Vote For Kodos
I am not a card-carrying member of the Republican Party (to get the card you have to pony up with a monetary donation), but you all know that I consider myself a Republican. I have voted exlusively Republican in all federal- and state-level elections, with a 2-0 record for POTUS (though neither vote really counted, since Gore and Kerry carried Michigan in 2000 and '04, respectively). Having provided that caveat, I am trying to look at this issue objectively: on Thursday, Representative John Murtha (D, Pennsylvania) received nationwide attention as he held a press conference calling for the total withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq within the next six months (by May '06). On Friday, the House of Representatives, lead by Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (R, Illinois), voted on a resolution calling for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq within the next six months. The non-binding resolution was defeated 403-3.

Here's where I get confused: Representative Nancy Pelosi (D, California) called Friday's resolution "a disgrace" and went on to imply that it was a cheap piece of political theater. Let me see if I have this straight, when a Democract calls for the immediate withdrawal of our boys from Iraq, he is a courageous man of conscience, but when the Republican majority offers the House the opportunity to vote on immediately withdrawing our boys from Iraq, that is petty politics? How does that work? I understand that as Minority Leader Rep. Pelosi's job is to advance the Democratic Party's platform and demonize the Republican Party, but her statements in this incident strike me as being particularly vile. Rep. Murtha put forward a non-binding resolution calling for us to cut-and-run from Iraq; the House then voted on a similar, though not identical non-binding resolution. Excuse for being naive, but isn't that how it's supposed to work? The House is supposed to vote on resolutions put forward by the representatives of the several states, is it not?

Am I out of line here? Was Rep. Pelosi's anger justified? make no mistake, I am not saying that Friday's vote was not a piece of political theater. It absolutely was. But, so was Thursday's tear-filled press conference by Rep. Murtha. So, why is one kosher and one obscene?

Lies, Damned Lies, and the News*
In a related vote, during Thursday's broadcast of ABC World News Tonight, President Bush was quoted as saying that Murtha's resolution was "irresponsible" and "unpatriotic." During Friday's broadcast of the same program, a correction was issued, accompanied by video footage; President Bush did indeed repeatedly call Murtha's resolution, and similar defeatist (my word) sentiments, "irresponsible," but he never said such dissent was "unpatriotic." Holy wow, documented proof that the self-titled Fourth Estate reports both fact and fiction as if the two were one and the same. The staff at ABC invented a quote and reported it as if it was honest-to-God fact. Yes, in this instance ABC issued a prompt correction, but it makes you wonder how many other fictions go unnoticed in each night's broadcast, in each edition of The New York Times, in each week's Newsweek.

*Media criticism was formerly posted under the heading "I Don't Trust Clark Kent," but clearly that is not actually the case. Clark Kent, Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, Perry White, and The Daily Planet itself stand for what journalism should be, an ideal that is very far removed from today's journalist/advocates. I believe in Clark Kent because his reports are the exact opposite of ABC's invented quotes and Dan Rather's forged Air National Guard records. It is because I believe in the ideals of journalism, in the value of a free press to our democracy, that I so loathe the biased media establishment. ABC literally invented a quote and attributed it to the President of the United States. Wow, that's incredible.