Doing the Congressional Flip-Flop

[Cerek the Barbaric]

I heard about this yesterday from a salesman that came to visit me...so I looked it up on the internet to verify it for myself.

Do these remarks sound familiar to anybody?

"Sometimes the United States has to act alone, or at least has to act first. Sometimes we cannot let other countries have a veto on our foreign policy."

"...Saddam's actions "will not be tolerated." Saddam's failure to live up to U.N. resolutions "is simply unacceptable. We intend to make that point clear with the use of force."

The surprising thing is that these comments weren't quoted from a speech made by President Bush, Colin Powell, or even Donald Rumsfeld. Nope...these were the comments made by Senator Tom Daschle in 1996 when President Clinton threatened to use force against Saddam Hussein in retaliation for his attack on the Kurds.

For those who don't live in America, Senator Tom Daschle has been one of the LOUDEST OPPONENTS to the War this time around. He even went so far as to say that even ONE civilian casualty was "too much" to justify Bush's War on Iraq.

This is what is colloquilly referred to as the "Potomac Two-Step" or "Congressional Flip-Flop".

Now - to be perfectly fair - Republicans are JUST as guilty of this as the Democrats..and in 1996, I'm sure the same Republicans that firmly support President Bush were JUST as vehement in there opposition to President Clinton.

Anyway, I thought these comments were interesting - given Senator Daschle's extremely "hard-line" opposition to the current war.

Now then - to comply with the Rules of Ironworks - here is a link to the full story regarding Senator Daschle's comments.
Senator Daschle Supports President Clinton's "Threat of Force" against Saddam Hussein

[Masklinn]

Stuff like that make you understand that politicians (no matter the side) don't really care nor believe in what they say. This is sad.

Thx for the article Cerek.

[Ronn_Bman]

Daschle was saying that military action against Iraq was necessary as recently as 4 months ago. He also voted for the authorization for force which gave the President the authority to act.

[Night Stalker]

Looks like he just wants the "moral" media attention then.

Maybe we should start a nation wide campain: Vote them Out.
It's rumored to be a small grassroots campain in NJ. Basically vote out all incumbants. Doesn't matter what they did. Vote random people in. If they don't do the will of the people .... vote them out. Keep doing this until the pols remember the definition of "with the consent of the goverened". Pols need to remember that they represent their voting districts ONLY.

[Rokenn]

Originally posted by Night Stalker: Looks like he just wants the "moral" media attention then. Maybe we should start a nation wide campain: Vote them Out. It's rumored to be a small grassroots campain in NJ. Basically vote out all incumbants. Doesn't matter what they did. Vote random people in. If they don't do the will of the people .... vote them out. Keep doing this until the pols remember the definition of "with the consent of the goverened". Pols need to remember that they represent their voting districts ONLY.

So, elected officials should lead by polls? I thought that is what people hated about the Clinton administration. It's a strange dicotomy that we want 'leaders' but at the same time want 'leaders' that do what we want them to.

[Night Stalker]

NO ... constituants. Their single vote in whatever forum they vote in represents X amount of people. They need to remember that.

[Ar-Cunin]

The exact same thing is happening in Denmark - the former government, who f.x. supported the strikes on Iraq in 1998, is now against the action. The wording is even quite similar to the one from Daschle

[Bardan the Slayer]

It seems to be a worldwide problem that politicians have become far more concerned with serving themselves than serving the people.

I'm not sure that the random voting technique would exactly fix anything, but it would certainly put the cat amongst the pigeons and result in some very ... interesting results

[John D Harris]

Cerek, Normaly I would agree about the old "Potomac Two-step" But in 1996 there were very few Republicans that opposed any action. Rep Tom Delay is the only one that comes to mind and he was shut down fairly quick by the other Republicans. But to be fair to the Dems they were split about 50/50 (give or take) on going to war before we had troops in harm's way.

[John D Harris]

Originally posted by Rokenn: So, elected officials should lead by polls? I thought that is what people hated about the Clinton administration. It's a strange dicotomy that we want 'leaders' but at the same time want 'leaders' that do what we want them to.

Here here! I want leaders not poll followers, If my side loses the election then we'll try harder next time.