"House Vote on the War..."Mar. 27‚ 2007Hi Paul, I am one of those people who on principle do not like the bill that was passed. Even so, I think I could have better accepted the outcome if it wasn’t for the $billions in pork attached to the bill that HAD NOTHING to do with the funding of the Iraq War. This stinks to high heaven and leaves the Democrats open to porking up a bill to get votes. And, that strikes at the heart of the bill’s integrity. To me, there was no reason for the pork $ other than to trade for votes. I wonder why you failed to include the pork factor of the bill in your article. It’s extremely important for progressives to remain “fair and balanced” and not cherry pick only what is favorable to a point of view or we are no better than Fox News. Thanks, Nancy Williams Paul, I'm fully aware of the strategic issues involved in deciding whether to support Pelosi's bill. The bill's supporters correctly claim that there were not enough votes to pass a bill that would immediately remove U.S. troops from Iraq, but those people fail to mentiona this: the House holds the key to funding the war. We don't need enough votes to pass a bill, we just need enough House members to refuse to vote for funding the war. A much better strategy would have been to force the issue by refusing, as the anti-war caucus did, to vote for any military funding that does anything but remove the troops immediately. While that might fail in the short term, it certainly would mark anyone who votes for funding to keep troops in Iraq as a war supporter. House elections occur every two years, meaning that we could heavily target these people very soon, hopefully removing many or most them from office. Then not only would we get immediately out of Iraq, but there's very little chance that people voted into Congress on a platform of removing troops from Iraq immediately would support the U.S. attacking anyone else, like Iran. Jeff Hoffman San Francisco You can submit letters to the editor by clicking on this link: rshaw@beyondchron.org or by writing to: Beyond Chron 126 Hyde Street San Francisco, CA 94102 415-771-9850 (phone) 415-771-1287 (fax) |