Tuesday, January 09, 2007

Rep. Obey on withholding surge funds: "I don't believe in futile efforts"

As you watch the video of Wisconsin Rep. Dave Obey linked below, keep in mind that he is considered to be part of the Democratic Party "Left," a real progressive who is allegedly evidence of why we don't need Greens in the US Congress. Obey the great progressive believes that it would be "futile" for the US Congress to vote to withhold funds for the Iraq "surge" because the President would just veto the vote.

The interview was conducted by Sam Husseini of the Institute for Public Accuracy. Husseini lurks outside the major network studios when politicians do the "official" interviews with people like Tim Russert and George Stephanopolous. He then fires questions at them outside the studio. How sad that the only time a politician gets some tough questioining is when he is being "staked out" by someone like Husseini. What a powerful indictment of the corporate, mainstream media.

The Obey interview can be found here.

2 comments:

borges said...

Sit-ins will start at Obey's office soon according to CounterPunch:
"In Wisconsin, a portion of the campaign will focus upon Representative David Obey, Chair of the House Appropriations Committee, with multiple actions, every other week, which include constituents from his district as well as people from outside his district (given his role as committee chair)."

Link: http://www.counterpunch.org/leys01082007.html

It will be interesting to see what that changes on the ground.

Anonymous said...

It's too bad so many progressive Dems have been bamboozled by politicians like Dave Obey, who has voted for three of the four supplemental funding bills that have kept the Iraq war going. (Herb Kohl voted for all four.) It's a little late now to try to get these guys to take an anti-war position; the time for that was last fall, when both Obey and Kohl had Green Party opponents in the general election (Miles, Vogeler) who were staunchly anti-war. Had progressive Dems supported the Green candidates instead of the incumbents -- something that could have been done without the slightest worry about either Democrat losing office -- then perhaps Obey and Kohl would have gotten the message that Wisconsin wants the troops home. Instead we saw most Dems, including most progressive Dems, voting straight ticket on November 7. What does that say to Obey and Kohl? Exactly this: You should feel free to continue voting to fund the war in Iraq because we'll reelect you regardless. Sheesh! When will "progressive" Dems get a clue?