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With the Senate about to debate an Iraq withdrawal plan this week, the White House released a summary of a new National Intelligence Estimate saying Al Qaeda is still a major threat. Chicago Tribune correspondent Mark Silva says the timing was no accident.
Dear Bob and Brooke,
I absolutely love your show. What I find particularly refreshing about the show is that you ordinarily take a more critical stance toward interviewees that other media representatives. Thus I was disappointed when Bob permitted Mark Silva, during his July 20, 2007 interview, to perpetuate a widespread misunderstanding of the constitution and the separation of powers delineated therein. Silva said "Until there's an overridable majority in the house and the senate, the president's going to have his way with the war." Of course congress could "have its way with the war;" it could simply refuse to fund it, if only the Democrats had the political courage to fulfill their constitutional responsibility.
Sincerely,
Gregory
Bob's "analysis" of the weakness of the Democrats who can't assemble the votes to end the war is unsubtle, to say the least. It's obvious that the Republicans don't want the Democrats to get the credit for such an outcome; rather than seeming to act in an ideological vacuum, as the report's lack of depth implies, the Republicans learned from the 2006 election, and several are vulnerable in 2008. It's inevitable that something big will happen shortly before the 2008 election, as in previous elections, so that the Republicans will be associated in voters' minds with either the winding down (but with a continuing US presence) or the conclusion of the war. Or perhaps the US will attack Iran and "prove" that the Republicans were therefore right in not totally leaving Iraq "to the enemy".
The Democrats just don't have the number of votes required because their majorities are so slim (there are "Democrat hawks", don't forget). Rather than "simply" relying on Constitutional principles, as the previous poster claims, or on the "simple" explanation that the Democrats lack cojones, it is the voters' collective responsibility now to elect more non-hawk Democrats if they sincerely want to end the war.
dear bobs & brooks,
I loved your show. Although I only listened with half an ear, it sounded pretty nice to me. My son too, bytheway, he's one month old now and fell asleep only just moments after the two of you started talking! Proficiat.
Keep up the good work!
Ciao
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