Chris Weigant: Open Letter To Speaker Pelosi And Majority Leader Reid

[babylonsister]

Chris Weigant|

Open Letter To Speaker Pelosi And Majority Leader Reid

Posted September 10, 2007 | 07:23 AM (EST)



Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi,
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid;



This upcoming week is going to be perhaps the most important week of the 110th Congress. General Petraeus will give his report, Ambassador Crocker will likewise report; and the debate on what to do next in Iraq will begin in earnest.

So why are Democrats seemingly admitting defeat -- before the argument has even begun? Why are you essentially taking what should be a position of strength, and (by buying into the White House's spin) turning it into a position of weakness? Do you really think this is the best way to end the Iraq war, or (for that matter) the best way to convince voters to vote for Democrats in 2008?

To put it bluntly -- why are you speaking as if you are still the minority party? In all the years wandering in the minority wilderness since Newt Gingrich's dismal reign, have you truly forgotten how the majority party in Congress is supposed to act?

To say you are disappointing your base by doing so is, indeed, an understatement. You came into possession of both houses of Congress with fairly decent approval ratings at the beginning of this year. When you failed to force President Bush to end the war in Iraq in the spring, your approval ratings plummeted to below Bush's dismal ratings. Did this not worry you? Did you not poll the public to see why they had turned on you? Have you not figured out that your base deserted you because of one single issue -- Iraq?

You may think I am being hard on you. To the contrary, I have been defending your position all year long (much to the disgust of some of my readers, I might add). I predicted in January that it would take until now to effectively force Bush to end the Iraq war. Since then, time and time again I have patiently explained the vagaries of getting anything meaningful through Congress -- in the face of raging online opinion that the war should end NOW! I have been in your corner, in other words, and have gone into great detail about supermajorities and veto-proof votes and budgetary rules and political considerations. But I must admit that several things are beginning to worry me, before this week's debate has even begun.

more...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-weigant/open-letter-to-speaker-pe_b_63706.html

[babylonsister]

1. .

[babylonsister]

2. I wish I had written this!

:hi: