On April 2, 2003 Iraqi soldiers were fleeing for their lives as soldiers and marines were bearing down on Baghdad. Allen, Warner, McCain, and Hagel voted to table the measure. Those Senators were certainly not against protecting our troops, but they did choose to table the measure because those funds may not be needed. After all, Baghdad was taken just seven days later.
My comment was essentially this:
So your defense for voting against the amendment is essentially Allen had drunk the neocon Kool-Aide and failed to predict the insurgency unlike the prescience of Jim Webb and the rest of the reality based community.
Your defense is basically Allen and the rest of the GOP was too stupid to provide the required armor for the National Guard.
I made this post early this morning (around 8 AM) and it was waiting administer approval. I noticed that there is a new comment at 11:30 while mine is conspicuously absent.
As a politically interested student I enjoy attending events held by both Democrats and Republicans. I have my bias and it always leans conservative, but I respect both sides.However, after attending the Webb event this past Saturday at Jess’s Lunch I was left with a sense that he is an unprepared candidate. A potential candidate should have poise, command a sense that the future is full of great prospects, and always be an enthusiastic speaker.
Webb felt nervous, he implied a bleak future even if he were elected, and the speech was less than uplifting. I was particularly displeased by his weak positions on the War on Terror.
Belief there will ever be unity in the debate on how and where to fight the War on Terror is not a plan, it is pure lunacy. Webb’s further blunder of speaking on solving social ills using government power without discussing how he could fund the programs shows me he is an unprepared candidate.
I was left thoroughly unimpressed. Sen. Allen is still my choice. His common sense Jeffersonian virtues speak well to the community values that personify Virginia for me.
Jarrett Ray
Harrisonburg
I submitted the following in response. Let’s see if it makes it through the DN/R’s Republican bias filter.
Editor:
I read with interest the letter from a George Allen supporter appearing in the DN/R on September 14th.
The DN/R chose to print this morass of subjective impressions laden with terms like, “unpreparedâ€, “nervousâ€, bleak future†“weak positions on the War On Terrorâ€, “blunder of speakingâ€, etc., in spite of the fact the writer offers no quotations or specific attributions of any sort to substansiate his views.
The writer states: “Belief there will ever be unity in the debate on how and where to fight the war on terror is not a plan, it is pure lunacy.†This statement was made on the heels of describing Mr. Webb’s rhetoric as “predicting a bleak future.†I would submit there is a serious pot-kettle issue in play in the writer’s thinking.
I was particularly struck by the writer’s characterization of George Allen as embodying “Jeffersonian virtuesâ€.
Leaving aside for the moment that the writer feels that a native of Palos Verdes, California, somehow “personifies Virginiaâ€, given Senator Allen’s recent use of racial slurs to address a campaign worker, his past association with the Council of Conservative Citizens(an organzation classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center and descended from the 1970’s White Citizen’s Councils) as well as his display of a Confederate flag and a noose in his office, I presume the writer refers not to Thomas Jefferson, but rather Jefferson Davis.
Frankly, I think the people who run the editorials out there should be fired...not for their views, they are entitled to those and can present them all they want. They need to be fired because they do not know how to write an editorial properly. It's just sad.
You guys are on fire!
I love it when a plan…has no point."
Maybe this could be the place where non-we-love-The-A-Team comments can go up?
Clearly not a good start.
Maybe the have "Howlin' Mad" Murdoch approving the comments.