Washblog

I'm glad to hear that he's not doing this for political reasons, but that he is standing up for what he believes.  Even though I don't agree with his position completely, I don't know everything that he does and I'm not in the position that he is in.  I can respect someone who stands up for what they believe to be true, even if it creates a threat to their reelection.

by chadlupkes on Thu Aug 30, 2007 at 01:19:04 PM PST

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What do you mean "off the record"? A congressman can't dictate to you that you can't repeat his statements! The only reason news reporters agree to such absurd "rules" is that they have to do so in order to continue to have access ... that allows them to write what was said but without attribution. But that has nothing at all to do with what a private citizen can do.

by wmorrow1 on Thu Aug 30, 2007 at 01:21:23 PM PST

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  not the same thing exactly.  So while it could be said that Rep. Brian Baird is willing to pay a political price for his changed position on Iraq, he doesn't have to pay for it with his life.

   I pray that my son-in-law doesn't have to pay for it with his life when he ships out to Iraq for a second time in October......

   And I do wish Brian Baird sleepless nights as we will have to be sure...

On the Surge in Iraq "--we have set the bar so low it's buried in the sand at this point." - Barack Obama

by Lietta Ruger on Thu Aug 30, 2007 at 01:49:50 PM PST

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"WHO ARE YOU AND
WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH BRIAN BAIRD?"

by dinazina on Thu Aug 30, 2007 at 02:54:46 PM PST

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"I've been frustrated with the eagerness of both sides to politicize this war."

When you have 2, two, 1+1, people, you have politics. Always have. Always will.

One of the first bullshit lies of the fascists is that something isn't policital ...

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE

Grow the fuck up.

EVERYTHING takes time, takes money, and ALL decisions about time and money are political.

When the powerful say 'this isn't political' they are framing things such that their language and their thoughts and their actions are dirty dirty dirty meanie 'political', their thoughts, actions and language is some kind of television commerical / disney cartoon fake pure.

WAR is the MOST political thing we as fucking stupid humans do.

So, brian baird,

is this temporary stupidity? temporary incomptence? temporary corruption? or, a mix of all three?

we ALL make mistakes, but

using fascist language and thoughts to justify fascist actions = decades of losing to the fascists. PERIOD.

yawn ... I'm not going to bother detailing the laundry list of political crimes for this war that even fucking morons know,

so Brian, you gonna dig in your heels with mr. 25%?

for your cushy ass job with its permanent pension and health care, its a good thing that the political process is so freaking corrupt, cuz there are surely Democrats in your neck of the woods who got better things to do than get in bed with the bushies, and would make better servants of the public good than servants of the bechtel / halliburton good.

is there something in the water in this state?  we seem to have no lack of 'Democrats' who use fascist language to portray their sell out-ism.

rmm.

http://www.liemail.com/BambooGrassroots.html

by rmdSeaBos on Thu Aug 30, 2007 at 09:23:59 PM PST

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emmett,

Thanks for the update about the Slog interview. In one of the more telling statements from Baird he refers to Petraeus as some "recent addition" to the equation:

"I'm going to listen to what Gen. David Patraeus, the best mind in counterinsurgency, and [U.S. Ambassador Ryan] Crocker have to say. I am going to listen to these people. And by the way, these are good people. These are not the same people who have been failing in Iraq all along. And just telling us what we want to hear."

I guess Rep. Baird didn't have a score card back in 2004 when Petraeus was in charge of training the new Iraqi security forces. Here is what Petraeus was saying back then:

"Now, however, 18 months after entering Iraq, I see tangible progress...." "...Today approximately 164,000 Iraqi police and soldiers (of which about 100,000 are trained and equipped) and an additional 74,000 facility protection forces are performing a wide variety of security missions. Equipment is being delivered. Training is on track and increasing in capacity. Infrastructure is being repaired. Command and control structures and institutions are being reestablished...""...Momentum has gathered in recent months. With strong Iraqi leaders out front and with continued coalition -- and now NATO -- support, this trend will continue. It will not be easy, but few worthwhile things are."

