Orrin on the Precipice
No member of Utah’s GOP congressional delegation sniffs more furiously after poll results than Sen. Orrin Hatch. Take his performance yesterday on the floor of the U.S. Senate. During debate over assorted resolutions regarding President George W. Bush’s intended increase of 21,500 troops for Iraq, Hatch tiptoed right up to the edge of the cliff in a manner that The Salt Lake Tribune characterized as his “harshest assessment of the situation in Iraq.”
Said Utah’s senior senator: “I am supporting a strategy for success. So far, President Bush — who has a lot to answer for the mistakes that have been made — is offering the only way to try to leave Iraq in better shape than it is now.”
Ah, backbone.
Moments earlier, Hatch had described Bush’s early war strategy as a “profound mistake.” This would be the notion — repeated early and often by then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld — that our mission in Iraq would be short, swift and targeted with precision. This would be the notion that U.S. forces would march in, topple Saddam and cheer our president as he stood on an aircraft carrier and shouted “Mission Accomplished.”
This would be four years ago.
There is a reasonable explanation for Hatch’s sudden swagger in dissing that big misguided president in front of all his Senate colleagues.
It’s called steadily shifting public opinion.
“I’m sure Orrin’s own polls within his organization are showing him how deeply unpopular the war has become. Even in Utah that sentiment is growing,” said a source who has consulted on several Utah political campaigns. “The war is hitting close to home. We’re starting to see more than just the rare casualty from Utah. People are starting to pay attention.”
You bet. In just the last month four men and one woman from Utah were killed while serving in Iraq (counting three airmen from out of state but who were stationed at Hill Air Force Base). We have reached the point where death is landing in our back yards, and with alarming frequency. Not Ohio. Not California. Here.
And the best Utah’s senator for life can do is muster a weak finger-wagging at the president, then back a resolution supporting a troop buildup while demanding the wimpy Iraq government step up to the plate.
Where, in heaven’s name, are our leaders?
February 8th, 2007 at 2:17 pm
With a couple of exceptions, our leaders are not in Utah.
I’m fed up with the lies, distortions, stupidity, civil rights violations, hypocrisy and secrecy. We are no longer a Democracy.
I have to go to the March on the Pentagon next month. My brother and I will be there and being loud. Bush and his crowd thumb their nose at the constitution and I’m going to finger right back to them.
February 8th, 2007 at 3:46 pm
Orrin Hatch as a spineless sycophant to the world`s worst president ? (sorry,I keep forgetting Robert Mugabe). Maybe Utah has the voice it deserves.
Maureen Dowd had one of the best descriptions of Iraq..”Bush hit a beehive with a baseball bat and doesn`t understand the result”.
I`m afraid the new “surge” is going to result in nocturnal Little Big Horns in Baghdad,with our troops taking really serious casualties. Remember Mogadishu ? There is such awful circularity in this…Vietnam 2
Bush`s compentency level makes him ideal for mayor of a small Texas town..population 500 max. Why he could even have Orrin as local D.A.
February 8th, 2007 at 7:03 pm
I can only claim one face to face conversation with Senator Hatch. It lasted about 15 minutes and we talked about a lot of things. He seemed very willing to listen to other ideas and was genuinely respectful of my views but unquestionably dogmatic. He seems to think Politics works on the same principles as Physics. There are certain True Principles that simply work every time. Like Tax Cuts. They don’t cause deficits - they grow the economy and create more tax revenues than we gave up. Really? Where did those Trillions of dollars in debt come from?
I fear that Senator Hatch’s mild aknowledgement that things have not gone perfectly in Iraq is more polite listening. The real problem is that those who have pushed this war think that Iraq is really France in 1945. Its not. You can’t go in and reform a country you refuse to understand.
And by the way, who said remaking the Muslim World in our own image was our right to do anyway?
February 8th, 2007 at 9:52 pm
Why do Utahns keep putting Hatch in office? He was one of only two senators to vote against the recent ethics bill. Hatch said he supports ethics reforms but didn’t like the process used with the bill the Senate passed. I have no idea what that means. And, now Hatch is against the war but supports Bush’s troop surge. In other words, mistakes have been made, perhaps we shouldn’t have attacked Iraq, but stay the course anyway even though that course clearly isn’t working. We need a senator capable of reasonable thought, not one who merely follows the polls. We need a senator willing to take a stand. Instead, we’re stuck with Hatch for another six years. Par for the course in Utah. After all, state senator Chris Buttars is returned to office over and over again too. Until many Utahns stop viewing the Republican party as the party of God, we will have idiotic representation. At some point, you have to ask yourself this question: are most Utahns idiots?
February 9th, 2007 at 5:01 am
Utah keeps putting these people back in office because there’s little to no coverage of their deeds and mis-deeds. Instead, Utahns are more concerned w/Real Salt Lake and what’s showing at Larry Miller’s Theaters and who is no longer wearing their “garmies.”.
Where was the coverage of the
Minimum Wage Bill Blocked ? Orrin himself voted to block it.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070124/pl_nm/usa_congress_wages_vote_dc
Wake up Utah.
February 9th, 2007 at 7:31 am
Where are the leaders, you ask?
Ummm… where are the voters?
Is the incompetency just now starting to show? I think not.
We had our chance, but then somebody stood up in sacrament meeting, and it was all over.
February 9th, 2007 at 9:24 am
” Verily,hell hath not room enough for all who have yet to see the light. The light of Orrin Hatch. ”
Quote from Dick Cheney
March 1st, 2007 at 2:47 am
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March 2nd, 2007 at 8:11 am
fioricet…
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