Let me start this diary by briefly commenting on a few things that have nothing to do with the diary itself. I missed a busy week in politics. I missed all the blogging about Mark Warner, about Petraeus' and Crocker's Senate testimony, and about Bush's statements on Thursday. And I missed, for the first time, Saturday's march. All of this was because my Grandmother died on Saturday the 8th and I was in Texas to pay my respects and help my mother and the rest of my family wherever I could. I returned home to the DC area late last night.
I started catching up this morning. As I went about what is a comforting routine, I watched Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer. Among other things, he interviewed Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX). What spewed forth from this santimonious hypocrite had me seeing red. I'm calling Bullshit (or BullShark, if it's in the title) on John Cornyn. Follow me over the fold.
I'm happy to be home - it was an emotional eight days, frankly. Even though it was an emotional time for my entire family, they are still my family and have their own views and opinions. Specifically, the Texas branch of my family (three uncles, two aunts and 8 cousins) are avowed Republicans, though it's worth mentioning that even they seem pretty unable as well as unwilling to defend their native son. So it was with some measure of interest, peppered with emotional exhaustion, that I watched Cornyn's (R-TX) interview and comments. Let's dig in.
First, the segment in which Cornyn appeared was a Q&A of both he and Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN). I thought Bayh did a good (if somewhat low-key) job of making points that should be obvious. The first dose of outrage came when Blitzer was asking Cornyn about the Webb Amendment (PDF):
BLITZER: Senator Cornyn - Senator Jim Webb of Virginia, himself a Vietnam War veteran, is introducing once again, legislation that in effect would force the President's hand as far as a troop level in Iraq. His legislation says this:
"No unit or member of the Armed Forces may be deployed for Operation Iraqi Freedom or Operation Enduring Freedom unless the period between deployment of the unit or member is equal to or longer than the period of such previous deployment."BLITZER: In other words, if you send a soldier for 15 months to Iraq, they have to be home for 15 months before they can be re-sent back to Iraq. Is that a good idea or a bad idea?
CORNYN: I'm concerned about the length of deployments, and that's why we need to grow the n-strength of our military. But I think we all recognize that having failed to having cut off funds for our efforts in Iraq and the global war on terror, now there's a backdoor strategy to try to tie the hands of commanders and to limit their flexibility in dealing with the threat. I think that's what the Webb Amendment represents.
BLITZER: But do you... will - you'll vote against it.
CORNYN: Well, I'm interested in the debate and obviously I'm concerned about the deployment - the lengthy deployments, their impact on our soldiers and their families, but I'm not for - I'm against - any attempt to tie the hands of our commanders or limit the flexibility on what is an improving security situation in Iraq. Why the critics refuse to take "yes" and "progress" for an answer.
My emphasis added. What a bullshit answer. Someone needs to submit this guy to Ripley's Believe It Or Not for so skillfully talking out of both sides of his mouth. Essentially, he said that he's concerned about the length of deployments - so much so that he's against any effort to control on and off time with respect to deployments. Shamefully, he tries to bend the Webb Amendment to suit his own political desire, that the war continue unchecked and unregulated.
But it was his comment about "n-strength" that leapt out at me. It was a brief mention - but apparently, Cornyn thinks that a) the Webb Amendment is a political ploy and therefore garbage (despite the beneficial effect it will have on those who are deployed); and b) that this is all solved by "increasing the n-strength" (read: recruiting more troops) of the military. Now THAT'S a monumentally stupid thing to say.
This article at DefenseLink.mil talks about 2006 recruiting and retention numbers. Here are the goal vs. actual numbers broken out by active duty, Reserve, and Guard for the US Army:
Active-duty Army: 80,635 recruits against a goal of 80,000 - 101% of goal.
Army Reserve: 34,379 recruits against a goal of 36,032 - 95% of goal
Army National Guard: 69,042 recruits against a goal of 70,000 - 99% of goal.
If you total active duty, Reserve and Guard recruiting goals for 2006 you get 186,032. The actual recruiting numbers were 184,056, leaving a net negative difference of 1,976 recruits. In other words, the US Army fell short of 100% of its recruiting goals for 2006. Someone better tell deployed soldiers that the Cornyn Plan will take what looks like a lifetime to come to fruition and that they can't count on any reasonable balance of deployed vs. home time with this asshat possessing a vote.
Cornyn prattled on about how the surge is working, and how we should support our troops, and about how evil MoveOn is (with a ridiculous amount of face-time given to the ad itself and, therefore, taken away from an actual discussion of Petraeus' testimony). When available, a link to the transcript can be found here (I am transcribing off of my DVR). It was this next segment about Alan Greenspan's new book, which contains a scathing assessment of Republican and Bush administration fiscal policy, that put my teeth on edge.
