Elected representatives should "represent" the views of their constituents. However, people like Tom DeLay bowed to the wishes of their benefactors. Capitol Hill Blue has an excellent article about DeLay and the current crop of Republicans.
Republican Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert has accused Democrats of wanting to "cut and run" instead of staying in Iraq. Hastert has never served in the military. How does he have the right to attack Rep. Murtha and others who have served honorably in our military? There is an excellent article that talks about how the most vocal cheerleaders for Bush's "stay the course" are people who have no military experience. Here are a few excerpts:
It is of some significance that Democrat John Murtha and Republican Chuck Hagel, two of the Congress' most outspoken critics of how the Bush administration has conducted the Iraq war, are decorated veterans of the Vietnam War.
It is of even greater significance that the administration's apologists for the war, those who question the patriotism of the war's opponents, avoided serving in Vietnam, almost to a man, starting, of course, with the top man.....
Hastert, who avoided Vietnam because of a wrestling injury, was even nastier about fellow Republican Sen. John McCain when the Vietnam hero criticized wartime tax cuts and asked, “Where's the sacrifice?”
“John McCain ought to visit our young men and women at Walter Reed and Bethesda. There's the sacrifice in this,” said Hastert of McCain, who spent months in military hospitals after being tortured for years a POW in Vietnam...
Cheney's five deferments aren't the record in the Bush administration. That prize goes to former Attorney General John Ashcroft who had six student deferments and a seventh occupational deferment when he became a law professor.
Since then, Ashcroft has stoutly maintained, “I would have served if asked.”
An even better excuse was offered by the indicted House leader Rep. Tom DeLay who had a student deferment, but once explained there was no room in the military for people like him because minorities were flocking to the armed forces to escape poverty....
I am sick and tired of the Republicans' arrogant attitudes about everything. We need to work harder to bring a Democratic majority in the House and the Senate.
