September 23, 2007
Mike Hersh: It’s Time to Be Good Friends to Our Senators
Another well-worth-the-full-read from OpEd News:
A good friend tells you when you’re wrong, and it’s time to be good friends to our Senators. Any Senators who voted to “censure” MoveOn.org for an ad which raised legitimate concerns about the Bush Administration’s politicization of the military simply blew it. They rubber-stamped the right wing’s effort to paint sensible discourse as out-of-bounds while validating (by not censuring) extreme right wing abuses.
Here are just a few examples of outrages our Senators chose not to censure: Ann Coulter advocates executions to “intimidate liberals,” writes books accusing Democrats of “Treason,” and chides terrorists for not blowing up the NY Times Building. Rush Limbaugh claims liberals want people to get AIDS and openly advocates anti-gay bigotry and racism. Bush and Cheney warned that a vote for a Democrat would invite “mushroom clouds” over our cities. Republican TV spots morphed Democrats including then-Senator Max Cleland into bin Laden. Our Senators took no action. No resolutions condemning these attacks on our national character.
. . .
How many Democratic Senators supported Sen. Feingold’s effort to censure Bush? Not many. “I’m amazed at Democrats … cowering with this president’s numbers so low,” Feingold mused after the Republican leadership sought a vote on his measure to hold Bush accountable and Democrats blocked the vote. How many Democrats voted to censure MoveOn? Twenty Two. …
. . .
MoveOn was far more generous than Petraeus’ immediate boss Admiral William Fallon who called him an “ass kissing chickens***.” It’s self-defeating, stupid, and downright un-American for the Senate to waste its time intimidating citizens from exercising their freedom of speech. The Americans who paid for this ad have been correct about Iraq while the Senate has repeatedly been wrong. The Senate’s time would be better undoing the harm it is complicit in creating.
Filed under: Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, Hate Speech, Military/DADT, U.S. Congress
