You see, I have been enamored of the idea that it would be a marvelous thing to elect an African-American to the United States Senate. I gave money, not once but twice, to Harvey Gantt as he unsuccessfully tried to unseat Jesse Helms. When HF Jr. succeeded his father in 1997, I thought that he might someday move higher up, and looked forward to that possibility.
Then, late in Jr's first term, with President Clinton fighting for his political life, I saw him take the floor of the US House to join in the attacks. Even if it were mild condemnation, this was inexcusable, even for a first-termer. I should have seen what was to come.
He has essentially been running for the Senate ever since. He has appeared on Don Imus' radio show countless times to suck up to the aging DJ and trying to make his bones with the Washington Beltway insiders. He has appeared on Fox News many times as well, and I don't have to tell you that Fox News is the Al-Jazeera of the Republican Party.
Then, this spring, he was too busy eating at Speaker Naifeh's Coon Supper to be in DC to vote against the horrible 2005-6 Budget. He followed that stellar performance by voting for the Bankruptcy Bill, a virtual giveaway to the credit-card industry that hurts HIS OWN DISTRICT more than any other.
He did manage to vote against CAFTA, for which I gave him props. But after this speech, it's too late. Read here from the Flyer article:
Addressing the annual awards banquet of the University of Memphis Law School Alumni, Ford expressed his initial support of the war effort this way: “I support this war in Iraq. I supported it from the very beginning for one reason. Saddam Hussein was a bad guy. Now, there are those who criticize and quarrel with this, and make the point over and over again that perhaps we shouldn’t have done it the way we’ve done it, and I would agree. But I wouldn’t blame the president, or anybody else for that matter, from waking up on September 12th and wondering aloud what would happen if Saddam Hussein and bin Laden married.
"It would be very easy for us to sit back in the comfort of our own homes and say, Well, one is secular and one is religious and they won’t . It would be very easy for us to think that 9/11 wouldn’t happen, but it did.”
Bush’s “instinct” had been right, said Ford, who has visited Iraq three times in the last two years and plans a fourth visit, but there is “a lot of room for change” in how the president pursues operations in Iraq. “I love my president. I love him personally,” Ford said. “But he’s just wrong. – wrong for not being willing to admit that we’ve made some mistakes....It was right to take him [Saddam] down but wrong to think that we can’t right this course.”
If you happen to be a Democrat, I would hope that you find that statement offensive. Bush's instinct was right? WTF???
You have been accused by many critics, not just me, of being, shall we say, "soft" on the issues, willing to say just about anything, in hope of striking the politically-correct “moderate” pose that might possibly get you elected to the Senate as a Democrat in a state that's gone heavily Republican in the last two national elections. Others besides me have pointed at your recent voting record in Congress as an indication of this zeal for the middle ground. But talking out of both sides of your mouth doesn't qualify as "middle-speak," Congressman; it qualifies as "mush."
And that, at heart, is why I cannot support his candidacy for the US Senate. He has essentially proven that he will say anything to anyone to be elected to the US Senate.
He also makes the critical error that someone who is now supposed to be a national figure should NEVER make; he takes his base for granted. He assumes that he will be the nominee, especially with Chuck Schumer clouting for him. He has voted against the best interests of the working people of his district, and he expects them to flock to vote for him in August 2006 because he would be a historic figure.
Don't count your votes so quickly, Congressman.
I do have some qualms with Rosalind Kurita, but I feel like she has a better grasp on what the working people of Tennessee need: a tax structure that rewards work, not wealth, a better health care system for all, and someone who will be there for the average Tennessean, not the average CEO.
In the long run, I remember the words of Harry S. Truman, who noted that "if you only give people a choice between a Democrat who votes like a Republican and a REAL Republican, the people will take the real Republican every time."
And so it goes that I join Autoegocrat in asking you to support Rosalind Kurita for the United States Senate; at least she still knows what it means to be a Democrat.
12 comments:
Well done: neutral yet pointed tone, step-by-step analysis of the issues involved with some historical background and a willingness to reach a conclusion. 'Twere I a Tennessean, I would join you in voting for Kurita.
