Hit and Run just posted a link showing Members of Congress who directly leased cars instead of going through the GSA (at a lesser expense). I’m not privy enough to the campaign-finance implications of this (i.e are there problems given the mixed usage if you have a GSA vehicle), so I’m not jumping one way or the other on the simple fact of their having leased cars. But I thought it’d be an interesting exercise on my coffee break to map the make/model to their vote on Kyoto. In the SUV column, “XX” means a full-size SUV, “X” means a SUV.

The vote is on the 2000 House advisory vote (2000-323) on the Kyoto Treaty.

|Member Name|Vote on Kyoto|State/Party|SUV|Make/Model|2005 Cost|
|||||||
|Curt Weldon|YES|Pennsylvania Republican|XX| Ford Expedition|”$8,551″|
|Cynthia McKinney|YES|Georgia Democrat|XX| Ford Expedition|”$4,353″|
|Harold Ford|YES|Tennessee Democrat|XX| Chevrolet Tahoe|”$8,050″|
|Mark Foley|YES|Florida Republican|XX| GMC Yukon|”$4,089″|
|Paul Kanjorski|YES|Pennsylvania Democrat|XX| GMC Yukon|”$11,290″|
|Sheila Jackson Lee|YES|Texas Democrat|XX| Lincoln Navigator|”$9,081″|
|Silvestre Reyes|YES|Texas Democrat|XX| GMC Yukon|”$6,419″|
|Solomon Ortiz|YES|Texas Democrat|XX| Chevrolet Tahoe|”$8,492″|
|Sue Kelly|YES|New York Republican/Conservative|XX| Chevrolet Tahoe|”$8,736″|Continuing down the list, one thing that’s interesting is how modest most of the cars leased are; I’d expected a lot of Navigators and Escalades. I’m actually kind of impressed.

|Member Name|Vote on Kyoto|State/Party|SUV|Make/Model|2005 Cost|
|||||||
|Jim Saxton|YES|New Jersey Republican|X| Chevrolet Trailblazer|”$3,730″|
|Jose Serrano|YES|New York Democrat/Liberal|X| Buick Lacrosse|”$3,901″|
|Lane Evans|YES|Illinois Democrat|X| Chevrolet Trailblazer|”$7,662″|
|Alan Mollohan|YES|West Virginia Democrat||||
|Albert Wynn|YES|Maryland Democrat||||
|Alcee Hastings|YES|Florida Democrat|| Infiniti M45|”$10,147″|
|Allen Boyd|YES|Florida Democrat||||
|Amo Houghton|YES|New York Republican/Conservative||||
|Anna Eshoo|YES|California Democrat|| Acura|”$5,151″|
|Anthony Weiner|YES|New York Democrat/Liberal|| Chevrolet Impala|”$2,628″|
|Barbara Lee|YES|California Democrat|| Chrysler|”$7,251″|
|Barney Frank|YES|Massachusetts Democrat||||
|Baron Hill|YES|Indiana Democrat||||
|Bart Gordon|YES|Tennessee Democrat||||
|Bart Stupak|YES|Michigan Democrat||||
|Benjamin Cardin|YES|Maryland Democrat||||
|Bennie Thompson|YES|Mississippi Democrat||||
|Bernie Sanders|YES|Vermont Independent||||
|Bill Delahunt|YES|Massachusetts Democrat|| Ford 500|”$6,019″|
|Bill Luther|YES|Minnesota Democrat/Farmer/Labor||||
|Bill Pascrell|YES|New Jersey Democrat||||
|Bob Clement|YES|Tennessee Democrat||||
|Bob Etheridge|YES|North Carolina Democrat||||
|Bob Filner|YES|California Democrat||||
