"Unfortunately, you go to war with the President you have, not the President you want".

[Pirate Smile]

Rep. Tim Ryan on the House kicking ass a few minutes ago.


We didn't call the other side unpatriotic when they sent our soldiers into battle without the body armour they needed,

We didn't call the other side unpatriotic when they sent our soldiers into war without the uploaded (armored) Humvees they needed,

We did call them incompetent and derelict of their duty of oversight,

This president is not Lincoln, he's not Roosevelt. Unfortunately, you go to war with the president you have, not the president you wish you had.

We definitely need that from Youtube.


Rep. Steve Buyer (R-Indiana) kept trying to interrupt. Ryan would just say "Speaker, the House is not in order" until they would shut up. Buyer then asked for a parliamentary inquiry, the speaker's chair asked if Ryan would yield - He said "NO, I will not yield".

After Ryan was done Buyer said no one on their side had ever said the other side wasn't patriotic. Yeah, right.

[Kagemusha]

1. Since we just learned that open floor debates aren't copyrighted

you shouldn't have a long wait.

[Pirate Smile]

21. Daily Kos has a diary up that includes it.

Tim Ryan owns the Iraq debate-- TRANSCRIPT & VIDEO
by skymutt
Thu Feb 15, 2007 at 10:16:06 PM PST
I am so proud to be an Ohioan tonight. Tim Ryan simply rules, we already know this; and this speech did not disappoint a little bit. If you missed it, my hastily written transcript, which does not do the speech justice, over the fold...

UPDATE: Thanks to the hard work and skills of kovie, we now have a darn decent quality video clip of the whole speech (if it cuts off near the end, video of the end of the speech is at BuckeyeStateBlog):



NOTE: If you somehow don't know who Tim Ryan is, you'll want to learn-- this documentary on Google video of his first campaign for Congress in 2002 is a great place to start... 53 minutes long, but very interesting.

skymutt's diary :: ::
As we approach the final day of the debate on this resolution, I have enjoyed the debate thoroughly; I have found it humorous at times...

Our friends on the other side of the aisle have tried every argument they could muster; they've talked about President Clinton; they've talked about Vietnam; they're trying to bring up Israel;

And my friend from Indiana also mentioned something about the issue of consistency; and I find it funny that the pro-life-- the self-proclaimed pro-life party is the party that wants to keep extending the war;

I find it ironic that all of the great budget hawks of the Republican Party want to throw 8 billion dollars a month to keep going and going and going as we borrow the money from China;

But I also found the debate at times disappointing; where members of the other side have questioned our side; when they've said 'Whose side are we on?' and 'How can we say that we support the troops?' and that we're somehow unpatriotic.

And I would just like to say that, you know, when the Republican Party and this President didn't send enough troops, we didn't call you unpatriotic; and when you sent our young soldiers over there without the body armor, we never called you unpatriotic.



I will not yield.



The house is not in order.





Thank you Mr. President. We never called the other side unpatriotic, when they sent our soldiers over without enough body armor. And when they didn't send enough up-armored Humvees, we never called anybody unpatriotic. And now when the next batch goes over without enough jammers, or up-armored kits, we won't call you unpatriotic.

Now we've called you incompetent-- we said you're incapable-- and we've said that you're derelict of your oversight duties-- but never Mr. Speaker have we called anybody in this house unpatriotic. Now Mr. Speaker--



The House is not in order!



I will not yield.

Now let me speak to the resolution. This is very simple. It says two things. We support our troops and we do not support escalation. It's very simple. And here's why.

We have already done this. Mr. Speaker; we've already done this, we've already tried the escalation, and it HAS. NOT. WORKED. From November to January '05, we escalated by 18,000 troops, boots on the ground, and the number of daily attacks increased by 17%. From June to October of '05, we increased by 21,000 boots on the ground, and the number of dialy attacks increased by 29%. And from May to November of '06, 17,000 more boots on the ground, and the number of daily attacks increased by 80%.

This escalation has not worked, and it will not work. The number of insurgents has increased from 5,000 in '03 to between 20,000 and 30,000 in October '06.

So this is very simple. And I wanna make just a few more points Mr. Speaker, and one is this: with the last vote for the war, no matter which party you are in or how you voted, we assumed that the President and the Secretary of Defense would send our troops over there with the proper equipment. But with this escalation, Mr. Speaker, we know that the 21,500 troops that are going to go over there will not have the proper Humvee kits, up-armor for their Humvees, they won't have the proper jamming devices or enough of them, and the won't have have the number of trucks that they need. Period, dot. You now know it.

So if you vote against this resolution, you're voting to send our troops over there without the proper equipment. Before it could be excused. Because we trusted the president and assumed, but now we know.

And finally, Mr. Speaker, we've heard a lot over the past couple days about the American Revolution, and the Civil War, and World War Two. Well Mr. Speaker, our President today is not Washington, he is not Lincoln, and he is not Roosevelt. And so I think our Republican colleagues should take the advice of the Secretary of Defense, and that is YOU GO TO WAR WITH THE PRESIDENT YOU HAVE. You don't go to war with the President you wish you had.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Shortly thereafter, Ryan took the floor to respond to some Republican whining: (h/t BarbinMD for the transcription)

I just want to, Mr. Speaker, it is entirely possible and welcome under the Constitution of the United States, to have disagreements about how we need to handle troop deployments, how we need to handle our situation in different wars, and it's not to be said that because one Party or one group of people have a different philosophy and a different strategy, that somehow they're not supporting the troops! Now your Party and your President, the Republican Party, Mr. Speaker, and the Republican President, are the ones who sent our kids to battle without armor. Without body armor. And it took Jack Murtha months to uncover it and then to finally get it paid for and distributed. It was the Republican Party, Mr. Speaker, who sent kids into battle without up-armored Humvees. Now, nobody questioned the Republican Party's patriotism. And nobody asked them if they supported the troops. Again, we called you incompetent, we said you were incapable, we said you were derelict in you duty, we said you should have provided oversight, you didn't, but we never called you unpatriotic. Now enough of the unpatriotic business.

