Republicans During Kosovo

From the years 1993 to 2001, President Bill Clinton worked alongside four different Congresses; the 103rd, 104th, 105th, and finally the 106th. During three out of four congresses, both the House and the Senate were presided over by a Republican majority. It is interesting to examine how a Republican majority Congress worked/fought against a President of the other party, especially during war time and on issues of the Constitution and the War Powers Act of 1973. It is in my opinion, a good window of time to examine the failure (56-34 with 17 Republicans joining the Democrats) of today’s non-binding measure which sought to rebuke President George W. Bush’s plan of escalating the number of troops deployed in Iraq with a surge of 21,500 combat and support troops....

The Republicans made many efforts to censure President Clinton on his handling of and engaging the United States military in the Kosovo War. They passed resolutions to debate the legality of war, they sought to withhold funds for the war and peacekeeping efforts, they even voted to not “support the troops” in what was for the most part a piece of fluff legislation. It is surprising now that the Republicans are acting so fiercely against Democrats taking action against President Bush and the Iraq War. During the Clinton Administration, there were not questions of how legislation was hurting the morale of the troops, there were however repeated questions about the Presidential powers invoked by Clinton in war making; questions that were absolutely legitimate. The current Republicans in Congress seem to have entirely given up their job of oversight of Presidential power; giving their responsibility in a system of checks and balances directly to President Bush without any after thought.

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Memo to President Bush: How to convince a Republican to vote for Hillary in 2008

1) Place all of your trust in the foreign policy recommendations of a man who, while a political genius, has only a high school education.

2) Emplace as your senior law enforcement officer a man who 1 - lost to a dead guy in his last congressional race, and 2 - bears an uncanny resemblance to the cigarette smoking man from the X-Files.

3) Make a fool out of one of the most respected minority figures in conservative politics, by rushing through non-deliberated and unverified intelligence estimates and presenting them to the United Nations for all the world to see.

4) Abandon all pretense of fiscal conservatism (i.e. economic liberalism) for the largest expansion of the federal government since the "New Deal" FDR administration.

5) Fail to implement a viable immigration policy in response to increased economic demands for blue collar labor.

6) Fail to close the borders or to implement a military-style (land) border security force a la U.S. Coast Guard coastal defense

7) Attempt to cut personnel costs during an ongoing military operation by sending a skeleton occupation force.

8) Claim Presidential "emergency powers" over the entire course of administration, with relatively feeble justification.

9) Hamper counter-terrorism capabilities worldwide by concentrating US intelligence assets on two countries.

10) Continue to do business with Saudi Arabia, the nation that has produced the most terrorist who have successfully attacked the United States over the past 2 decades. Saudi Arabia - blowing stuff up since 1983.

11) Simply mention the name Paul Bremer

12) Decapitate FEMA, and then fail to give credit to U.S. Army and Gen. Honore for single-handedly fixing the Katrina situation, and saving hundreds of lives, after a massive federal government failure.

13) Allow Nancy Pelosi to become House Speaker