In other words: A discussion of The Bush Administration
Back during the buildup to the Iraq war in early 2003, I tried, without success, to get the Oregon Legislature to pass a resolution that suggested to Bush that he should get more international support before invading. The resolution would, of course, have been nonbinding on the president, but would have been an expression of Oregon's lawmakers regarding the due and proper course of action for such a watershed geopolitical event. I was not the brainchild behind this concept, Maine had passed such a resolution and, if memory serves, the Alaska house had adopted something similar. Cities and counties all over the country were doing something similar. But I could get very little traction on the issue because the conservatives in the legislature were unwilling to say anything negative about the president and were also unwilling to have any language in the resolution that suggested that we were in any way subordinate to the UN. But when I structured the language in that manner, I lost the liberals because they felt that it either didn't go far enough for their constituents, or that they would be painted as being soft on terrorism. Therefore, it died. In fact, it never even got introduced because my pansy legislator refused to even introduce it (! How about that for service from your legislator! And I work in the damn building! Hate to see what kind of service Joe Public gets from her!)
Yesterday, I saw a person who works for the House Speaker. During my attempts to get this resolution introduced, he served as the point person with the conservatives and gave me an idea of the type of language that they would and would not support. I chatted amicably with him, but left wondering: If I were to ask him now whether he was glad that the Speaker didn't support a resolution counseling a go slow approach on Iraq, I wonder what the answer would be.....
- B 3:01 PM - [PermaLink] -
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