Pressuring The So-Called Moderates

Moderate Republicans today were targeted by several retired flag officers for their support of President Bush's desperation "surge". It will be a hard target to find, but an easy one to hit as all the so-called moderates have done is waste a little air and exercise their mouth muscles.

"I am outraged, as are the majority of Americans. I'm a lifelong Republican, but it's past time for change," retired Maj. Gen. John Batiste told reporters.
"Our strategy in Iraq today is more of the same, a slow grind to nowhere which totally ignores the reality of Iraq and the lessons of history," Batiste said. "Our president ignores sound military advice and surrounds himself with like-minded and compliant subordinates."

Votevets.org is targeting congressmen and senators who have made some statement in opposition to Mr. Bush.

Our ads are airing in states and districts of those Members of Congress who are very close to breaking with the President on Iraq, and joining the troops and American people. They are: Senators Susan Collins, John Sununu, John Warner, and Norm Coleman, and Representatives Mary Bono, Phil English, Randy Kuhl, Jim Walsh, Heather Wilson, Jo Ann Emerson, Tim Johnson, Mike Rogers, Fred Upton, and Mike Castle. Mentioning them by name at the end, the local spots will call on them to "Protect America, Not George Bush."

As you can see, it won't cost much to target such a meager list.

Batiste and Paul Eaton, also a retired major general, are featured in the ads by VoteVets.org. They challenge the president's argument that he listens to his commanders on the ground in Iraq and say the president's Iraq policies endanger U.S. security.

If they think this is going to get something happening with the so-called moderates they are going to be surprised. It's not September yet, hell, it will be more like September, 2008 before these spineless bastards do anything for our troops except use them to help tuck in the flags they've had themselves wrapped in since 2001.

Here's what one of the giants of moderation had to say in response:

"Telling members of al Qaeda, militias or insurgent groups the date we will begin and end troop withdrawals is irresponsible," Sununu said.

When VoteVets.org ran ads in February, Sununu said critics of the war have every right to speak out, "but no group or individual should claim to speak for all the patriotic Americans serving in Iraq and around the world in our armed forces."

Mr Sununu should start self-moderating his right-wing talking points and stop protecting his party and his oh-so-lame duck president.

Just who is speaking up for our troops? The republicans? That's laughable. The incompetent Bush Administration and it's enablers in congress haven't been speaking for anyone but themselves. No one in this administration speaks for the troops or listens to them.

"The fact is, the president has never listened to the soldiers on the ground effectively," said retired NATO Supreme Allied Commander Wesley Clark, who ran for president in 2004. "This administration is not listening to the troops and is not supporting them."

It's a tough job looking for moderates when they don't want to be found. Moderation in republicans is the same as desperation.


Jim Martin

No Where To Go

In Libby's post "Where Do We Go From Here" she gets to the heart of my beliefs concerning the direction this country is going. She states:

It's time to hold the Republicans accountable for their man. They put him into office. They gave him carte blanche and now it's not only costing the party, it's endangering the country. It's time for Republicans who still believe in the rule of law to take control from the extremists who would create a monarchy and destroy their party in the process.

Which republicans is she talking about? These people that blindly support Bush ARE the Republican Party!

The only senator who speaks against Bush is Chuck Hagel and he just decided that he didn't want his job anymore. The other republicans in congress are so afraid of their radical-right base that they toe the party line.

There are a lot of moderate blogs and they speak with intelligence and common sense, for the most part, but the Republican Party they long for and remember is gone. If you want to find moderation in national politics you would have to look at the democrats.

There is talk among moderates of re-taking their party from the radical-right but they have a long slog ahead of them. They sat back for too long and let it slip away. In November of last year a lot of the people elected to congress as democrats would have been, in any other election of recent memory, republicans. They were people of conscience and moderation and they had no place in the Republican Party.

Libby mentioned that September is the magical month. Sorry Libby, but Santa's not coming early. This is just more of the same stalling tactics that have been employed by the republicans since they started screwing up in Iraq. When the time arrives the republicans will tell us that September was never a realistic goal and our great military leaders need more time to win us the glorious victory. It will then continue until Bush is finally gone.

If there are going to be two major parties left after Bush leaves then the moderates better get busy.

Jim Martin

[thanks to The Moderate Voice and Michael van der Galien for the links]

Moderates? What Moderates?

I have posted a fair amount recently about the search for moderates in the Republican Party or at least moderate republicans in the congress. WashingtonPost.com may have gotten to the root of it. It seems the republican base is anything but moderate and the base is too big for republican congressmen to ignore, if they want to keep their jobs, and you know they do.

Just ask Rep. Wayne Gilchrist (R-MD) when he voted to start bringing the troops home. He went to some town hall meetings and got called a coward and a traitor. This guy is a Marine Corp and Vietnam veteran.

Then there is Rep. Bob Inglis (R-SC) who voted for a non-binding resolution opposing a Bush troop increase. He had to kiss some major ass to avoid a primary for his seat.

This is more evidence that the Republican Party is dominated by right-wing shitheads and evangelicals. They've thrown in with the republicans and the republicans better deliver.

"That's the dilemma for Republicans going forward," Kohut said yesterday. "They've got to look out for their base, but they have to acknowledge the independents have aligned themselves with the way Democrats are thinking on the issue of Iraq."

