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Political notes from Free Press staff writers Terri Hallenbeck, Sam Hemingway and Nancy Remsen


4.17.2007

 

Good theater

Plenty of good drama played out at the Statehouse today. The Senate approved the governor's education spending cap in a well-scripted piece that featured the lieutenant governor breaking the tie vote. I wasn't there for it - my co-worker Nancy covered that one - but it sounds like everybody stuck to their roles perfectly.

Another scene I did catch was in the Cedar Creek Room, where about 100 Vermonters who want to see President Bush and Vice President Cheney impeached bantered with, questioned, lectured and yelled at House Speaker Gaye Symington and Senate President Pro Tem Peter Shumlin for about 45 minutes.

Ten-year-old Jackson Bressor of Richmond stepped forward in the crowd and asked, "Isn't democracy showing the views of the people?"

Jackson is a fifth-grader who skipped school to come to the Statehouse with his father.
"I came to really try to have the Legislature notice us," said Jackson, who gets fired up talking about the president's handling of the war in Iraq, wiretapping and torture.

Like others in the crowd, Jackson found the event emotionally gripping - that so many people had come from all over Vermont to speak so passionately about this issue to the leaders of the Legislature.

"Being able to speak to Gaye and Peter really let out a lot," he said, referring to them by their first names so you got the impression that along with wiretapping, the Vermont Legislature is a common topic around the Bressor dinner table. "Just to be able to talk to them. I'm really glad I came to this."

Fifty-three-year-old Kurt Daims, a retired engineer from Brattleboro wearing a red beret, was taken by the power of the people too. "I was on the verge of tears," he said.

This sense that they were working the muscles of democracy came even though Symington and Shumlin were flatly telling the crowd that they could not justify taking the time to debate impeachment. These particular people were all for the Legislature spending a few hundred thousand dollars to extend the legislative session, but hordes of people outside the Statehouse would be less eager to see that.

Symington told them she believes that even in Congress impeachment proceedings would suck up all the energy and divert attention away from getting the U.S. out of Iraq. This crowd wasn't buying that argument. "The best way to get him out of Iraq is to impeach him," Daims yelled from the cluster of people.

"I just think that's weird," Jackson said afterward of Symington's argument.

Shumlin and Symington did, however, remind the group that a single legislator could bring up the resolution and force a vote on whether it should be heard.

Sen. Dick McCormack, a Democrat from Windsor County whose been called the Senate's most liberal member, was the only legislator lurking in the crowd of pro-impeachment folks. He said afterward they might just have left him with no choice but to push for the resolution. "I've been shamed into it," he said. "These people are right. I wish they'd go away. Their refusal to go away means you have to confront the fact that they're right."

- Terri Hallenbeck

Comments:
53 and retired? What's up with these people. Do they have any appreciation for the people that are busting their hump and working for a living (and supporting the highest tax burden in the US)?

They want US to fork over the dough to have a debate about something that we have no control over?

How about this for an idea - lets have the debate - hell, pass the resolution if it will make these folks happy. BUT - do this over the summer on unpaid time, and have all the suppporters pick up the tab for keeping the lights on. Can't really argue that one - everyone should be happy with that comromise.
 
Sounds good to me. Perhaps McCormack can play some tunes for the crowd.
 
These people are a bunch of dispicable traitors. Worse, like the Hitler Youth Groups of the 30's and the terrorists that use children as suicide bombers, these peace-at-any-price cowards love to use 10-year olds as part of their propaganda. Now what does a 10 year old know about what is going on in the world? Oh well, I'm sure these kids will grow up to hate America and become left-wing activists.
 
The War costs a lot more than any legislative resolution would.
 
53 and retired? Maybe he "busted his hump" a lot harder than you did.
 
Nobody with the means to retire at age 53 would choose Brattleboro as a place to retire.

This guy is just some loser milkin' the dole, pissed off that he was too young to go to Woodstock, having a mid-life crisis, and feeling the need to relive the youth that he missed.
 
You seem to know an awful lot about a person who you've never met.

OR

You're just making stuff up.
 
Dick McCormack '08
 
Yes, McCormack represents today's Democratic Party base - arrogant know-it-all
 
170 + in Baghdad today. Where's Bush's sympathy there?
 
"arrogant know-it-all" = Jim Douglas
 
What happened to our boys at greenmountaindaily.com?

They must have died from excitement after all of this impeachment talk.
 
Symington: civility is one thing;
lack of guts is another.
 
Read the Brattleboro Reformer editorial for 4/13/07. Wish we had press like that.
 
Doonesbury did more to publicize Vermont's opposition to Shrub then sit-in protests and even a state legislature initiative could have ever done. I humbly submit: mission accomplished.
 
Let me see...35 shitty little left-wing enclaves in Vermont voted to surrender to terrorists...115 didn't. Some mission!
 
" The War costs a lot more than any legislative resolution would."

Passing a resolution calling for impeachment would do absolutely nothing to end the war, though. I don't want the legislature wasting time debating something that has no practical impact. Tell me how passing a resolution would manifestly change anything?
 
"The War costs a lot more than any legislative resolution would."

