How long can the new Congressional majority get by with inaction before people realize they are weak?

Question

They are still running on Bush sucks, but not contributing anything different; unless you consider a nonbinding resolution disagreeing with the President's plan a real contribution. How long will it take for the swing voters, who's fault it is the new majority exists, to realize they voted in a party that has no real answers on how to end the war favorably?

Answer 1

I give them til July... You gotta realize, the House of Reps is like a BIG ocean-liner; it takes a long time to get up a "head of steam"- and equally as long to turn or change course. Throw in an unexpected "ice burg" or three (some major proposal turning out to be unconstitutional), and it can take a LONG time for something to get passed- no matter who's in the majority, or how big it is. There's an old saying that goes, "If it sails through the House, it sinks in the Courts."

Answer 2

The major players in the Bush regime are many of the same people who were around during the Nixon administration. Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, for example were aides to Gerald Ford who followed and pardoned Nixon. They tried to persuade president Ford to veto the enhanced Freedom of Information Act. Back then they seem to have recognized that the truth would haunt them. It still does. They preferred to operate with impunity then as they do now. What can one expect from the same cast of characters? They were sick then, when Nixon was in office, and, they are sick now.

History has a way of repeating itself as the observation goes. Sooner, or, later, as the tide continues to turn, the people will respond to the pervasive sickness that permeates this regime and the land, and do something about it. The populace will once again become sick and tired of the sickness. When that happens, and I do believe that day is coming, a second president in my lifetime will be leaving the White House in disgrace. The people will line the streets and salute farewell to the commander-in-thief in similar fashion to how they "welcomed" him on "inauguration" day, June 20, 2001. The difference this time will be, however, that George W. Bush will be leaving the White without legitimately having been elected in the first place.

Answer 3

Im afraid that most likely they will be able to ride this out for quite sometime. Mostly likely until Bush is out of office and the talk about whoever is elected has died down a bit. Im afraid they can do nothing for quite some time.

Answer 4

Bush and Republican / Conservatives have made such a terrible mess of things for over a DECADE of Republican welfare and corruption that it's going to take wiser people a little longer than one hundred days, sir, to get THIS wreck out of the ditch. What appears to be happening in Washington is an attempt to go after the roots of the massive Republican / Conservative corruption and piggy-fest plundering. For example, to go after the bribed and corrupted Republicans in Congress, a serious and grave problem that is acknowledged by decent, real Americans from both political parties, a new law was recently passed that won't allow ex-Congressmen and women who are convicted of felonies to receive their tax-payer funded pensions. The interesting rider on that new law is that if a spouse turns her louse in to the law, she, or he, gets to receive the pension. That seems like a small approach to resolving the obscene mess of a war that Bush has mired us in. But, when so MANY Republican / Conservatives are bribed and corrupt, the disease is most certainly invasive throughout our society and commerce and political processes, much like a metastatic cancer that overwhelms more direct efforts to regain law and order. Issues such as Cheney's no-bid contracts and Halliburton's massive overcharging of the U.S. Army are important issues and by addressing the roots of this administration's plunder, criminal activities and corruption, decent people will lead this nation back to a more sane and stable state. It's like a snake with ten-thousand heads. When enough heads have been cut off, decency will return.

Answer 5

A party that has no real answers on how to end the war favorably???
Have you not paid attention to Bush/Rummie/Cheney's failures thusfar? They're trying to tell us we won...as the fighting and death of US soldiers continues. Tell us again about inaction? Oh wait, sending more kids to die and more taxpayers' money to be wasted is acceptable action, I forgot.

Thanks for the refresher.

Answer 6

Fifty something hearings already on Iraq and you think they are inactive. I believe you have to wake up from your shock of getting totally thrashed in the November elections. There has been a total reversal in congressional oversight. There had to be seeing that there was zero oversight before. Full steam ahead.

Answer 7

The republicans lost in november becayse the republicans are selling out america, they have abondoned all their consevrative values for money and are accelerating our death. I will vote republican once they commit to stopping illegal immagration and starting wars/killing our soldiers for israel when we obviously have an enemy within.

Answer 8

Allow me to cut and paste:

The bipartisan Iraq Study Group opposed such a move in no uncertain terms. "Sustained increases in U.S. troop levels would not solve the fundamental cause of violence in Iraq, which is the absence of national reconciliation," the report says. "Meanwhile, America's military capacity is stretched thin: we do not have the troops or equipment to make a substantial, sustained increase in our troop presence. Increased deployments to Iraq would also necessarily hamper our ability to provide adequate resources for our efforts in Afghanistan or respond to crises around the world." The ISG report emphasizes the need to engage more effectively in the battle of ideas in the Arab world. First, the report says, Bush "should state that the United States does not seek permanent military bases in Iraq." (Last June, the New York Times reported the administration was making plans for "maintaining a force of roughly 50,000 troops there for years to come.") Second, the U.S. must show a "renewed and sustained commitment" to a "comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace on all fronts." Gen. John P. Abizaid, until recently the senior commander in the Middle East, insists that the answer to our problems there is not military. "You have to internationalize the problem. You have to attack it diplomatically, geo-strategically," he said. His assessment is supported by Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the senior American commander in Iraq, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who only recommend releasing forces with a clear definition of the goals for the additional troops. A surge is not acceptable to the people in this country -- we have voted overwhelmingly against this war in polls (about 80 percent of the public is against escalation, and a recent Military Times poll shows only 38 percent of active military want more troops sent) and at the polls.
CentCom commander Gen. John Abizaid told Congress, "I met with every divisional commander, General Casey, the core commander, General Dempsey, we all talked together. And I said, in your professional opinion, if we were to bring in more American Troops now, does it add considerably to our ability to achieve success in Iraq? And they all said no." Abizaid explained, "[T]he reason is because we want the Iraqis to do more. It is easy for the Iraqis to rely upon to us do this work. I believe that more American forces prevent the Iraqis from doing more, from taking more responsibility for their own future." Now both Gen. Abizaid and Gen. Casey are on their way out.

The Iraq Study Group advised Bush to talk directly to Iran. Senior members of Congress from both parties urged the president to do the same. Three-quarters of the American public, according to a recent poll, also want the president to talk to Iran (including 72 percent of Republicans and 81 percent of Democrats). Former Secretary of State Colin Powell has recommended it. Even Secretary of Defense Robert Gates -- when he was the co-chair of a 2004 Council of Foreign Relations task force -- urged the president to talk to Iran.


Last week, the Military Times released a new poll of 6,000 active duty U.S. military personnel. Thirty-eight percent of the troops polled said the United States should send more troops to Iraq. Thirty-nine percent believe we should maintain current levels or reduce the number of troops, including 13 percent who support complete withdrawal. Only 35 percent said they approve of the way President Bush is handling the war, while 42 percent said they disapproved. The media has all but ignored the poll, even though newspapers and television news channels "all lavished extensive coverage on another, completely unscientific measure of the troops' opinions of a 'surge.'" "A couple of weeks back, Defense Secretary Robert Gates convened a photo-op sitdown with around a dozen troops to listen to their opinions. Mysteriously, all of those assembled agreed that they wanted more troops. The thoughts of this handful of soldiers were granted extensive coverage by The New York Times, the Washington Post, the Associated Press, CNN and Reuters." Now, the "the San Jose Mercury News and the Seattle Times were the only U.S. papers to run stories of their own" on the poll, Steve Benen writes for the Washington Monthly, while Reuters and UPI mentioned the poll in wire stories what "were not widely picked up. ... Broadcast outlets were a bit better, with CNN and ABC mentioning the poll on the air."

Answer 9

We must back Bush he's no the right track.