Hillary traveling to Iraq makes me upset and angry
Um…why?
I’m kind of hoping there’s a second part of the OP that was cut off.
Because I am intrigued.
Limbaugh going to Afghanistan makes you do the happy dance?
I wouldn’t call that a rant. It’s not even a particularly impressive sentence.
I would like to hear the reasoning behind this.
Hillary Clinton has rapidly become one of my favorite Democrats, and I mean that sincerely. Whether I agree with her or not, I find that her comments are almost always serious and well thought out. She has been serious about the Iraq war, even if disagreeing with the administration about a number of things regarding it. She’s a very good senator.
She’s in Iraq because, whether you agreed with the war or not, success in Iraq is now hugely important to the United States, and so as a senator she felt she should go there to improve her knowledge of what’s going on so that she could make better decisions.
It also takes guts for someone like Hillary to go to Iraq, because a lot of soldiers don’t like her much. So I respect her for going even more. Good on ya, Hillary.
I can assure you it was, with a lot of F words, and the B word, but that part is lost in the digestive system of our hampster.
It’s not her job, she has no place being there.
Not particularly
Sam Stone I agree with much of what you said, though I disagree with the following:
If she was a very good senator she would do her job, which travel to Iraq is not a function of it.
I find this one hard to believe that you truly believe this is her reason for going.
Are you suggesting that our own forces are a danger to her? Again I really don’t think you really think that is true.
Of course I don’t think she’s in danger from the troops. That’s silly. But it’s not pleasant to be in a room with people who don’t like you, even if they are taking effort to be pleasant (and I would expect the soldiers to do that, too). My point was that it’s a little different for someone like McCain, who’s going to be treated as a rock star when he visits the troops.
And how do you possibly figure that understanding the situation in Iraq is not part of her job?
About a month ago I received a email from a person I know who is in the military, which included a photo of Senator Clinton with some military type person. I deleted the photo and I cannot find a link to it now, but in it Clinton was smiling and the military person standing next to her was smiling, but the military person was using his hand to make some sort of symbol. He wasn’t making bunny ears behind Clinton’s head, but apparently this was a military insider’s joke on Clinton, because the military person was supposedly making the hand signal that they’re trained to use when put into an enemy’s propaganda photo, ie, that “I’m all right but they’re making me do this under duress.” It was a funny joke photo to my email correspondent. I replied back to him, suggesting none too kindly that if the photo wasn’t doctored then the military person who posed for the photo ought to get disciplined for embarrassing a US Senator like that, which my correspondent didn’t think was at all funny. Which is my round about way of saying that I believe there is some hostility toward Senator Clinton from our military.
McCain is with her. Are you saying it’s ok for him to be there but not her?
What a pathetic… well, it’s not even a rant, what the hell do I call it? Fetid pile of crap, perhaps?
On the other hand, great post Sam. I’m not a fan of Hillary as a person, but she is doing a good job as senator, so it’s good to see someone with an opposing political viewpoint recognise that too.
How in the world could you have possibly have gotten from what I wrote that it’s ‘not okay’ for her to be there? Are you even reading what I write? Or are you just looking for keywords you can rant over or something? My point is that Hillary should get MORE credit for being there, because it’s harder for her. I thought that was pretty clear.
It wasn’t directed at you Sam. It was directed to the OP.
Sam, may I say that I am truly impressed with your first post here? That sort of thoughtful, reasoned response across party lines is what this place need a lot more of.
Kanicbird, would you be so kind as to explain these two quotes? I would think that making a fact-finding trip to a country where our troops are fighting and we’re pouring money into in an effort to rebuild a stable, functioning democracy, would be a very important part of a Senator’s job.
Reeder: My apologies. Shoudn’t have snapped back at you.
OK, I understand this now.
I can’t see a relationship between getting the US citizens to pay for ‘make work’ projects in NY, which has been the ‘unwritten’ job of a senator, and taking a photo opp in another country. Again I don’t believe for one second that she went over there to ‘understand’ what is going on. What she did is a presidental function, what she did was to help her run for Pres in '08, what she did is screw the people of NY by not doing her job.
I didn’t knoe he was, WTF is he doing there too, perhaps every town executive should make a trip to Iraq.
Sorry if this doesn’t measure up to your standards.
I didn’t know I was supposed to be outraged by this, but now that I know a Senator visiting Iraq is a pittable offense, I don’t have enough outrage to go around. So I’ll just create a Nixon-style enemies list.
The following Senators ought to be doing their jobs, instead of dicking around in Iraq:
[ul][li]Joe Biden (D-DE)[/li][li]Sam Brownback (R-KS)[/li][li]Lincoln Chafee (R-RI)[/li][li]Norm Coleman (R-MN)[/li][li]Susan Collins (R-ME)[/li][li]Mark Dayton (D-MN)[/li][li]Jim DeMint (R-SC)[/li][li]Russ Feingold (D-WI)[/li][li]Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)[/li][li]Lindsey Graham (R-SC)[/li][li]Chuck Hagel (R-NE)[/li][li]Joe Lieberman (D-CT)[/li][li]John McCain (R-AZ)[/li][/ul]
And no doubt many others. Get back to work!
And don’t get me started on those jackasses over in the House.
You do know that Hillary is a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, right?