I am amazed by this:
Moderates are imploring colleagues in Congress to tone down the rhetoric on Iraq as debate about President Bush’s war policies has become increasingly bitter and partisan.
Their pleas are likely to be ignored.
The war is expected to be front and center in the upcoming congressional election year, particularly in several races where candidates are Iraq war veterans. Neither party has much incentive to pull its punches, with Republicans eager to paint Democratic critics of Bush’s Iraq policies as soft on defense and Democrats looking to exploit his woes as polls show declining support for the war.
Kudos to Liz Sidoti for an almost honest piece, which was not heavy on Bush and America bashing, but took a rather middle road. While she certainly soft soaps the differences in the rhetoric, it has a good measure of truth.
Understandably, she couldn’t put the true differences into print, that being the Dems willingness to bash anything and everything in order to gain power, no matter how it hurts the country and the military, and the Republicans bashing the Left as Surrender Monkeys, military haters, and un-patriotic. The Dems started their disingenuous partisan rhetoric shortly after President Bush took office, after an election which Gore couldn’t eve carry his home state, and Clinton did not offer an exactly ringing endorsement of him. It stopped for a few days after 9/11, then started back hard and heavy.
Moderates, other the Leiberman, are rarely heard from, and rarely listened to. The GOP has tried to ignore the highly personal and partisan attacks from the Democratic leaders for years, but, as of the last couple months, they are finally coming out of their shell, saying much of what has been said in the RW blogosphere for years. And it will only get stronger, one can hope.
Dingy Harry get’s off a good one in the article
"No, I don’t feel there’s a lack of civility around here (in the Senate)," Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., agreed. "There’s at least a debate going on."
Not sure what reality he is living in, but isn’t the one the rest of us live in.
