Nancy Pelosi: Power vs. Responsibility

Hat Tip to Black Five, Point Five, Blue Star Chronicles and finally Charlie Daniels for an open letter to Nancy Pelosi that he has on his Soapbox and Message Board.

First a little about Charlie Daniels, he is one patriotic American, and I mean the true blue hero kind of American, the kind of American that Congress needs to emulate. His song, "In America" (lyrics here) should be blaring over any air wave that the troops can tune in to. The astonishing thing about this song is that is wasn't written since 9/11 or since the War on Terror started, it was written in 1980. "In America" ranks up there with Toby Keith's "The Angry American", that is just how powerful it is. Now, if you haven't gone back and read the lyrics, please do and I would truly appreciate it if you would find the tune on iTunes or the like and really listen to it. It Rocks!!

Now, on to the focus of this post. Daniels' letter to Reid and Pelosi plainly states what the Democrats should be thinking about; the fallout from leaving Iraq without the job being done. He lists quite a few realistic outcomes and asks if they have a plan to counter that effect. It is quite remarkable.

What I am seeing with Pelosi is that she is still on her Speaker Honeymoon. She is flexing her muscles, making sure that everyone knows she is in charge. Just take a look at many of her photos and in particular some moving footage, there is an obvious smirk on her face. She is loving the limelight. Sadly, she is, as Daniels pointed out, thinking short term and only honing in on way to inflict pain on the White House. In short, she is concentrating on power.

Looking back to recent weeks with the issue over her requested military transport, she was fixated on her status, appearance and place in history as the first female Speaker. A responsible person who protests to be concerned with the lack of armor and equipment for the troops would have conversely taken a smaller plane, or flown commercial flights and then ask that the saved funds be put into equipping the troops.

A responsible person would, instead of attempting to smear the Commander in Chief at every opportunity, quietly go to the White House and talk with the President to hammer out significant, real and valuable answers to the problems facing our country in private. Instead, she is behaving like a newly selected team captain of the cheer leading squad at the high school of your choice.

I shudder to think how she will react when the terrorists bring their attacks to US soil, when Iran takes over Iraq for Al-Qaeda, when the Kuwaiti oilfields are cut off, and on a deeper level, how we are perceived on the world stage considering we have not seen a military event to its end since 1945. Daniels makes some amazingly chilling points in this letter and I hope that Pelosi and her followers realize that power and responsibility are not mutually exclusive.

The Pink Elephant

I have been watching the political landscape this morning and this op-ed piece by E. J. Dionne, Jr in the WaPo caught my attention and I started to look around at some of the other major US papers, news websites and etc. and discovered something "astonishing". No one was addressing the big question, it was as if it were the proverbial pink elephant. There are pieces, such as the one cited above, that spend valuable space disecting the debate in the Senate today over the non-binding resolution which could well lead to an attempt to cut off funding for the war in Iraq. Dionne says,

"They are saying that the resolution is meaningless and that true opponents of the war should prove their sincerity by cutting off funding altogether. But they are doing all they can to keep the Senate from even voting on a bipartisan anti-surge resolution that would send a powerful message to Bush that most Americans have lost faith in his bungled war policy."

OK, I have some MAJOR problems with this quote simply because;

1) this is a NON-BINDING resolution. It literally is meaningless. The only group to truly benefit from this resolution is ... oops! Maybe the enemy? I love my country more than most I can assure you all of that but I am to the point of nauseaum with our politicians shooting us in the foot over and over and over. Like the analogy of the hamster running like mad on his exercise wheel, we keep going in circles doing the same things over and over expecting different results.

2) all of this talk about cutting off funding for the war is just posturing. This is the one point where I agree with Dionne, no one wants to be the first to officially have it on their Congressional Record that they voted to cut funding. Just not a good political move. Alas, what does that say about those screaming defiance from the pulpit over ending this war? All smoke and no fire.

3) no one is thinking about the impact of all of this beyond the Beltway. This is what those soldiers in the NBC NEWS piece were talking about last week which lead to the William Arkin lunacy (ref. MM). Imgine being thousands of miles away from home watching the news, or worse the live debate on C-SPAN, hearing all of this arguing and political tongue-lashing. Meanwhile, you are thanking God that with the help of one of those patriotic "Angels" over at Soldiers' Angels, you and your men finally got some kick ass tactical gun mount lights for your weapons. No more door to doors with two lights for your entire platoon. So you are feeling pretty good, then you hear your very own Senator blowing smoke on the Senate Floor and you are wondering, WTF?

Point being, in none of the major news outlets could I find anyone asking about the Pink Elephant. What would early withdrawl from Iraq truly mean, politically, economically and most importantly globally?

My thoughts on the "Pink Elephant" question in tomorrow's post.