Is Al Franken a supporter of the DLC and its position on the Iraq War?

[KlatooBNikto]

That is what is alleged in an article in Counterpunch.Can someone enlighten us?

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

1. Counterpunch, huh?

I would take it with a grain of salt. Consider them the "Townhall.com" of the left. They don't much like anyone who doesn't toe their line of reasoning.

[onehandle]

2. Well, he's a Democrat.

And he like the party was led to believe that there were WMD's in Iraq.

Now he's the first one to say that Bush and company Lied to Congress and the American People.

Counterpunch is just wearing their tin-foil sunglasses.

[mzmolly]

3. Franken admits he was incorrect as he initially believed that * was

telling the truth. He's now fighting the RW with all he's got. He is an admitted "centrist" to that I say, so the F what? He was a member of the DLC like many DU-ers ~ and Bill Clinton himself.

[KlatooBNikto]

6. The article also goes on to say that Franken opposes any withdrawal

of the U.S. from Iraq.

[mzmolly]

8. The article should clarify it as such:

Franken opposes the immediate withdrawl from Iraq as he feels that Iraqis amd Americans would be at greater risk under the circumstances.

It should also note that many if not most Democrats agree, at least until they see evidence to the contrary.

[KlatooBNikto]

9. How can a withdrawal now be any worse than the carnage that is going on

now? Simply because eyewitness accounts from the war scenes have become rare in the age of Bush, does not mean that all is well in Iraq.Soldiers are still getting killed, civilians are still getting killed, daily necessities like water and electricity are still scarce.

I am old enough to remember the same arguments raised when Sen.George Aiken proposed that we leave Vietnam proclaiming victory. That Vietnam will plunge into chaos, the civil war there will become more intense, etc. By the time Nixon and Kissinger were forced to pull out, 50,000 soldiers and nearly 3 million Vietnamese were slaughtered.

We are on the same path in Iraq today using the same threadbare arguments to justify an illegal war launched on specious claims supported by manufactured evidence.

Let us withdraw now, Franken or no Franken.

[mzmolly]

10. On the surface your argument sounds very good. But, I have yet

to see any support from those in the know. Most feel that leaving now would create a worse situation for Iraqis and for us.

If I see a well reasoned argument to the contrary, I'd love to be of the out now mentality.

[KlatooBNikto]

11. Who are the people who are in the know? How did they come to be in the

know? Are they the people who live within the Green Zone and report on what is happening in Iraq without ever setting foot in Baghdad's mean streets? The person you should read is Robert Fisk.

[mzmolly]

12. People who are or were involved in national security are who I speak of

when I say those "in the know." As I myself am not an expert in these matters, I can only listen to those who are.

Fisk has some very informative articles on Iraq, thanks for the suggestion.

[Bombtrack]

4. I don't think "the DLC" has "a position" on the Iraq War

It has a formal thinktank, not a platform that every member agrees to through and through.

If so many people here and in other activist/left circles did not have misconceptions about the DLC the party would be alot better off.

And similarly if more people in these afformentioned circles looked at "the iraq war" less simplistically than something a person has "a position" we'd be better off as well.

[Name removed]

5. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Bombtrack]

14. There never was a vote for the war

it isn't "nuance bullshit" to not propagate that lie further

[Itsthetruth]

15. There Have Been A Ton Of Votes In Congress For The War!

There have been many votes in Congress in support of Bush's the Iraq war.

The first Senate vote gave the Bush government the authority to invade Iraq. It undermined the Constitution by not requiring Bush to obtain a Congressional Declaration of War before invading Iraq. 23 Senators voted against circumventing the Constitition. John Kerry was not one of them.

The last pro-war vote just took place in the Senate. The Senators vote to fund the war was 99-0. 58 members of the House voted against it.

[KlatooBNikto]

7. The only position we can take is that the war on Iraq is a an unjust

war waged on cooked up pretexts.As such, it constitutes a war crime, by our own definition at Nuremberg.Everything else is baloney.

[Itsthetruth]

13. You Read What?

""Is Al Franken a supporter of the DLC and its position on the Iraq War? That is what is alleged in an article in Counterpunch.Can someone enlighten us?"

Let me enlighten you first, since you have not read the article you felt compelled to comment on.

The article did not allege that "Al Franken is a supporter of the DLC" as you claim. In fact, the Democratic Leadership Council is not even mentioned in the article! You may have confused the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) with the Democratic Party National Committee (DNC). They are not the same thing.

All I can do is urge you to read an article before you decide to comment on it. That's always a good policy.

Here is the link to the article. Please read it.

http://www.counterpunch.org/walsh05042005.html

Franken and others at Air America are mainly taken to task for their support of the occupation and opposition to withdrawing our troops from Iraq. The Democratic National Committee (DNC) is described as conducting a "pro-war" political line. I think the 99-0 Senate vote in favor of funding the Iraq occupation pretty much affirms that view.

Here's a few of the most relevant parts of the article concerning Al Franken.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

May 4, 2005

Lying on Air America to Support the War
Al Franken is a Big Fat Phony
By JOHN WALSH

Cambridge, Mass.