Leftwing:
You forced me to get a blog ID to comment on your page. I have been reading your blog among others and I like the information that is put out there for people to make inform decisions on our politicians and on current events. I call myself Blinders Off because I am not hypnotis on the current state our country is in and also the state the Democrat Party is in. Thanks for the blog link on Kurita. I am finally starting to know what she is about and it is helpful because Ford lost my trust on how he voted on the bankruptcy bill. Keep the information coming.
Excellent post!
Thank you all.
Blinders Off, welcome, please come back.
RAM,
I do have trouble with that as well but Ford did a 180 a year ago on gay marriage and he's no better, so on that issue, they're a wash.
Racist my ass; Junior's whiter than I am.
I do expect people who attempt to run under the Democratic ticket to share Democratic principles; other than the CAFTA vote, he has done NONE of that.
If he has ANY progressivity in his bones, he's damned sure hiding it. Rosalind Kurita wouldn't have voted for giveaway to the credit-card companies that would hurt HER constituents, and she also wouldn't have taken her base for granted.
Vindictive? I have no reason, all he's ever done is fail to represent my views in Congress.
When you get right down to it, if there IS a difference between Harold Ford and Ed Bryant, he's doing a damn fine job of hiding it.
And, for that, he can find his votes elsewhere.
One last thing: I've yelled my way out more than one place defending his daddy. If you had to judge whether they were related based on Junior's votes, you'd have to believe he was adopted.
You really believe that he is going to be the nominee, don't you?
We are 11 months away from the primary; there are trials to be had that may damage him severely, even though he has kept a safe distance away from Uncle John.
He may be a god in Big Shelby, but not everyone buys the bullshit.
I don't hate Harold Ford Junior, I am severely disappointed by him, though. He assumes too much of the time that he has already won over Shelby County, though he has not had serious opposition since 1996.
He will be CRUSHED in a general election, no matter how much he embraces Bush, which, if you call yourself a Democrat, should offend you to the core.
He will carry Shelby and Davidson counties and that's it. Period.
And there's nothing you or Harold or Chuck Schumer can do about that, unless you get behind Kurita.
That speech is WORSE than his missing the vote on the Federal Budget in DC because he was at Speaker Naifeh's munching down a plate of "coon".
As a Black Woman I have to say this: No self-respecting African-American, be they Republican or Democrat, goes nowhere near any social event that features "coon" either in the title or as a main entree.
Unless you're Harold Ford, Jr. And Harold, Sr. has got to be wondering where did he go wrong with his first born???
Congressman Ford will be the Democratic nominee and will be our next US Senator from Tennessee. The quicker all the Democrats realize that and get to work to take back this all important seat instead of backbiting, the better we are.
Go Harold!
http://haroldfordjr2006.blogspot.com/
Congressman Ford will be the Democratic nominee and will be our next US Senator from Tennessee.
Oh gawd, I hope not....
On just about every vote on every issue that matters to me, Harold's been on the wrong side of the issue.
No way am I voting for someone who doesn't represent my interests. If that means Ed Bryant is the next Senator from TN, so be it; Bryant will represent my interests as well as Ford will (which is to say, not very well at all). Frankly, I think some enforced time out of office would do Harold a world of good.
Powell Statement:
War opponents and some Congressional Democrats have pointed to a statement Powell made on Feb. 24, 2001, while meeting at Cairo's Ittihadiya Palace with Egyptian Foreign Minister Amr Moussa.
Asked about the sanctions placed on Iraq, which were then under review at the Security Council, Powell said the measures were working. In fact, he added, "(Saddam Hussein) has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors."
Transcript of weapons inspector's U.N. presentation
Monday, February 17, 2003 Posted: 2:47 AM EST (0747 GMT)
From Hans Blix
Let me begin today's briefing with a short account of the work being performed by UNMOVIC in Iraq.
We have continued to build up our capabilities. The regional office in Mosul is now fully operational at its temporary headquarters. Plans for a regional office at Basra are being developed. Our Hercules L-100 aircraft continues to operate routine flights between Baghdad and Larnaca. The eight helicopters are fully operational.
With the resolution of the problems raised by Iraq for the transportation of minders into the no-fly zones, our mobility in these zones has improved. We expect to increase utilization of the helicopters.