Yep. That would be the same Gen. Petraeus that Baird believes is not one of the, "same people who have been failing in Iraq all along. And just telling us what we want to hear." The same Gen. Petraeus who intercepted the recent National Intelligence Estimate to "revamp" the conclusions of the independent Intelligence sources with regard to the actual status of military progress.

Damn that has to be some fine Kool-Aid.

Peace,
Chad (The Left) Shue

by The Left Shue on Thu Aug 30, 2007 at 10:00:43 PM PST

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Article in Washington Post today.  So is that it, Brian Baird - you were one of those lawmakers 'slimed in the Green Zone'?

Lawmakers Describe 'Being Slimed in the Green Zone'

By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 31, 2007; Page A13

The sheets of paper seemed to be everywhere the lawmakers went in the Green Zone, distributed to Iraqi officials, U.S. officials and uniformed military of no particular rank. So when Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.) asked a soldier last weekend just what he was holding, the congressman was taken aback to find out.

In the soldier's hand was a thumbnail biography, distributed before each of the congressmen's meetings in Baghdad, which let meeting participants such as that soldier know where each of the lawmakers stands on the war. "Moran on Iraq policy," read one section, going on to cite some the congressman's most incendiary statements, such as, "This has been the worst foreign policy fiasco in American history."

The bio of Rep. Ellen O. Tauscher (D-Calif.) -- "TAU (rhymes with 'now')-sher," the bio helpfully relates -- was no less pointed, even if she once supported the war and has taken heat from liberal Bay Area constituents who remain wary of her position. "Our forces are caught in the middle of an escalating sectarian conflict in Iraq, with no end in sight," the bio quotes.

"This is beyond parsing. This is being slimed in the Green Zone," Tauscher said of her bio.

More than two dozen House members and senators have used the August recess to travel to Iraq in the hope of getting a firsthand view of the war ahead of commanding Gen. David H. Petraeus's progress report in two weeks on Capitol Hill. But it appears that the trips have been as much about Iraqi and U.S. officials sizing up Congress as the members of Congress sizing up the war.

Brief, choreographed and carefully controlled, the codels (short for congressional delegations) often have showed only what the Pentagon and the Bush administration have wanted the lawmakers to see. At one point, as Moran, Tauscher and Rep. Jon Porter (R-Nev.) were heading to lunch in the fortified Green Zone, an American urgently tried to get their attention, apparently to voice concerns about the war effort, the participants said. Security whisked the man away before he could make his point.

Tauscher called it "the Green Zone fog."

"Spin City," Moran grumbled. "The Iraqis and the Americans were all singing from the same song sheet, and it was deliberately manipulated."

Read more at WAPO article

On the Surge in Iraq "--we have set the bar so low it's buried in the sand at this point." - Barack Obama

by Lietta Ruger on Fri Aug 31, 2007 at 09:46:33 AM PST

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Over at Everegreen Politics our good friend switzer has written a fine post on Brian Baird and the moral dilemma we face in the situation in Iraq. As usual it is well written; up to switzer's high standard. I attempted to post the following as a comment to that post but (perhaps due to length?) I was unable to leave the comment there. I offer it here as an enticement for you to go to switzer's original post and as a continuing analysis of Congressman Baird's "change of heart."

I want to begin by saying that, as usual, switzer has done an excellent job of analysis and writing. I also want to say how honored I am to be credited with my very own "Imperative". I have avoided commenting until now because I wanted to listen a bit more to what Congressman Baird had to say on the subject now that he has (unwittingly) become the poster boy for "The Surge." It is in these recent comments that I have found what I believe to be the major flaw in the Baird Imperative.

"A moral case can be made that we have brought physical, emotional and financial ruin on Iraq, and must correct this abhorrent situation before we move ourselves out of their world (let's call this the Baird imperative for today)."

