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(s)Elections See other (s)Elections Articles Title: Congressman admits Democrats "stretched the facts," misled anti-war supporters about supposed plans for ending War Congressman Paul Kanjorski (D-PA) has been a fairly undistinguished member of the House of Representatives for nearly a quarter of a century. He is a career member of the Financial Services Committee who has made little or no name for himself since his first electoral victory, and has maintained incumbency through the funneling of pork back to his district. Even his Wikipedia entry says that Kanjorski "usually plays behind-the-scenes roles in the advocacy or defeat of legislation and steers appropriations money toward improving the infrastructure and economic needs of his district." “But [in] the temptation to want to win back the Congress, we sort of stretched the facts - and people ate it up.”Never one to stand out in a crowd outside of his own district if he could help it up until now, Rep. Kanjorski's public life may be about to change in a major way very, very quickly, and for a very big reason. You see, Paul Kanjorski has an honesty problem. More specifically, Paul Kanjorski's problem is that he was publicly honest about the intentional dishonesty of Congressional Democrats (and Democrat candidates) in the run-up to the 2006 election -- particularly with regard to the War in Iraq. Watch the video below (a transcript follows): Transcript: "I'll tell you my impression. We really in this last election, when I say we...the Democrats, I think pushed it as far as we can to the end of the fleet, didn't say it, but we implied it. That if we won the Congressional elections, we could stop the war. Now anybody was a good student of Government would know that wasn't true. But you know, the temptation to want to win back the Congress, we sort of stretched the facts...and people ate it up." The truth in Mr. Kanjorski's statement is both evident and obvious, and has been (to any who have been paying attention) since the Democrat out-of-Iraq-now campaigns began in early 2006. It has become more obvious with every bill the Democrat-led Congress passed that, rather than ending the war, simply gave the President nearly every single thing he asked for [1], without putting up any real fight (as opposed to the semifrequent, yet brief, preening-for-the-cameras moments of solely rhetorical dissent). The impression the Democratic Congress gave during those minor-at-best wars over the continuation of the War was that it was simply incompetent. Reps. Pelosi, Hoyer, et al wanted to end the war as soon as possible -- at least, that's what they kept saying. Unfortunately for those who largely elected them on that basis, the best and brightest Democrats in elective office were simply unable to figure out any way to outsmart and outmaneuver the buffoon in the White House on the issues of wartime budget and policy, instead (inadvertently, I'm sure) ending every fight on the wrong side from their point of view, having yet again given the President every single thing he was asking for. Now, Rep. Kanjorski has very publicly pulled the curtain back on the Democrat Congress' real intent and objective. "If we won the Congressional elections," he says, "we [implied that we] could stop the war." Yes, they did -- that is why the "Netroots" lined up behind these Democrats with their money and their soapboxes (but more importantly, with their money). That is why the "peace" activist supported them; ending the war NOW was the primary task they took on themselves to carry out, and the promise to do so was the basis on which so many of them were elected or reelected. Now the mask slips -- and with it comes an admitted level of condescension directed by those Congressional Democrats at those who were gullible enough to support them for something that they themselves knew could not be done. "Now anybody was a good student of Government," said Kanjorski, "would know that wasn't true [that they "could stop the war"]." Fortunately for those Democrats who campaigned, and were elected, based on their war-ending promises, their hardcore supporters, their activists, and their base of voters, are all made up of people who are, by Mr. Kanjorski's reckoning, very, very poor students of Government. But all of that was justified to these incumbents and first-time candidates. Taking advantage of poor, uneducated rubes? Abusing trust, and leaving those who offered it stranded along the way? All acceptable -- because, again by Mr. Kanjorski's own description, of "the temptation to want to win back the Congress." "We sort of stretched the facts," he says. "And people ate it up." Yes, they did -- and that may well be an apt description of the fate awaiting Rep. Kanjorski himself once his fellow Congressional Democrats find out what secrets he has been publicly admitting. After all, there is another election coming up in a mere five-plus months -- and they not only need the issue of their continued (purported) attempts to stop the war in order to gain support, but they need the votes of those same poor, poor students of government, who will believe every one of those stretched facts and, in the words of Mr. Kajorski, "eat up" what the Democrats had hoped to offer under the guise of something that was still eminently (and immintently) attainable under a their Congressional (and presidential) leadership. Now, thanks to Mr. Kanjorski, that cat is out of the bag. He had better hope that those poor students of government are equally poor watchers of YouTube and followers of the news, or else the veneer of the Democrat promises on Iraq will be long gone, courtesy of his honesty problem.
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#1. To: Peppa (#0)
The joke is on those who took any of their campaign promises seriously, and those who think that Democrats and Republicans offer serious alternatives to one another.
That's it right there.
But we have posters right here on 4um who have bought into the "Democrats Good, Republicans Bad" BS completely. Certainly there has to be something good about having elected Democrats who have spent two years playing political games with the GOP and accomplished exactly nothing, right? Right?
McCain/Obama '08 -- Because the next step is Socialism rather than Freedom.
They're no different from the "Republicans Good, Democrats Bad" people.
I tend to oscillate my posting style based on what the "popular" opinion is. Counterpoint is always needed, though, as an independent Paleoconservative Libertarian (now there's a mouthful) they're all just as bad from where I sit. If everyone is hating Bush, find what he is doing right. The truth is always in the middle somewhere.
McCain/Obama '08 -- Because the next step is Socialism rather than Freedom.
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