Enemy Combatant
Sunday, June 29, 2003
from Jeff Hauser's blog:
EASY POLITICAL PICKINGS, ONE HOPES
A) ALTERMAN: "House Democrats were voted down last week on a party-line vote in their effort to restore huge cuts to military family housing, paid for by a slight reduction in scheduled tax cuts for millionaires. Hereís what Army Times had to say: ìTaken piecemeal, all these [GOP] corner-cutting moves might be viewed as mere flesh wounds. But even flesh wounds are fatal if you suffer enough of them. It adds up to a troubling pattern that eventually will hurt morale ó especially if the current breakneck operations tempo also rolls on unchecked and the tense situations in Iraq and Afghanistan do not ease.î http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=0-ARMYPAPER-1954515.php†; more at http://www.msnbc.com/news/752664.asp#030627†, but the best account is by Daily Kos, who is himself a veteran: http://www.dailykos.com/archives/003195.html#003195
Remember, many swing state swing voters know people in the military.† A very, very good issue here, if properly played up in a niche way, or used as a broader symbol.† It's clear that the Dem nominee will need to offer a VERY detailed alternative budget/tax plan.
Dem candidates need to ignore Adrenal Boy in the faux Jodhpurs and Epaulettes, screaming in their faces, and talk DIRECTLY to America's military, and their families: Bush has a real barnburner of a defense plan, but ever see what's left AFTER the barn burns? Yeah, well . . . you can bet Bush never has.
We can't go on like this, folks. We've got each foot in a separate new Vietnam, and we keep on whacking more hornet's nests, everywhere we find them. This is no way to run a foreign policy.