|Bob Wise|YES|West Virginia Democrat|| vehicle not identified|”$6,979″|
|Bobby Scott|YES|Virginia Democrat||||
|Brad Sherman|YES|California Democrat||||
|Brian Baird|YES|Washington Democrat||||
|Brian Bilbray|YES|California Republican|| Chevrolet Trailblazer|”$3,407″|
|Bud Shuster|YES|Pennsylvania Rep. (resigned 3/3/2001)||||
|Cal Dooley|YES|California Democrat||||
|Carolyn Kilpatrick|YES|Michigan Democrat||||
|Carolyn Maloney|YES|New York Democrat/Liberal||||
|Carolyn McCarthy|YES|New York Dem./Ind./Working-Families||||
|Carrie Meek|YES|Florida Democrat (retired 2002)||||
|Chaka Fattah|YES|Pennsylvania Democrat|| GMC Envoy|”$8,514″|
|Charlie Bass|YES|New Hampshire Republican||||
|Charlie Gonzalez|YES|Texas Democrat|| Ford Expedition|”$6,805″|
|Chet Edwards|YES|Texas Democrat||||
|Christopher Shays|YES|Connecticut Republican|
|Christopher Smith|YES|New Jersey Republican|
|Ciro Rodriguez|YES|Texas Democrat|
|Dale Kildee|YES|Michigan Democrat|
|Darlene Hooley|YES|Oregon Democrat|
|Dave Hobson|YES|Ohio Republican|
|Dave Weldon|YES|Florida Republican|
|David Adam Smith|YES|Washington Democrat|
|David Bonior|YES|Michigan Democrat|
|David Eugene Price|YES|North Carolina Democrat|
|David Minge|YES|Minnesota Democrat/Farmer/Labor|
|David Obey|YES|Wisconsin Democrat|
|David Phelps|YES|Illinois Democrat|
|David Wu|YES|Oregon Democrat|
|Debbie Stabenow|YES|Michigan Democrat|
|Dennis Kucinich|YES|Ohio Democrat|
|Dennis Moore|YES|Kansas Democrat||||
|Diana DeGette|YES|Colorado Democrat|| Ford Freestyle|”$5,113″|
|Dick Gephardt|YES|Missouri Democrat||||
|Donald Payne|YES|New Jersey Democrat||||
|Doug Bereuter|YES|Nebraska Republican||||
|Earl Blumenauer|YES|Oregon Democrat||||
|Ed Pastor|YES|Arizona Democrat|| Chrysler 300|”$6,272″|
|Eddie Bernice Johnson|YES|Texas Democrat|| vehicle not identified|”$11,321″|
|Elijah Cummings|YES|Maryland Democrat||||
|Eliot Engel|YES|New York Democrat/Liberal||||
|Ellen Tauscher|YES|California Democrat||||
|Elton Gallegly|YES|California Republican||||
|Eva Clayton|YES|North Carolina Democrat||||
|Frank LoBiondo|YES|New Jersey Republican||||
|Frank Mascara|YES|Pennsylvania Democrat||||
|Frank Pallone|YES|New Jersey Democrat||||
|Gary Ackerman|YES|New York Dem./Ind./Lib./Working-Fam.||||
|Gene Green|YES|Texas Democrat|| Chevrolet Impala|”$7,626″|
|George Miller|YES|California Democrat||||
|Gil Gutknecht|YES|Minnesota Republican||||
|Grace Napolitano|YES|California Democrat||||
|Greg Ganske|YES|Iowa Republican||||
|Gregory Meeks|YES|New York Dem./Working-Families|| Lexus|”$12,754″|
|Heather Wilson|YES|New Mexico Republican||||
|Howard Berman|YES|California Democrat|| Ford Escape|”$7,145″|
|Ike Skelton|YES|Missouri Democrat||||
|Ileana Ros-Lehtinen|YES|Florida Republican|| Chrysler Sebring|”$7,200″|
|Jack Quinn|YES|New York Republican/Ind./Cons.||||