I wrote that -- But I actually agree with the person above.

I'm against the war, but I don't see how an impeachment resolution from Montpelier could end the war.

That said, I believe that it's foolish to worry about the hundreds of thousands of dollars being spent on the legislative session ... when there are hundreds of billions being wasted on the war in Iraq (not to mention the human cost.)

It's like someone with a terminal illness worrying about athlete's foot.
 
It sort of comes down to a matter of what you can control though. The legislature can control how long it's in session but can't do anything about how much the government throws to Halliburton, Bechtel, KBR, and Blackwater, often at the expense of American troops. Let's get the troops the stuff they need but forget about all of Cheney and Bush's corporate friends for once.

It's a very difficult situation. It clearly was the wrong decision on so many levels and now we've got to deal with this. On the one hand, we created this mess, so regardless of how bad the situation is, we have some obligation to return to the Iraqi people a semblance of stability and order. On the other hand, things don't seem to be getting better (we get many conflicting reports on the effectiveness of this new surge) so should we just cut our losses now and get out?

For me, the solution that makes the most sense (and one which David Brooks proposed in the Times a couple months ago) is to partition the country among Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds. These people are making no effort to live together in peace or order, so let's separate try separating them and see if that works. It can't be any worse than the continuing carnage our newspapers report daily.
 
That's the plan that Senator Joe Biden proposed a long time ago.

Here's the problem with it: There is a long historical precedent for western powers drawing new borders in the Middle East -- every time we've done it, it has resulted in total disaster.

Can you name a successful nation-state whose borders have been drawn by the US/UK???

Here is what is good about the idea: Nobody else has any good ideas.
 
Put another way:

Can you name a nation-state that has all three of these characteristics:

1) Borders were drawn by the US/UK
2) Has lived at peace with it's neighbors for ten years of it's history.
 
oops ... okay, only 2 characteristics ...
 
Serbia and Bosnia maybe? That region?

And you're right. I forgot about to credit Biden.

Another good aspect of this idea is that the Iraqi people clearly aren't working together to make democracy work. It's time for us to realize that the divisions between these people are so deep that they won't work together. Let's acknowledge this and partition the country.
 
Hey Blubba, I know that 10 year old you insulted and he clearly knows a lot more about what is going on in this country than you do.
 
Ok ... Serbia and Bosnia. Those are good examples.

Now, how many went the other way?

Iraq
Jordan
Syria
Israel
Saudi Arabia
Lebanon

Heck, we drew 98% of the borders on the Arabian Peninsula. The result was catastrophic.

Arabia isn't Europe.

Divide Iraq, and the result will either be multiple genocides or decades of warfare.

Two or three of the new states would easily become puppets of Iran ...

It should not be up to the US to draw borders and create countries on the other side of the planet.
 
Who insulted the 10-yr old? I feel sorry for him-can just imagine the family indocrination the poor kid must go thru - forced to read "Why mommy is a democrat", forced to repeat "FOX News is bad", etc. Well, just another left-wing Vermont vote in 8 more years. Sad.
 
"Divide Iraq, and the result will either be multiple genocides or decades of warfare. "

I don't think this is true. Dividing the country would alleviate some/much of the current ethnic/religious conflicts. Rather than trying to force people who hate each other to work together, let's let them take care of themselves.

"Two or three of the new states would easily become puppets of Iran ... "

First of all, there would be 3 states (one Sunni, one Shiite, and one Kurdish). Only the Shiite state would be allied with Iran. And even if this happened, it's better than the whole country being allied with Iran which basically is the case now.

"It should not be up to the US to draw borders and create countries on the other side of the planet."

I agree with this statement generally. Obviously if Iraq were to be partitioned, it would have to be done in concert with the international community. At this point, I believe we have an obligation to try to bring peace, order, and stability to the Iraqi people ASAP and with as little loss of life as possible. To me, the way to do that seems to be to partition the country. What is your solution?
 
I don't have a good solution. I know that's a problem, so I keep reading and keep thinking.

The fact that I don’t have a good idea, doesn’t make all other ideas winners.

You said, "Dividing the country would alleviate some/much of the current ethnic/religious conflicts."

I don't see any evidence to support this idea. Look at India and Pakistan. The partition of these two nations resulted in a nuclear arms race that’s been close to major disaster more than once.

Also, what's to stop Turkey from invading the new Kurdistan, as they've promised to do?

What's to stop the majority Shiite state from pummeling the minority Sunni state?

Why wouldn't they? These tensions have been building for a long time.

I don't see partition working. But I do respect your ideas ... and I have appreciated the dialogue. You can have the last word.
 
The fact that this dialog has gone from the subject of an impeachment resolution to a discussion of the Iraq war demonstrates the fuzzy thinking about impeachment. You don't like the war? Me either. But impeachment of the fool who got us into it will not end our involvement in Iraq. The mess in Iraq must be dealt with and impeaching Bush is not the solution to that problem.
 
Agreed.
 
Here, Here!
 
Go with Shumlin on this one.
 
Go where with him? To that special section of hell specially reserved for lying egomaniacs?
 
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