Fireworks in the House

Democrats finally have pushed Republicans too far and they have come back with a resolution that will force them vote up or down on whether they want to pull out the troops now. One Republican woman read an email from a soldier in Iraq calling Murtha a coward, which received loud harrumphing and demands for an apology. Now everybody has to preface his comments with a paean to Murtha's patriotism and service, even if his pronouncements resemble those of a gaffer who's still reliving his brush with danger 30 years after the event. He may have been a warrior once, but now he reminds me of Theoden in the Lord of the Rings as he had become before Gandalf drove the spirit of Saruman from him. Face puffy, reminiscent of Ted Kennedy's, arrogant and bullying in his behavior. That's why somebody needed to stand up to him.

It's interesting to watch the games being played. They call Bush a liar again and again and when he answers, they pounce on it as mean-spirited, insulting and unfair. John Kerry feigned terrific indignation while accusing Republicans of attacking the patriotism of Jack Murtha, he of the proposal to cut and run from Iraq. I love it when he says, "I don't intend to stand for. . . another swift boat attack on the character of Jack Murtha." It always begs the question, "What are you going to do besides telling us you won't stand for it?" Nobody actually suggested that Murtha's service has been phonied up or overstated. No one has said anything about Murtha other than that his proposed withdrawal of troops is a bad idea. The Republicans called for a test vote to make the Democrats put up or shut up. The Democrats are furious. Dennis Kucinich gave an absolutely incoherent little speech that should be in a casebook on how to recognize sophistry and fallacies.

It makes me tired to watch this stuff. It's like watching a shell game, and trying to remember where the pea showed up the past 20 times. Things are set up so that they can vote on both sides of every issue. The amending process is used to force vote after vote on amendments of declining relevance. And it's very tricky for non-politicians to figure out which votes really count. That's how you obfuscate.

Here's Nancy Pelosi speaking against the Republicans' bill to cut the planned rate of increase in federal spending: "The Republicans are launching an attack on America's children and America's families, and they are also launching an attack on America's middle class. All of this to give a tax cut to the wealthiest people in our country." She hardly looks like she's been giving everything to the poor. Who would have guessed that that baggy old wrestling coach, Dennis Hastert was such a pawn of the wealthy? Pelosi looks far better off than he does. It's all such a crock that I wonder how anybody can stand being in Congress. The only thing worse would be to be a reporter in D.C. and having to start the day with that tumbler of bile they all seem to be drink every day.

Representaive Peter Hoekstra is calling for the declassification of the huge pile of records from the Saddam regime that are stored in Quttar, because we don't have the linguists available to translate and analyze them all. He wants to put them on the internet and let Iraqis and others who speak the language pore over them. I think that's a brilliant idea. It may turn over some stones that certain people at the UN and some of our allies won't like. Sunshine is a pretty good disinfectant.