|James Clyburn|YES|South Carolina Democrat|| Lincoln|”$6,123″|
|James Moran|YES|Virginia Democrat||||
|James Oberstar|YES|Minnesota Democrat/Farmer/Labor||||
|Jay Dickey|YES|Arkansas Republican||||
|Jay Inslee|YES|Washington Democrat||||
|Jerrold Nadler|YES|New York Dem./Lib./Working-Families||||
|Jerry Costello|YES|Illinois Democrat||||
|Jerry Kleczka|YES|Wisconsin Democrat||||
|Jerry Weller|YES|Illinois Republican||||
|Jesse Louis Jackson|YES|Illinois Democrat||||
|Jim Davis|YES|Florida Democrat||||
|Jim Greenwood|YES|Pennsylvania Republican||||
|Jim Kolbe|YES|Arizona Republican||||
|Jim Maloney|YES|Connecticut Democrat||||
|Jim McDermott|YES|Washington Democrat||||
|Jim McGovern|YES|Massachusetts Democrat||||
|Jim Ramstad|YES|Minnesota Republican||||
|Jim Turner|YES|Texas Democrat||||
|Joe Baca|YES|California Democrat|| vehicle not identified|”$8,457″|
|Joe Moakley|YES|Massachusetts Democrat||||
|John Baldacci|YES|Maine Democrat||||
|John Conyers|YES|Michigan Democrat||||
|John LaFalce|YES|New York Democrat/Ind./Lib.||||
|John Larson|YES|Connecticut Democrat||||
|John Lewis|YES|Georgia Democrat|| Pontiac Bonneville|”$8,618″|
|John McHugh|YES|New York Republican/Conservative||||
|John Murtha|YES|Pennsylvania Democrat||||
|John Olver|YES|Massachusetts Democrat||||
|John Porter|YES|Illinois Republican||||
|John Spratt|YES|South Carolina Democrat||||
|John Tanner|YES|Tennessee Democrat|| Ford Freestar|”$5,494″|
|John Tierney|YES|Massachusetts Democrat||||
|Joseph Crowley|YES|New York Democrat|| vehicle not identified|”$5,580″|
|Joseph Hoeffel|YES|Pennsylvania Democrat||||
|Juanita Millender-McDonald|YES|California Democrat|| Ford|”$8,888″|
|Julia Carson|YES|Indiana Democrat|| Chrysler 300|”$4,609″|
|Julian Dixon|YES|California Democrat||||
|Karen McCarthy|YES|Missouri Democrat||||
|Karen Thurman|YES|Florida Democrat||||
|Ken Bentsen|YES|Texas Democrat||||
|Ken Lucas|YES|Kentucky Democrat||||
|Leonard Boswell|YES|Iowa Democrat|| Chrysler Town & Country|”$6,299″|
|Lloyd Doggett|YES|Texas Democrat||||
|Lois Capps|YES|California Democrat||||
|Loretta Sanchez|YES|California Democrat||||
|Louise Slaughter|YES|New York Democrat|| Pontiac Bonneville|”$7,576″|
|Lucille Roybal-Allard|YES|California Democrat||||
|Lynn Nancy Rivers|YES|Michigan Democrat||||
|Lynn Woolsey|YES|California Democrat|| Ford Taurus|”$5,623″|
|Major Owens|YES|New York Democrat/Working-Families|| Chevrolet Impala|”$8,880″|
|Marge Roukema|YES|New Jersey Republican||||
|Mark Udall|YES|Colorado Democrat||||
|Martin Frost|YES|Texas Democrat||||
|Martin Sabo|YES|Minnesota Democrat/Farmer/Labor||||
|Marty Meehan|YES|Massachusetts Democrat||||
|Maxine Waters|YES|California Democrat|| Lincoln Town Car|”$10,815″|
|Mel Watt|YES|North Carolina Democrat||||
|Michael Capuano|YES|Massachusetts Democrat||||
