Time for some follow-up ...

After I posted last night, I stepped back for a second to review. Reading it again made me even more worked-up. I took some time out to look at some of today’s news, looking for some examples of the greed and dishonesty in Congress right now.

First was the news today about the additional 35,000 troops to be sent later this year. General Petraeus has made it very clear that the ‘surge’ would need time before you can see concrete effects. This should seem like common sense to most of you, change doesn’t take place overnight. The Democrats, on the other hand have proposed a slightly different way to run a war:

Under the proposal, Bush would have to update Congress by July 13 on whether the Iraqi government was meeting certain political and security reforms. Congress would decide 10 days later whether to end the war and bring troops home or provide funding through September.

Wow … a whole two months … why didn’t we think of things like this in 1942, we could have been out of that war by early ’43! But wait, there’s more! Sen. Olympia Snowe (see, I have problems with some of the Republicans as well – bowing to polls is no way to run a war) shows in her own way that the politicians have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA what is going on over here:

Sen. Olympia Snowe (news, bio, voting record), R-Maine, introduced legislation Tuesday that would require the Iraqi government to meet certain benchmarks within four months. If Baghdad fails, military commanders would begin planning to bring some troops home and refocusing remaining forces on noncombat missions, such as training the Iraqi security forces. Snowe's bill, co-sponsored by Sen. Evan Bayh (news, bio, voting record), D-Ind., sets a nonbinding goal of ending combat six months later.

Amazing … that’s brilliant, lets focus on the “non-combat” missions, like training the Iraqi Security Forces. Let me clue you in on a little something, the guys who are working with the Iraqi Security Forces are involved in combat more (on average) that any other forces in theatre. These are the guys on the front lines teaching the Iraqis how to do it themselves. You don’t do that in a classroom, you do it on the street – where the action is. If these people would spend less time making sound-bites and more time doing actual research, they might actually be useful.

But, sound-bites make for good politics – even if they aren’t true. Presidential hopeful, Barack Obama, got a bit too big for his britches in a speech yesterday when discussing the tornadoes in Kansas. Apparently, devastation from tornadoes is now caused by the Bush Administration, and the War in Iraq. Sen. Obama was heard to say:

"In case you missed it, this week, there was a tragedy in Kansas. Ten thousand people died — an entire town destroyed," the Democratic presidential candidate said in a speech to 500 people packed into a sweltering Richmond art studio for a fundraiser.

Hmmmm, … 10,000 you say … last I checked it was 12. Not to take away from the tragic loss of those in Kansas, but we all know 10,000 sounds much better than 12. Makes for a better sound-bite, charges up the crowd, brainwashes them just a little bit more with dreams of one world, living together, everyone sharing their goods, free-love and all sorts of other things the rest of the world has proven end in total collapse of a government (heck, even the French figured it out and elected a conservative this week). Why, do you ask, did the honorable Senator bring up the tragedy in Kansas … to blame it on the President and the war effort, of course:

Obama mentioned the disaster in Greensburg, Kan., in saying he had been told by the office of Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius that the state's National Guard had been depleted by its commitment to the Iraq War.

"Turns out that the National Guard in Kansas only had 40 percent of its equipment and they are having to slow down the recovery process in Kansas," Obama said, his shirt sleeves rolled up and his head glistening with sweat.

The good news is: It’s not just the Congress involved in this hatchet-job, the Governor of Kansas had some words as well that she planned to talk to the President about when he arrived today:

"I don't think there is any question if you are missing trucks, Humvees and helicopters that the response is going to be slower," she said Monday. "The real victims here will be the residents of Greensburg, because the recovery will be at a slower pace."

Sebelius said that with other states facing similar limitations, "stuff that we would have borrowed is gone."

Holy cow, whatever did she need? The state must have requested all sorts of assistance and received none for her to turn a tragedy into a blame-game with the White House. What did she ask for?

Snow said no one had asked for heavy equipment. "As far as we know, the only thing the governor has requested are FM radios," the spokesman said.

Radios … damn wish we’d known about that, we have TONS over here. Oh wait, she got them? And a mobile command center, a SAR team and some Blackhawk helicopters. They must be good then, but why all the drama … it worked for Katrina right? All I know is: when Hurricane Ivan was bearing down on my house, I was underway off the coast of San Diego. My wife actually listened to the advice of the government (as did most of the rest of Pensacola) and LEFT. She didn’t wait for the government to swoop in and rescue her from the storm – she left. Sometimes we have to do things for ourselves folks, like those great folks in Kansas are right now. Despite their governor’s dire statements, they are taking care of each other and picking up the pieces. Maybe if the governor spent more time helping them and less talking to the camera, she’d realize that when bad things happen, the only thing you can do is pick yourself up, pick your fellow man up and start over. Standing around and waiting for the government to jump to your rescue like some sort of institutionalized welfare program doesn’t work. The Republic only works when the people are willing to ‘cowboy up’ and do the lion’s share of the work themselves. Help from the government is a great thing, but it should be a surprise, not an expectation. As an aside: the people from FEMA have been under fire for several years due to the media convincing the country that FEMA should do all the work for you. Let me give you the ground-zero truth: The people from FEMA and the Army Corps of Engineers are some of the FINEST people I have ever had the pleasure of seeing in action. They were there for the citizens of Pensacola and Lower Alabama from day one. Their help was invaluable in a rough time. It worked because the folks on the Gulf Coast came home, started to pick up and didn’t look for any handouts.

That’s just my two cents, take it or leave it. We are being snowballed by the media and our representatives in Congress. They tell us what they want us to hear, not the whole story.

-Grease out.

P.S. I did find one other story out there today totally unrelated to this topic. I can’t tell if this guy is the luckiest guy on the planet, or the unluckiest. You decide