In fact in the initial reporting on Baird's "change of heart" the admonition coming from the congressman was along these lines:

""You have to ask yourself on the progressive side, are we really comfortable leaving people -- who did nothing to have us attack them -- at the mercy of people who will cut heads off civilians and car-bomb schools because there are girls there? Are we really comfortable, morally, leaving that fate to those people and possibly allowing that to expand and spread?"  Such a powerful set of images. It makes me wonder why he isn't championing the "Lieberman Imperative." But he is not.

Actually what Congressman Baird is saying is, `Give us six more months.' Six more months? What if there are still "evil doers" there at the end of six more months? Well in more recent interviews here is what he has to say on that subject:

"First of all, we have to begin a withdrawal in six months because we cannot maintain the troops at this level." So, apparently even if there are still Iraqi beheadings and car bombings of Iraqi girls' schools, in six months our inability to maintain troop levels will trump our moral obligation to stay.

Now, of course, Rep. Baird does not believe that we will be leaving Iraq in such dire straights after six more months of Bush's military surge. In fact, after talking to the Saudi's, the Israelis, the Palestinians, and certain Iraqis and American soldiers, he believes that the "Progress on the ground" warrants the continued sacrifice of ..."hundreds of American lives and hundreds of billions of dollars."  Here again, I am listening to his recent remarks to learn more about the "facts" that brought him to this conclusion. Again, from his interview with The Stranger:

"I'm going to listen to what Gen. David Patraeus[sic], the best mind in counterinsurgency, and [U.S. Ambassador Ryan] Crocker have to say. I am going to listen to these people. And by the way, these are good people. These are not the same people who have been failing in Iraq all along. And just telling us what we want to hear. This is not [Paul] Bremer [former Director of Reconstruction in Iraq]."  In fact General Petraeus has been on the scene from the beginning and even submitted an Op/Ed to the Washington Post in September, 2004 on how much things were improving after only 18 months in the country. I believe that this will be essentially the same report he will give to Congress in two more weeks. I guess Rep. Baird didn't read the first one.

I apologize for the length of this "comment." I will close by offering this. In the end there really are only two (US) moral imperatives. We either accept the PNAC-Lieberman model that says we recreate the Middle East in a more US-friendly mold ( at the risk of nuclear Armageddon) or we accept the "Postman Imperative":

"...we have brought physical, emotional and financial ruin on Iraq, and must correct this by moving ourselves out of their world "

I know in which direction my moral compass points.

Peace,
Chad (The Left) Shue

by The Left Shue on Fri Aug 31, 2007 at 12:04:47 PM PST

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I'm sorry, I haven't been about to follow this issue.

Whenever I want to get up to date on the Iraq situation, I read Juan Cole. Here's today's missive Arguments over Night of the Living Dead in Iraq (Aug 31st). He picks a part the Bush Misadministrations most current lies about Bush's Folly In Iraq.

I know exactly nothing about Brian Baird. But it sounds like he's somewhat challenged.

So I'll make it easy for him:

War in Iraq: Bad.

Opposing war: Good.

Anything short of opposing war: Bad.

Opposing war hurts Bush/Cheney: Good.

Bush and Cheney are very determined to widen the war by attacking Iran. The only lever any of us has is to do a full court press against Bush/Cheney.

Kibitzing about how Bush/Cheney should conduct the war in Iraq, manage the transition, the aftermath, whatever, is wasted breathe. They fucked up. They'll continue to fuck up. That's nothing else to know.

What is the problem with our Democratic representatives? If these slugs can't serve America's interests, then they should oppose Bush/Cheney out of self-interest. Could the situation be any more simple?

Sometimes I despair for humanity.

(I just read Feit's interview of Baird on slog. Wow. As in, his rationalizations are just pathetic. Soltz was being disrespectful. Boo hoo! Gimme a break.)

by zappini on Fri Aug 31, 2007 at 06:34:34 PM PST

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