not a believer in déjà vu, but I can’t help but think I have heard this line before. Oh yeah now I remember; how about the last 20 years! It seems like whenever the Democrats nominate someone that person is immediately labeled the most liberal Governor, Senator, etc. ever.

You would think that the Party that has been in power 12 of the last 14 years would be running on issues and on all of their accomplishments. You would think they would be trumpeting the strong economy, the successful prosecution of the war, and energy legislative successes. Is there any wonder they are recycling the same campaign rhetoric of the last 20 years and ignoring the issues? The economy is in the worse shape in decades, the war is dragging on into its fifth year, and of course their answer to the energy crisis is more drilling and tax cuts for the oil corporations. Who wouldn’t run on those outstanding accomplishments?

Oh maybe those aren’t the best issues to run a campaign on so let’s look at the Republican platform surely that will include plenty of campaign issues to run on. According to their convention the issues the Republicans will be running on are eerily similar to the policies of the last 8 years. On tax policy they want to increase and even make permanent the Bush tax-cuts that the nominee himself has labeled as “tilted” towards the rich. On health care they continue to want to allow the market and insurance companies to drive the debate and craft the legislation, which translates into no universal health coverage. On energy they want to drill more holes and allow the gas companies to transition us into alternative fuels. On the war they want to continue the occupation and ignore Afghanistan and Pakistan, the real centers of the war on terror.

The Republican campaign strategy reminds me of the television ad for Verizon wireless where the neighborhood woman comes over and tells the couple that just moved into a home how the home is a cell phone dead zone. The couple explains that they have Verizon and their network. The Verizon spokesman comes out of the house and says the couple is good, and then the neighbor woman then says, “Well, you have crabgrass!” So I guess the Republicans are saying, “Yeah you may have the right positions on the important issues of this election, but you’re still the most liberal Senator ever!”

Of course another big Republican campaign strategy is their own change theme. John McCain and Governor Palin are agents of change .They are running against the “Washington establishment” and how they are going to shake up Washington. Once again rather than provide us with details of how they will address the important issues of our time, they provide us with these vague campaign slogans that do little in helping us to solve our everyday problems. In place of real debate and discussion of the issues we get the same ole politics of the past with the same ole name calling.

Remember when Fritz Mondale was the most liberal and then there was Governor Dukakis, and then John Kerry, and you get the picture. It amazes me how the media who is suppose to debunk and report on the false campaign narratives have allowed this to go on for 20 years. The next time a Republican talking head throws out this retread line it would be nice to hear a reporter remind them that they have been using this line for the last 20 years. But of course they will continue to explore the claim as if it were an accurate statement. Oh by the way how have the conservative politicians faired in governing our nation? And we’re all familiar with the purveyors of family values who ignore them for themselves. So if the choice is between the most liberal Senator or more of the same politics as usual maybe we could use with a little liberal change.

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The Pot Or The Kettle

There has been a lot of hubbub recently due to the ad taken out by MoveOn.Org in the New York Times welcoming home General Petraeus. The chickenhawks, phony patriots, and the usual assortment of right wing mouthpieces have jumped all over the ad. In their usual shrill they are claiming that because General Petraeus is a military man his credibility is unimpeachable and the ad is once again giving “aid and comfort to the enemy”.

I would whole heartedly agree with those sentiments except for a few minor details that they fail to mention in their condemnations. The first is that I am old enough to remember Vietnam, I remember the Generals back then, especially Westmoreland testifying to Congress in a manner that was not truthful. Their rosy scenario of the war did not correspond to the pictures being beamed back to American via satellite from the war zone. For many years they were given the benefit of the doubt and the respect accorded their position in the military, by doing so Congress and the American people allowed the carnage to continue in SE Asia. So for them now to say that military men are beyond reproach flies in the face of reality and our shared history. Of course many of them were too busy ignoring Vietnam to have been aware of the dishonesty that was being perpetrated against the public.

The second minor detail involves the role that General Petraeus has assumed; he is not some objective military man simply following the orders of his Commander in Chief. No, the General has taken a political position in regards to this conflict.

Fact: Shortly before the 2004 presidential election Petraeus did something that active-duty commanders should not do. In late September he wrote an op-ed piece for The Washington Post obviously as a favor to the Bush campaign, in which he applauded what he called major progress by the Iraqi military, Iraqi police and Iraqi leadership.

It is bad enough that the general, a smart guy who knew what he was doing, interfered in the 2004 presidential election, in effect advocating the position of the Republican candidate, the incumbent, on the number-one issue of the campaign, only weeks before the vote.

Beyond taking a political position in a way that an active-duty general should never do, which demonstrates political tendencies that in truth trouble many of the highest ranking military officers today, his forecast and analysis turned out to be almost completely, catastrophically wrong on every level.[1]

Also, the General was an advocate of the surge strategy and so he shared the goals of the Bush administration in escalating this conflict. He also signed off on the insurgency manual now being used to train US forces, again giving him a stake in the surge strategy. So you can’t have it both ways General, either you are partisan or you are objective, which is it?

The third minor detail that fails to get mentioned in the rightwing talking points is the small matter of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, the group that labeled former Presidential Candidate John Kerry as a fraud and a coward for his service in Vietnam. Senator Kerry was a decorated war hero who for political reasons was slimed by these same right-wingers who are crying foul today for the General. I would assume that Senator Kerry would be afforded the same respect due the General.

Truth: That's the biggest lie of all. Here's the evidence. Until he suddenly resigned, Ben Ginsburg, chief attorney for the Bush campaign, was legal adviser to the Swift Boat gang. The ads were paid for by Bob Perry, big Bush contributor and buddy of Karl Rove. They were produced and marketed by the same production and advertising companies that prepared Bush's attack ads against John McCain in 2000. And, until he resigned, one veteran who appeared in the swiftboat ads also served on Bush's campaign advisery committee.[2]

The wingnuts have requested that all Democrats denounce the ad and distance themselves from MoveOn.org. I wonder where all this outcry was when Senator Kerry was falsely branded a traitor? The people at MoveOn.org have every right to question the integrity of any official testifying before Congress, it isn’t like no one has ever lied and misled them or the American people before. I am all for respecting the military and its leaders, but at the same time I support the right of people to question authority. Questioning authority used to be a valuable trait in this country before the Imperial Presidency. So which shall it be wingnuts, the pot or the kettle?

[1] http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/61390/
[2] http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=40169

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