Senator Webb, Hard At Work

Holding up public policy and the affairs of state to throw a tantrum for extra privleges.

Behind the scenes, Sen. Webb has told colleagues the holds are punishment for the Pentagon failing to provide him answers relating to Blackwater Worldwide, the security firm routinely used by the Pentagon.  However, multiple Senate sources report the real reason for the hold is far different and very personal.

Sen. Webb is expected to travel on a tax-payer funded junket to Southeast Asia.  He  wants both his wife and his 18 month old child to accompany him without having to pay reimbursement to the government.  Unfortunately, according to a March 9, 2007, letter from Senators Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), while spouses are permitted to go with the Senator, “relatives of Senators (other than spouses) will not be permitted to travel with Senate delegations.”

Comments

[Dan]

Forgive me, but I am very skeptical of these mysterious and unnamed "multiple Senate sources".

It isn't like getting information about anything out of the current administration is exactly easy. And it isn't like our servicemen and women and the American taxpayer haven't been royally screwed by the way this war has been mismanaged.

This isn't a partisan or idealogical issue. This is an issue of integrity and expecting some degree of sound management.

During WWII Senator Truman wasn't bashful about embarrassing a president of his own party while investigating mismanagement and corruption in the war effort. He realized that the stakes for the country and for the guys doing the fighting were too high to allow partisanship to influence him. He was an American first and a Democrat second.

It would be damned helpful today if a few more folks would be Americans first and Republicans second. We don't know how much of the mismanagement of the war in Iraq is due to incompetence and how much is due to corruption and thievery. As citizens we have a duty, through our elected representatives, to find out. You should be supporting Senator Webb's efforts.

It seems to me that those who fully supported shifting our focus away from those who attacked us on 9/11 and instead devote massive resources to the invasion of Iraq bear the greatest responsibility for insuring that we are not being stolen blind in that endeavor. It troubles me greatly when there is no adequate accounting for millions of dollars in taxpayer money from companies to whom contracts have been let. It bothers me more when career defense department employees are punished for simply asking for a proper accounting of our dollars for some of these contracts. It should bother you too.

We have been getting no answers because those responsible have adopted a strategy of deflecting all criticism and scrutiny by either questionig the patriotism of those who simply ask the questions that scream out to be answered or smearing the questioners with bogus nonsense from unnamed sources. Like the "multiple Senate sources" you mentioned above.

Support the president's policies. That is perfectly fine. But be a patriot. Demand some answers. At least don't add your voice to those who are trying to obscure the truth by repeating smears against those who are trying to get some answers for their constiuents.

[Justin]

And the Dems say Republicans are not being fiscally responsible.

[Dan]

Justin, could any rational person claim that the modern Republican Party has governed in a fiscally responsible manner?

It reminds me of the story of the guy who is caught in flagrante delicto with another woman by his wife. He says to his wife, "What are you going to believe? What you see? Or what I tell you?".

When George W. Bush took office the total national debt was roughly 5.7 trillion dollars. Today it is roughly 9.3 trillionn dollars.

I've noted the current fashion among Republican talkers to blame all the results of their own party's mismanagement on the Democratic Congress that took office 18 months ago. Disingenuous is the kindest word I can think of to describe this attempt to shift the blame for their actions from themselves.

At any rate they ran that national debt up to 8.6 trillion by the time the voters had had enough and the Democrats took over the Congress in January 2007. All that profligate spending and cutting taxes during a war on those of us who could have done without the cut (in fact would consider it our duty to at least pay for a war others were fighting for us) was done when Republicans held all the levers of power. And you wonder how people can conclude the Republicans completely lack any sense of fiscal responsibility? How could they reasonably conclude anything else?

There was a time when the Republican Party was a conservative party. I recall President Ford when faced with an overwhelmingly Democratic Congress wielded his veto pen like a club. His vetoes were often overridden, but not always. In fact, 75% of his vetoes were sustained. He did all he could to control federal spending.

When Tom DeLay and the boys were spending like there was no tomorrow, W. acted like he didn't know what a veto was. People concluded that the Republicans were irresponsible stewards because they were.

The Republican Party will bounce back from the drubbing it's going to take this November. Many of its members will candidly assess the total disconnect between the party's rhetoric and what it does when entrusted by the voters with power.

It seems that you are not prepared to make that candid assessment. Like the wife who catches her husband with the other woman, you are prepared to believe what they tell you. Not what you see.