Democrats Split on How to End the War - washingtonpost.com
The war in Iraq is shaping the opening stages of the contest for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, just as it did in the 2004 campaign.
After 10 candidates’ speeches over two days at the winter meeting of the Democratic National Committee in Washington, the war proved again to be the central point of differentiation among the party’s presidential contenders.
What emerged was a division over how to stop the war, one likely to intensify as Congress debates measures ranging from a nonbinding resolution condemning President Bush’s proposal to send more troops to Iraq to more controversial legislation that would restrict or cut off funds for the military mission.
Let’s be honest. The Donks aren’t divided over how to end the war. They’re divided on how to play the end of the war to their best political and power advantage. They don’t give a damn if, or, when, or how the war ends, as long as they come out winners in the Great Washington Game.
Submit to Stumbled Upon!
You know, the more I watch the politics of Washington D.C. and the supposed “two” party system, the more I’m reminded of the antics of the Roman Senate at the end of the Republic.
Am I the only one who has that sort of foreboding? I’m afraid these clueless, power-drunk morons are setting us all up for a Caesar - or, worse, an Octavian.
Which is why I don’t plan to vote for a Dem the rest of my life. I may not always support the Repubs, but I am done with Dems after they made the war a political issue. Kos ‘em.
Hey, let’s start casting! I propose Joseph Lieberman as Publius Rutilius Rufus: Exiled for talking sense.
the more I’m reminded of the antics of the Roman Senate at the end of the Republic.
http://patriotfiles.org/civilizationcalls.htm
Yep
No.
Hell, Orson Scott Card has a novel out covering that thought.
Not you guys too! It’s usually the eurosocialists who compare America to the Roman Empire, pointing to signs of the impending collapse.
You really can’t read anything into the insipdness of the U.S. Senate, or Congress as a whole - they’ve always been insipid. Look for a golden age of congressional statesmanship in our history, and you won’t find it.
All of the other alleged signs aren’t there either. We’re not an empire, our army isn’t made up of poorly trained conscripts from the provinces, and we don’t have all those orgies. If there ARE orgies, I wish somebody would tell me about them. (dates, times, locations and needed secret passwords would be appreciated)
Which would be relevant if that was what I said, but I didn’t.
I said …antics of the Roman Senate at the end of the Republic. That’s a big, big difference.
This would have been at the beginning of the Empire, during the time of Julius and Octavius Caesar. At that point the Roman Senate was stupid, obstructive, massively corrupt, rebellious, and concerend only with its own power and perogatives, at the expense of the Roman Republic. Also, the Roman legions were the finest fighters in the world at that time, and Caesar was an example of the probity of much of the upper classes when he divorced his wife, saying that she must be above even a whisper of scandal. (Yes, nitpickers, I know, but still…)
Anyway, it was the active malignance of the Roman Senate that led to the creation of the Empire, marked by the dictatorial powers first given to Caesar, and then permanently attached to the office of Caesar by Octavian. This may be where the phrase “Man on a white horse” comes from - it is mentioned in Revelations, but that was written after the Roman generals began to ride white horses in their Triumphs, and after that sort of horse became the standard mount of emperors.