October 9, 2007 – Capitol Hill Blue

Union says ‘nada’ to Democrats

October 9, 2007

None of the Democratic presidential primary contenders will get the endorsement they’ve been fervently seeking from the Service Employees International Union, an especially painful blow to John Edwards.

The union said Monday it won’t choose a national candidate for the primary elections, underscoring divisions that had been apparent among SEIU supporters of Edwards and the Democrats he trails in national polls: Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama.

Hiring gun slingers to fight our wars

October 9, 2007

It is difficult to believe that trying to return a two-bit country like Iraq to some sort of normalcy would so deplete this nation’s military and civilian security capabilities that it would have to rely on private gun slingers in a war zone. How can that be and how in the world did we get in this situation?

Bush’s double standard on torture

October 9, 2007

After publicly renouncing torture as a tool in the war on terror, it turns out the Bush administration secretly reserved the right to do so.

In 2002, the administration announced that al Qaeda prisoners were not subject to international law against the torture of captives. Later that year, the administration produced a legal opinion authorizing the CIA to use interrogation techniques that stopped short of the sort of pain caused by serious physical injury, organ failure or death. This was our government talking.

Joining the mean mom school

October 9, 2007

There are times when I tell my kids that they can’t have or do something that they tell me I’m “as mean as 200 moms!” That’s when I like to remind them I take their complaints as a compliment because I, of course, went to “Mean Mom School.”

I always review for them that I did incredibly well at Mean Mom School. In fact, there is only one mom who ever did better at Mean Mom School than I did, my friend (and theirs), Mrs. Carlson. She has five young kids, and they think she’s as mean as 300 moms.

Still socialist after all these years

October 9, 2007

With her intimidating lead in the polls, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential juggernaut looks increasingly unstoppable. This may have emboldened the New York Democrat to stop masquerading as a moderate and instead flaunt her full-throated, left-wing radicalism.

With a Sept. 27-30 ABC News/Washington Post poll showing her eclipsing Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., 53 percent to his 20, the ever-calculating Clinton now may feel free to peddle higher-octane liberalism.

Consider her Sept. 28 pitch to a Congressional Black Caucus symposium:

Retreating into isolationism

October 9, 2007

Polls are indicating that many Americans are yearning for another retreat into isolationism.

The relentlessly grim news from Iraq, the antagonism abroad toward U.S. foreign policy, the stirrings of antipathy against free trade and the pull of delayed solutions to domestic problems are combining to make Americans feel fed up with being “over there.”

Can Clinton win? Good question

October 9, 2007

Irony followed Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton to a show barn at the Johnson County fairgrounds on Saturday night.

She made a big splash at the local Democratic Party’s fall barbecue when she led 85-year-old George McGovern to the stage to give her a rousing endorsement there among the hay bales.

Unmasking phony heroes

October 9, 2007

The unmasking of a half-dozen phony heroes in recent months is spurring support for the creation of a national database that contains the names of those who have received the nation’s highest military honors.

As it stands now, there is an official list only of Medal of Honor awardees, but none for those who have earned the service crosses, Silver Stars, Purple Hearts or other top medals. That makes it difficult to uncover anyone who poses as a recipient by wearing medals one can purchase for a few bucks on the Internet.