The two leading candidates for the Oregon Democratic Senate nomination, Jeff Merkley and Steve Novick, are trying to outdo each other in demonstrating their opposition to the Iraq war.
On Saturday – the fifth anniversary of the US invasion – Merkley plans to lead a march in Portland calling for an end to the war. “Five years ago this month, George Bush invaded Iraq,” Merkley said in a press release. “It’s been an unmitigated disaster. I am the only candidate for the U.S. Senate in Oregon who spoke out against the war from the beginning. And I’ll promise you this: I’ll go to work on the first day to bring our troops home immediately.”
If you plan to be in Portland Saturday and want to take part in the march, you can sign up here.
Although as far as The EYE knows he isn’t planning to lead any marches this weekend, Novick also has been a vocal critic of the war and pledges that “if the U.S. still has military forces in Iraq when I take office in 2009, I will begin work immediately on withdrawing our troops within six months.”
Democrats have accused Republican Sen. Gordon Smith of waffling on the war for criticizing it but refusing to support setting a timetable for US withdrawal.
Meanwhile, Merkley stole another march on Novick this week by snagging the endorsement of the big (more than 52,000 members) and politically active Service Employees International Union (SEIU) of Oregon. The SEIU endorsement took some of the sting out of Merkley’s loss of the Oregon Education Association’s endorsement to Novick.
This article appears in Mar 13-19, 2008.
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What a specious dork.
Hurry, we better quit rather quickly, before we win.
If this were a marathon, Merkley would turn around after 21 miles, and walk home.
It is gonna cost just as much to quit (and run and hide) as it is gonna cost to finish the job.
Besides, once we finish the job and implant democracy, then we should turn on the oil spigots to maximum flow.
MaxFlow Iraqi oil would do two things:
1) Flood the world oil markets, dropping the oil price in half
2) Give us some of that treasure to refill the USA’s treasure chest. We need more moola, especially if the Tax and Spend Democrats win in November, 2008.
As for the article, it should be noted that there is a great difference with being critical of the war and taking action to protect American Interests.
As for the moronic response(see s. urge). Our precept for this war was WMD. None found. We assisted in the execution of a leader of a country(good or bad) based on a false premise. If we lose our reparations and we have to pay for this war on our own, consider it a cost of following the leader who took advantage of a country in shock from a horrible attack on 911. Those of us that were questioning this from the very beginning understand we have a price to pay for such a heinous act.
Don’t preach to me about winning when our sin of bad judgement has this consequence.
S. Urge, what do you think about the intense fighting that’s going on now between the Iraq government and the Mahdi Army? Bush says it’s a sign of progress. In Bushworld, when violence is down it means we’re winning and when violence is up it also means we’re winning. It must be nice to be unconstrained by the boundaries of logic.