Leaked Letter Reveals Conservative Strategy For Iraq Debate: Don’t Talk About Iraq


This week, the House of Representatives is debating a resolution opposing President Bush’s Iraq escalation. The resolution is just 58 words long, and has only one purpose: “Disapproving of the decision of the President announced on January 10, 2007, to deploy more than 20,000 additional United States combat troops to Iraq.”

But a leaked letter obtained today by Majority Leader Steny Hoyer’s (D-MD) office reveals that conservatives have formulated a strategy to avoid talking about the central question of the debate.

In the letter, leading conservative Reps. John Shadegg (R-AZ) and Peter Hoekstra (R-MI) inform their allies: “The debate should not be about the surge or its details. This debate should not even be about the Iraq war to date, mistakes that have been made, or whether we can, or cannot, win militarily.” Shadegg and Hoekstra warn, if conservatives are forced to debate “the surge or the current situation in Iraq, we lose.”

Read it:



Instead, they write, “the debate must be about the global threat of the radical Islamic movement.” The problem is they lose that debate too.

UPDATE: Greg Sargent has more.
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And if you watch the speeches you can identify the R's that are following the TP's in lock step. However there are a noticeable number that are not. I hope I can get a count on them later. C-Span early this morning showed a webpage of theirs that listed all the House members that have spoken and their testimony but when I try to access it - I get blocked - not the usual "unable to access message" so I am wondering if it is because of constant revision. Anybody else tried using it?

I have been watching hoping to hear my representative, but either missed him or he hasn't spoken out yet. Yesterday I looked on his gov webpage and didn't see anything either.

It is very instructive to watch as much as possible, each side has members that are using what they claim is personal correspondence from military service members in their particular districts and you will see just as much variation there as anywhere else, so the idea that the military all support the administration is being shredded.

lenal

Here is the C-Span link - finally was able to access it:

http://www.c-span.org/resources/house_feb2007.asp

Just in case you all can't take time to watch, you can check here and only pick the ones you are interested in- Jeff Flake AZ my rep, hasn't spoken yet apparently and even tho. I am not in Shadegg's district, I aim to unload a bundle on him via e-mail.


lenal

Thanks Lenal! I see only two of the folks from WI have spoken so far. Sensenbrenner isn't one of them, I can't wait to hear what he has to say.