I yield back the balance of my time.

edrie had a live thread going during and after the speech and there was much fireworks in between and after, until the session adjourned-- details in the comments there, I honestly haven't had the chance to watch it all yet...

Also, h/t to BuckeyeStateBlog for the earliest video clips of the speech before kovie YouTubed the whole thing.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/2/16/11256/2058

[truedelphi]

2. Simply F*&K*ng Brilliant! n/t

[msongs]

3. you go to war BECAUSE of the president you have , not WITH.... nt

[patrice]

4. Powerful delivery!

Wow Debbie Wasserman Schultz is handing it back to Buyer now.

[DeepModem Mom]

5. Thanks for reporting this -- excellent! nt

[countmyvote4real]

6. Damn. I missed it, but he's still jumping in.

The asshole (R) from Indiana makes it so clear that we have the moral high ground. So easy for Ryan to challenge again.

[Truthiness Inspector]

7. This will backfire

"Unfortunately, you go to war with the president you have, not the president you wish you had."

We don't "wish" presidents into office, we elect them. I know many here think Bush wasn't elected, but this quote on Ryan's part will backfire, if it makes the news at all.

While we're at it, and sticking to facts, I don't believe the Bush Admin has ever called anyone "unpatriotic." It may be implied, etc, but short of direct quotes it won't sell. I can already feel the flames, but really, stick to what is established versus what we may consider to be fact. It doesn't help. Does Bush think most Dems are unpatriotic? Surely. But has he SAID it? No.

Donning flame/reality suit lol.

[beltanefauve]

9. Not exactly the word "unpatriotic",

but what about, "You're either with us or your with the terrorists"? Does that count?

I'm sure I can find some somewhere...

[Truthiness Inspector]

11. Think about what you just said

and any quotes would be great.

[beltanefauve]

13. Huh?

[Truthiness Inspector]

18. You contributed nothing to the discussion. Huh...my ass. n/t

[rwenos]

10. Inducement and Innuendo

So, like, the Pubs never said "unpatriotic."

That means, like Rhett Butler didn't NECESSARILY boff Scarlet to the wall after he carried her up that staircase, and the next morning she was sitting in bed with a Cheshire cat grin, whistling?

Or, like, that guy in Florida really MEANT Claude Pepper was a "shameless extrovert," whose sister was a "known thespian in New York," and that Pepper really had been seen "openly matriculating".

C'mon, Mate. Wake up and smell the slander.

[noise]

12. Backfire?

Ryan keys in on the main problem...republicans follow corrupt civilian leaders like Bush and then have the audacity to call that supporting the troops!

[pnwmom]

15. They didn't call Max Cleland "unpatriotic" either.

They just linked him with Osama bin Laden.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200407300007

While the campaign of Cleland's opponent, Senator Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), never used the word "unpatriotic," as The New Republic's "Notebook" reported on December 2, 2002, "attacks on Cleland's patriotism formed the subtext of virtually the entire Chambliss campaign, as noted by innumerable press accounts leading up to and following the election." A July 3, 2003, Washington Post article described the controversial Chambliss ad that attacked Cleland, a Vietnam veteran who lost three limbs during the war:

It opened with pictures of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. "As America faces terrorists and extremist dictators," said a narrator, "Max Cleland runs television ads claiming he has the courage to lead. He says he supports President Bush at every opportunity, but that's not the truth. Since July, Max Cleland voted against President Bush's vital homeland security efforts 11 times!"

As Media Matters for America has previously noted, the Chambliss ad was immediately condemned, as the Post reported, by Republican Senators John McCain of Arizona (who said of the ad, "t's worse than disgraceful, it's reprehensible") and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska (who threatened to run an ad denouncing Republican officials if they didn't pull it off the air).

[pnwmom]

16. How many times has the Bush administration claimed that those

who oppose his Iraq policies are "giving aid and comfort to the enemy" or that those who oppose the Homeland Security bill are "aiding terrorists"? What could be more unpatriotic, and yet Republicans routinely criticize Democrats on these grounds.

[Truthiness Inspector]

17. In other words the answer is NO

Don't put words in anyone's mouth if you demand credibility.

[pnwmom]

19. I didn't put any words into their mouths.

But to say something is "giving aid and comfort to the enemy" clearly impugns their patriotism in the most flagrant manner.

[lovuian]

8. Love Ryan give them back all their BS they gave before

they deserve their karma

[Hippo_Tron]

14. I wonder if Ryan would be interested in disposing of Voinovich in 2010

He's got some serious potential.

[Meat Stew]

20. Yea but

its all bullsh1t.

This administration has been called much worse terms than unpatriotic for all of those things. Daily.


And don't get me started on Lincoln. Camp Douglas was an extermination camp for Federal prisoners of war. That was on his watch. Lincoln launched troops on his own countrymen. Lincoln wanted to send blacks back to Africa.

Bush is not a good president I agree but lets attack properly. The guy got us into a war that he couldn't handle with intelligence that turned out to be false. He has done poorly.


The rest is just Partisan crap.


Politics