BLITZER: ...The other explosive charge, Senator Cornyn - and it goes after you and othe Republicans in the Senate and the House - that you were just fiscally irresponsible over these years of letting what you obtained from the Clinton administration - budget surpluses -become into [sic] budget defecits as all of us know right now. Greenspan writes this, and he himself is a Republican:
"The Republicans in Congress lost their way... They swapped principle for power. They ended up with neither. They deserved to lose."BLITZER: ...referring to the elections in 2006. You agree with the former Chairman?
CORNYN: I agree that Republicans have unfortunately been guilty of too much spending in Washington - wasteful Washington spending - and we need to do better. I try to do that with my votes but ultimately, we need the President to begin to veto some of the excessive spending bills that will be landing on his desk over the next few months. I hope he does that.
BLITZER: He [Bush] didn't veto anything when the Republicans, Senator Cornyn, were the majority, and Alan Greenspan goes after Dennis Hastert, the Speaker, [and] Tom Delay who was the Majority Leader, your fellow Texan in saying the President should have vetoed a lot of those spending bills rather than sign them into law.
CORNYN: I'm with Mr. Greenspan. He's right. The President should have. And I hope he does here in the coming months when he sees some of these bloated spending bills appear on his desk.
WOW!! Again, my emphasis added. I won't even deal with the idiocy embodied in the idea that Congress itself is not responsible for legislation it send to Bush, that somehow the veto is the sole act in the legislative process. Nope - not going there. It's like trying to dissection Charles Manson's insane babblings. In the first section - I thought Wolfie was clear that Greenspan had singled out the six and a half years where Republicans were in charge of the White House and Congress for six of those years. Yet Cornyn starts in on the necessary vetoes of legislation that is upcoming and talks nothing about his own part in "wasteful Washington spending". He references nebulous "Republicans" and then talks about how he swam against the wasteful spending tide with his votes. Oh really??
Project VoteSmart tells the tale. From January 2003 to March 2007, John Cornyn voted on 49 separate Senate Appropriations bills. He voted "NAY" on seven of those, leaving a "YEA" vote on 42 of them. And the 7? Oh this is instructive:
04/18/2005 Future Military Funding for Iraq Amendment
07/11/2005 Air Cargo Security Programs Implementation Amendment
10/05/2005 Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program Amendment
10/27/2005 After School Funding Amendment
05/03/2006 Influenza Vaccine Injury Compensation Amendment
07/12/2006 Transit Security Amendment
03/29/2007 Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Bill of 2007
It's important to note the the "NAY" vote on the 4/18/2005 legislation dealt primarily with requiring the President to plan for future expenditures on the Iraq war by submitting it in the fiscal budget proposal (thereby ending the cycle of emergency appropriations). In other words, he voted "NAY" to a bill that would try to put a fiscal fence around Bush and the Iraq war. The 3/29/2007 bill is the one that tried to put redeployment timeframes on the books and also raised the minimum wage. The other bills, clearly, had to do with NOT spending money on security, poor people, and the inured.
Great record he has there of using his vote to restrain spending. EVERY OTHER Appropriations bill was A-OK as far as Cornyn is concerned - as long as it meant the money went to those who already had it instead of to those who might actually need it.
I am sick to death and fucking tired of these assholes lying through their teeth. Honestly, I don't know what gets me more angry - that Cornyn lied or that Blitzer didn't have his voting record handy to call him on it. Well, I'm calling Bullshit on Cornyn and would like you to do so as well.
Cut and paste his Senate Appropriations voting record into an email and ask him if he's really "used his vote" to ensure fiscal restraint. Castrate this guy's ability to make such insipid and untrue false statements in the future by letting him know you know the score. Maybe he'll at least shut the fuck up.
Send your message using the form found here. Here's what I sent:
Dear Senator Cornyn,I was pretty surprised to hear you tell Wolf Blitzer on Late Edition earlier today that you are a fiscally responsible Senator. You said, "I try to do that with my votes", referring to fiscal responsibility. Yet a perusal of your voting record indicates that you either misunderstood the question or aren't trying very hard. Since January of 2003, you have approved 42 out of 49 Appropriations bills. The ones you voted against dealt with either restraining the Presdient, fiscally and actually, on Iraq, or providing additional funds to children, the poor, and security.
I wouldn't reference your voting record if I were you - it doesn't bear out your statements and frankly, it shows that you're not a very nice person.
Regards,
RenaRF
Sanctimonious lying asshole.