The number of Iraqi minders during inspections has often reached a ratio -- had often reached a ratio as high as five per inspector. During the talks in January in Baghdad, the Iraqi side agreed to keep the ratio to about 1:1. The situation has improved.
Since we arrived in Iraq, we have conducted more than 400 inspections covering more than 300 sites. All inspections were performed without notice, and access was almost always provided promptly. In no case have we seen convincing evidence that the Iraqi side knew in advance that the inspectors were coming.
The inspections have taken place throughout Iraq, at industrial sites, ammunition depots, research centers, universities, presidential sites, mobile laboratories, private houses, missile-production facilities, military camps and agricultural sites.
At all sites which had been inspected before 1998, rebase lining activities were performed. This included the identification of the function and contents of each building, new or old, at a site. It also included verification of previously tagged equipment, application of seals and tags, taking samples, and discussions with the site's personnel regarding past and present activities. At certain sites, ground-penetrating radar was used to look for underground structures or buried equipment.
THE STATUS OF NUCLEAR INSPECTIONS IN IRAQ
Statement to the
United Nations Security Council
New York
27 January 2003
Mohamed ElBaradei,
Director General
INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY
CONCLUSION
To conclude: we have to date found no evidence that Iraq has revived its nuclear weapons programme since the elimination of the programme in the 1990s. However, our work is steadily progressing and should be allowed to run its natural course. With our verification system now in place, barring exceptional circumstances, and provided there is sustained proactive cooperation by Iraq, we should be able within the next few months to provide credible assurance that Iraq has no nuclear weapons programme. These few months would be a valuable investment in peace because they could help us avoid a war. We trust that we will continue to have your support as we make every effort to verify Iraq’s nuclear disarmament through peaceful means, and to demonstrate that the inspection process can and does work, as a central feature of the international nuclear arms control regime.
Statement by Mohamed Elbaradei to the UN Security Council
February 14, 2003
Since our 27 January report, IAEA has conducted an additional 38 inspections at 19
locations, for a total of 177 inspections at 125 locations. Iraq has continued to provide
immediate access to all locations. In the course of the inspections, we have identified
certain facilities at which we will be re-establishing containment and surveillance
systems in order to monitor, on a continuous basis, activities associated with critical dual-
use equipment. At this time, we are using recurrent inspections to ensure that this
equipment is not being used for prohibited purposes. As I mentioned in my last report to
the Council, we have a number of wide-area and location-specific measures for detecting
indications of undeclared past or ongoing nuclear activities in Iraq, including
environmental sampling and radiation detection surveys. In this regard, we have been
collecting a broad variety of samples, including water, sediment and vegetation, at
inspected facilities and at other locations across Iraq, and analysing them for signature of
nuclear activities.
I guess the UN was proven Right.
Now after these statements, the Dalfur Report, David Kay's statement, the Downing Street Minutes, and this:
In 1999, Mickey Herskowitz is hired to ghostwrite a campaign autobiography for George W. Bush, an assignment that was later withdrawn. Herskowitz later spoke about Bush for an article by journalist Russ Baker: “He was thinking about invading Iraq in 1999... It was on his mind. He said to me: ‘One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief.’ ”
In December 1999, "Bush surprises veteran political chroniclers with his blunt pronouncements about Saddam at a six-way New Hampshire primary event: “It was a gaffe-free evening for the rookie front-runner, till he was asked about Saddam’s weapons stash,” a Boston Globe reporter penned. ‘I’d take ‘em out,’ [Bush] grinned cavalierly, ‘take out the weapons of mass destruction…I’m surprised he’s still there,” said Bush of the despot who remains in power after losing the Gulf War to Bush Jr.’s father… It remains to be seen if that offhand declaration of war was just Texas talk, a sort of locker room braggadocio, or whether it was Bush’s first big clinker.”
Why is Ford still carrying water for Bush and this idiotic war. Bush had always been gunning for war with Iraq and Ford should have know this. It took 2 minutes of googling to find these statements.
Many people doubted Bush's motivation for the war. Paul O'Neil wrote about the Administration's obsession with Iraq before September 11. Then the discussion of attacking Iraq at Camp David a couple days after the Twin Towers collapsed. (Remember Wolfowitz arguing in the meeting that it was a perfect opprotunity to take out Saddam. Or how about Rumsfeld saying there weren't enough good targets in Afghanistan and we should attack Iraq.)