Al Franken is a shrewd guy, which is why he can write some good comedy. He is also something of a student of the lie, having written a book, using considerable student slave labor, entitled "Lies and the Lying Liars That Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right." That book followed another, "Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot," in which he debunks the stuff that Rush "pulls out of his butt," as Franken puts it. So Franken certainly knows that one of the most insidious forms of prevarication is lying by omission. And on the subject of rapid and total withdrawal from Iraq, that is precisely what Franken and most of the rest of Air America Radio do day in and day out ­ omit any mention of the topic. Their attitude to grass roots opposition to the war is the same - bury it. And compared to Franken's favorite topics, that is the ones sanctioned by the Democratic establishment, for example, the corrupt practices of Tom DeLay, the war in Iraq which is laying waste an entire country and claiming tens of thousands of lives, takes a back seat ­ far, far back.

Coverage of Iraq is largely confined to the corruption of Halliburton and the general idea that whatever has gone wrong there is the fault of George W. Bush and the Republicans. That the war was a "mistake" is laid at the feet of Bush, with no mention of the Democrats' role in voting for it, including J. Kerry and H. Clinton. "Incompetence" over the waging of the war is a frequent complaint ­ as though it would be better for an "unjust and unnecessary war," in the words of Jimmy Carter, to be waged more competently. At one point last December at the time of his last visit to "the troops," Franken exclaimed that he "did not know what to do" about Iraq. Several weeks ago Franken was in fine fettle over the first anniversary of his Air America program to which considerable time was devoted; but it was also about the time of the second anniversary of the war's beginning. The numerous anti-war demonstrations at that time received not a word of coverage

Adversaries of the war who call for immediate and total withdrawal, like Ralph Nader or Michael Moore, are not to be found on the Franken frequency. Surprisingly, a few days back Franken had as a guest Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia, and a proponent of withdrawal from Iraq. Franken did not seem to know much about him. As Khalidi broached the subject of withdrawal form Iraq, Franken's co-host, Katherine Lanpher, interrupted with the observation that American troops might need to stay in Iraq "to make that part of the world safe for democracy." Ever on his toes, Franken changed the subject, a break ensued, and the subject was dropped. There was no further mention of withdrawal. Even after Ted Kennedy proposed immediate and prompt withdrawal, Democratic stalwart Franken did not take up this call. Like the rest of the Democratic establishment, he lent no support to Kennedy who has now fallen silent on the topic.

Most of Air America Radio is only marginally different from Franken who is little more than a shill for the Democratic Party establishment. Franken faithfully parrots its pro-war line. Fundamentally. he is just like Rush who is a Republican partisan, not a principled conservative. Franken is simply a Democratic partisan, a pitiful hack at heart. A progressive he is not. And disappointingly, Air America has turned out to be little more than a mouthpiece for the DNC and one more way to divert the anti-war movement to DNC-approved "issues" ­ like DeLay, Bolton and the other trivia that are like so many straws in the wind compared to the carnage in Iraq.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

And in the interests of fair play and equal time here is a copy of my DU post concerning an Air America host who has opposed the war and called for the withdrawl of U.S. troops.

Air America Host Laura Flanders Says Bring The Troops Home Now!

May 9, 2005
Democracy, what Democracy? Troops Out Now.

A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
by Laura Flanders

From the Laura Flanders Show, May 7, 2005

Last year, one of our guests, a retired Washington Post reporter who covered Vietnam, said the political winds shifted on that war not because of anti-war protests but because Americans got tired of the war. They simply stopped giving the president the benefit of the doubt, and started doubting the war.

They started calling not just for the war to be deemed wrong, but for it to be ended; for troops to be brought home, now. Not one more death for a lie. It's not going to get better; it's only going to get worse. That's exactly what they've been saying in the UK and it's exactly what we've got to say more, more loudly, right here.

I got into an email debate with John Walsh, this week. Walsh wrote a piece for Counterpunch in which he called Al Franken a big fat phony and said that Air America Radio supports the war.

Whaddya you mean, I said. Check out our very first show of the year -- we dedicated ourselves to the withdrawal of troops on day one. Conservative John McClaughlin, points out Walsh, tracks the Iraqis killed and the Americans killed and wounded -- but Air America doesn't -- he wrote. Well we do, on the Laura Flanders Show, weekends. Check out our in memoriam segments. Check out the roll calls we've done.

OK, point made. Defensive splutter ended. You can never say this loud or clearly enough. Progressives don't have a proactive vision, we're told. We're too damn reactive, too negative? Well not on this. On this, we're the ones with the positive vision, nay demand. Troops out now. They're not going to do a bit of good. And they're just going to keep on dying, and killing.


http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/05/05/con05163.ht...

[lojasmo]

16. He supported a DLC candidate in the primaries.

A candidate who voted "yea" on the IWR.

I guess that means yes.

[Bombtrack]

17. That is just a flat out lie

He didn't support Kerry more than any other dem candidate until after the primaries were over.

[lojasmo]

18. BUllshit.

He participated in strategy sessions with kerry during the primaires....at his apartment no less.