David Brin wrote: >Having done nothing but lie for six years (and vastly longer than >that, in the case of Cheney-Rumsfeld), and having demolished our >military readiness, having betrayed the reserves and having put us >into a quagmire almost identical to Vietnam, these people >are the very last ones we should be trusting to be smart enough to >get us out of it.
>I mean, what is this monstrous concept of loyalty to politicians? It >is positively loony! It is Karl Rove?s insane notion that we all >are on blue or red ?sides? and that your side has a natural set of >leaders you MUST be loyal to. These two paragraphs had an interesting juxtaposition right here in New Jersey last year. Please bear with me, as this is from memory, and it's possible I don't know all the facts but this is how it was reported locally: A local Congressman, Representative Chris Smith, is by all defintions a loyal Republican. Mr. Smith is a Christian conservative who virulently opposes abortion (in as blue a state as NJ, no less), favors tax cuts, opposes most social programs and generally votes along party lines in all things (some 92-95% of the time, if memory serves). Again, a loyal Republican. He was also, until last year, chairman of the Veterans Committee of the House, and a dedicated fighter for the rights of Armed Services veterans. (One of his few stances with which I agree) However, Rep. Smith made the mistake of disagreeing with Republican leadership in regards to increasing veterans' benefits. In light of Iraq War II, he felt more benefits were appropriate, while the leadership disagreed. Mr. Smith fought back against the administration, standing his ground that kids risking getting their limbs blown off to prosecute President Bush's war ought to get some more benefits. Imagine thinking such a thing was appropriate!! Well, Mr. Smith's reward for this one oppositional stance to the administration's policies? Removal from his post as chair on the committee to which he'd dedicated most of his 20+ years in Congress. He may have even been removed from the committee entirely, but I'm fuzzy on that detail. The leadership's excuse for doing this, since Heaven forbid they admit it was punishment for going up against them administration? He didn't vote along party lines often enough. Somehow, ~92% of the time just wasn't sufficient. I think it's a perfect illustration of what the Republicans are about right now. I generally detest Smith's politics, but I still feel he got a raw deal. Here's an administration that uses the "war on terror" as carte blanche for everything, but that also punishes a guy who wanted to give more to the people actually doing the fighting than the leadership wanted to. Again, perhaps there's more to the story; maybe he wanted too much, but it seems hypocritical to me for the administration to talk about war and then balk when it comes time to give a hand to the ones actually fighthing it. Apparently simple loyalty isn't enough. *Mindless* loyalty is what's required. Jim _______________________________________________ Join Excite! - http://www.excite.com The most personalized portal on the Web! _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