As for Saddam being a bad guy. Who doesn't agree with that. But that wasn't why we invaded Iraq. It was WMD's. Wolfowitz said that was the only justification that could gather enough support for war in Vanity Fair. The Bad Guy reason doesn't hold up. What about Kim Jung Il? He starved 3 million of his own people a few years ago and he has WMD's. What about Charles Taylor? We didn't give a crap about Liberia and what happened in western Africa. Robert Mugabe? The Junta in Mynamar? The Saudi Royal Family? And Genocide? Powell Declared Darfur genocide over a year ago and what have we done. Nothing. The Bad Guy explaination didn't come up until after we didn't find WMD's.
The thing which cast doubts the most on Bush's honesty and motivation was the rush to war itself. The only intelligence agency operating in Iraq was the UN inspectors. As of Powell's presentation to the Security Council, Blix and Baradei said Iraq was allowing inspections and was cooperating. Hundreds of sites were inspected and Blix requested more time for inspections to continue. Bush repeatedly said the decision for war had not been made even days before the invasion commenced but Bush did not attempt to get a second UN resolution and the Downing Street Minutes illustrated the decision for war had been made in by summer of 2002. Bush never wanted to go to the UN in the first place or have inspections. They were possible roadblocks to his drive to war.
On Al Franken today, Franken quoted JFK. JFK said he "always knew America would never start a war." Because of Bush, America no longer holds that moral high ground anymore. We are a great power exerting its will on a weak country. Iraq spent only $1 billion per year on defense from 1992 until 2003. It took over $2 billion just to maintain the Iraqi Army, let alone persue new weapons programs. The US spent $260 to over $300 billion per year during the same period. That's why Colin Powell said "(Saddam Hussein) has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors."
Finally, this quote from Bush in 1999 shows his mindset. "He was thinking about invading Iraq in 1999," said author and journalist Mickey Herskowitz. "It was on his mind. He said to me: 'One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief.' And he said, 'My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it.' He said, 'If I have a chance to invade•.if I had that much capital, I'm not going to waste it. I'm going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I'm going to have a successful presidency." Herskowitz said that Bush expressed frustration at a lifetime as an underachiever in the shadow of an accomplished father. In aggressive military action, he saw the opportunity to emerge from his father's shadow. The moment, Herskowitz said, came in the wake of the September 11 attacks. "Suddenly, he's at 91 percent in the polls, and he'd barely crawled out of the bunker." Many leaders have used military conflict for political means. Why in world would anyone believe Bush is above this. (This is the guy that smeared McCain, Kerry, and Ann Richards. Was an alcoholic unitl the age of forty. Got a DUI in the late 90's and went AWOL from his ANG Unit. Hell, he even lied about Social Security and says he believes Raphael Palmeiro didn't take steroids.) His closest advisor is Karl Rove, the treasonous SOB that outed an undercover CIA agent who worked in WMD proliferation for revenge. I'll commend Ford for bring civility, decency, and fairness back into the national debate when he calls for congressional investigations into war profiteering, the Downing Street Minutes, the Rove-CIA scandal and the missing $8.8 billion during CPA rule of Iraq.
Jean-Louis Tauran, the Vatican’s foreign minister
"No rule of international law authorizes one or more states to resort unilaterally to the use of force in order to change a regime or the form of government of another state because, for example, it is considered to possess weapons of mass destruction."
Michael Kinsley, Washington Post
"Striking first in order to preempt an enemy that has troops massing along your border is one thing. Striking first against a nation that has never even explicitly threatened your sovereign territory, except in response to your own threats, because you believe that this nation may have weapons that could threaten you in five years, is something very different."
Robert Byrd, U.S. Senator
"Today I weep for my country. I have watched the events of recent months with a heavy, heavy heart. No more is the image of America one of strong, yet benevolent peacekeeper. The image of America has changed. Around the globe, our friends mistrust us, our word is disputed, our intentions are questioned."
Tom Daschle, Senate Minority Leader
"I'm saddened, saddened that this president failed so miserably at diplomacy that we're now forced to war, saddened that we have to give up one life because this president couldn't create the kind of diplomatic effort that was so critical for our country."
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