The majority of Americans are for a timetable to end the war, but the lines are sharply drawn on both sides.

It is also the dilemma facing both sides of the stalemate as they try to write a war funding bill that can be signed into law. A poll last week by the Pew Center found that 59 percent of Americans want their members of Congress to support legislation calling for troop withdrawals by August 2008. Only a third wanted their representatives to oppose such a bill.
But neither side wants compromise. Most of those supporting a timeline for withdrawal -- 54 percent -- said Democratic leaders should insist on that position rather than compromising with Bush. The same percentage of opponents of withdrawal say that Bush should give no ground to the Democrats.

Unless the war turns around the republicans are in a tough spot. They're in this thing with all they have and it seems without the ability to compromise, the 2008 election will be worse for the right-wing than 2006.

The search for moderates in the republican delegation is becoming a huge waste of time. There aren't any, and unless the grass roots moderates get active and actually become the base then we are going to be blessed with a long-term democratic majority in addition to a democratic president.

A one party government is not good for this country even if it is a democratic one. We are suffering the consequences now of republican one party rule and it will take years to get over the effects at home and around the world. Of course, a competent president the last six years would have made a big difference.

The curious thing in all this is that there is a large contingent of moderates in the Democratic Party. Apparently there is another name for a moderate, it's called a democrat.

Jim Martin

[thanks to The Moderate Voice for the link]

A Moderate Is Good To Find

Pete Abel over at The Moderate Voice has post up about Congressman Phil Hare from Illinois' 17th district.
Even though he's not a republican, he's a moderate and the best example you'll
find in this day and age of a disappearing breed; the citizen legislator.

Our conversation also made me wonder if perhaps "citizen legislators" might be a workable idea, after all, in this modern age. No, Phil’s not exactly a citizen legislator. He worked in politics for 24 years before elected to office. Still, he’s got that citizen legislator sense about him; he knows he’s there to represent his constituents, and go to bat for them, not make a name for himself.

Although I have been on a quest to find a republican moderate, finding a democratic one is still pretty darn refreshing.

Maybe it's time to start a new quest.

If Google Can't Find Any, Well.....

I did a Google search for "moderate republicans". The results were interesting, but not surprising. I found just two sites on the first two pages that had a date in 2007.
There was a piece by Taegan Goddard's Political Wire with this interesting quote:

"During the 12 years that Republicans controlled the House, moderate Republicans were the stepchildren of their party, expected to vote with their conservative leadership on crucial issues, even if it meant taking positions that could anger centrist voters back home." However, now that Democrats have taken control of the House, moderate Republicans "are vowing to pursue their centrist positions more assertively, even if it means endorsing Democratic initiatives."

Curiously, there was no moderate republican named.
CNN's Political Ticker had another interesting piece, but again no mention of serving "moderates".

The Republican Leadership Council was founded in 1993 to expand the party's base, but has not been very involved in campaigns since 2003. It's now attempting to recruit candidates that are fiscally conservative, but moderate on social issues.
Former Gov. Christie Whitman of New Jersey, former Sen. John Danforth of Missouri and former Maryland lieutenant governor Michael Steele want to revitalize the RLC, which has a counterpart in the centrist Democratic Leadership Council. The RLC is being combined with Whitman's political action committee IMP-PAC -- It's My Party, Too.
"After the losses in 2006, the reaction was overwhelming that we need to get the Republican Party back to its fiscally conservative roots," Whitman said, adding that the GOP needs to be "a little less judgmental."

Would these people even be welcomed in the present republican party?

There were great websites with titles like these:
Bush's Re-election Would Doom Moderate Republicans
Moderate Republicans Feeling Endangered
The Moderate Republican Scam
This one here is my favorite. It lists those things that make a republican a moderate:

A passion for civil liberties;
A disdain for conformity and suspicion of authority;
A belief that the Constitution is a living, breathing document with timeless values that must be made relevant in a modern age;
A commitment to protect the environment and not engage in mindless exploitation of the nation's natural beauty. A spirited case must be made for reusable energy sources like solar power. Modern technology provides many options before the earth is harshly, brutally, and needlessly pillaged.
A strong belief that diversity -- gender, racial, social, sexual, ethnic, and religious -- should be celebrated because it gives the United States moral strength. Diversity -- in the long-term, encourages respect, understanding, and a greater sense of community;
A commitment to fiscal prudence and limited government;
A recognition that government does have a basic social responsibility to help those in need;
A belief that the nation does have international responsibilities;
A belief that God and religion have a very important place in America -- at the dinner table and in churches, temples, and mosques. But it should never be used by politicians to advance a narrow moral agenda;
A belief that the national government should be used in a limited manner to advance the common good;
A commitment never to put party above country; and
A responsibility to publicly criticize those who call themselves Republican when the situation merits. Moderate/Progressives have a duty to vote against the party line when it doesn't serve the greater good. Doing so doesn't make them less Republican; it demonstrates that they have the honor, political courage, and intellectual honesty to put nation above party.

Does this sound like the republicans serving in congress? Hell, that doesn't sound like anyone, but it sounds great. I'd join a moderate republican party in a second, if there was one

The search continues.

Jim M