|Michael Castle|YES|Delaware Republican||||
|Michael Forbes|YES|New York Republican||||
|Michael McNulty|YES|New York Democratic/Ind./Cons.||||
|Mike Doyle|YES|Pennsylvania Democrat||||
|Mike Thompson|YES|California Democrat||||
|Nancy Pelosi|YES|California Democrat||||
|Neil Abercrombie|YES|Hawaii Democrat||||
|Nicholas Lampson|YES|Texas Democrat||||
|Nick Rahall|YES|West Virginia Democrat|| vehicle not identified|”$11,724″|
|Nita Lowey|YES|New York Democrat||||
|Nydia Velazquez|YES|New York Democrat/Working-Families|| vehicle not identified|”$2,309″|
|Owen Pickett|YES|Virginia Democrat||||
|Patrick Kennedy|YES|Rhode Island Democrat||||
|Patsy Mink|YES|Hawaii Democrat||||
|Pete Stark|YES|California Democrat||||
|Peter Defazio|YES|Oregon Democrat||||
|Peter Deutsch|YES|Florida Democrat NOrm Dicks||||
|Peter King|YES|New York Rep./Ind./Cons./Right-To-Life||||
|Peter Visclosky|YES|Indiana Democrat|| Buick|”$7,383″|
|Porter Goss|YES|Florida Republican||||
|Ralph Regula|YES|Ohio Republican|| vehicle not identified|”$6,864″|
|Ray LaHood|YES|Illinois Republican||||
|Richard Neal|YES|Massachusetts Democrat||||
|Rob Andrews|YES|New Jersey Democrat||||
|Rob Portman|YES|Ohio Republican||||
|Robert Borski|YES|Pennsylvania Democrat||||
|Robert Brady|YES|Pennsylvania Democrat||||
|Robert Ehrlich|YES|Maryland Republican||||
|Robert Franks|YES|New Jersey Republican||||
|Robert Matsui|YES|California Democrat||||
|Robert Menendez|YES|New Jersey Democrat||||
|Robert Wexler|YES|Florida Democrat||||
|Robert Weygand|YES|Rhode Island Democrat||||
|Rodney Frelinghuysen|YES|New Jersey Republican||||
|Ron Kind|YES|Wisconsin Democrat||||
|Rosa DeLauro|YES|Connecticut Democrat||||
|Ruben Hinojosa|YES|Texas Democrat||||
|Rush Holt|YES|New Jersey Democrat||||
|Sam Farr|YES|California Democrat||||
|Sam Gejdenson|YES|Connecticut Democrat|| Buick LeSabre; Chevrolet|”$14,950″|
|Sander Levin|YES|Michigan Democrat||||
|Shelley Berkley|YES|Nevada Democrat||||
|Sherrod Brown|YES|Ohio Democrat||||
|Sherry Boehlert|YES|New York Republican/Independence|| Jeep|”$7,513″|
|Steny Hoyer|YES|Maryland Democrat||||
|Steve Horn|YES|California Republican||||
|Steven Kuykendall|YES|California Republican||||
|Steven Rothman|YES|New Jersey Democrat||||
|Tammy Baldwin|YES|Wisconsin Democrat||||
|Ted Strickland|YES|Ohio Democrat||||
|Thomas Reynolds|YES|New York Republican/Cons.||||
|Tim Holden|YES|Pennsylvania Democrat||||
|Tim Roemer|YES|Indiana Democrat||||
|Tom Allen|YES|Maine Democrat||||
|Tom Barrett|YES|Wisconsin Democrat||||
|Tom Davis|YES|Virginia Republican||||
|Tom Lantos|YES|California Democrat||||
|Tom Sawyer|YES|Ohio Democrat||||
|Tom Udall|YES|New Mexico Democrat||||
|Tony Hall|YES|Ohio Democrat||||
|Vernon Ehlers|YES|Michigan Republican||||
|Vic Snyder|YES|Arkansas Democrat|| Buick LeSabre|”$5,747″|
|Wayne Gilchrest|YES|Maryland Republican||||
|William Coyne|YES|Pennsylvania Democrat||||
|William Jefferson|YES|Louisiana Democrat|| Lincoln Town Car|”$9,524″|
|William Lacy Clay|YES|Missouri Democrat|| Mercury Montego|”$5,454″|
|Xavier Becerra|YES|California Democrat||||
|Zoe Lofgren|YES|California Democrat||||
|YES|Washington Democrat|||||
|YES|Virginia Democrat|||||
|Dennis Rehberg|Unrecorded|Montana Republican|XX| Chevrolet Tahoe|”$8,437″|
|Phil Gingrey|Unrecorded|Georgia Republican|XX| GMC Yukon|”$7,389″|
|Randy Neugebauer|Unrecorded|Texas Republican|XX| 2 Chevrolet Tahoes|”$17,263″|
|Bob Beauprez|Unrecorded|Colorado Republican|X| GMC Envoy|”$5,857″|
|Jo Bonner|Unrecorded|Alabama Republican|X| Chevrolet Tahoe|”$8,265″|
|John Carter|Unrecorded|Texas Republican|X| Chevrolet Tahoe|”$2,528″|
|Mark Kennedy|Unrecorded|Minnesota Republican|X| Ford Explorer|”$6,946″|
|Ric Keller|Unrecorded|Florida Republican|X| Mercury Mountaineer|”$6,945″|
|Rodney Alexander|Unrecorded|Louisiana Democrat|X| GMC Yukon|”$10,339″|
|Tom Feeney|Unrecorded|Florida Republican|X| Nissan Pathfinder|”$10,118″|
|Adam Putnam|Unrecorded|Florida Republican||||
|Adam Schiff|Unrecorded|California Democrat||||
|Ander Crenshaw|Unrecorded|Florida Republican||||
|Andrea Seastrand|Unrecorded|California Republican Former (1994-)||||
|Anibal Acevedo-Vila|Unrecorded|Puerto Rico -||||
|Artur Davis|Unrecorded|Alabama Democrat|| Ford 500|”$7,685″|
|Barbara Bailey Kennelly|Unrecorded|Connecticut Democrat||||
|Barbara Vucanovich|Unrecorded|Nevada Republican Former (1994-)||||
|Betty McCollum|Unrecorded|Minnesota Democrat||||
|Bill Baker|Unrecorded|California Republican Former (1994-)||||
|Bill Clinger|Unrecorded|Pennsylvania Republican Former (1994-)||||
|Bill Emerson|Unrecorded|Missouri Republican Former (1994-)||||
|Bill Hefner|Unrecorded|North Carolina Democrat||||
|Bill Janklow|Unrecorded|South Dakota Republican||||
|Bill Paxon|Unrecorded|New York Republican Former (1994-)||||
|Bill Shuster|Unrecorded|Pennsylvania Republican|| Chrysler Town and Country|”$7,490″|
|Bill Zeliff|Unrecorded|New Hampshire Republican Former (1994-)||||
|Bob Dornan|Unrecorded|California Republican Former (1994-)||||
|Bob Inglis|Unrecorded|South Carolina Republican Former (1994-)||||
|Bob Livingston|Unrecorded|Louisiana Republican Former (1994-)||||
|Brad Carson|Unrecorded|Oklahoma Democrat||||
|Brad Miller|Unrecorded|North Carolina Democrat||||
|Brian Kerns|Unrecorded|Indiana Republican||||
|Butch Otter|Unrecorded|Idaho Republican||||
|Candice Miller|Unrecorded|Michigan Republican||||
|Carlos Moorhead|Unrecorded|California Republican Former (1994-)|| Cadillac DeVille|”$9,792″|
|Chris Bell|Unrecorded|Texas Democrat||||
|Chris Chocola|Unrecorded|Indiana Republican||||
|Chris Van Hollen|Unrecorded|Maryland Democrat||||
|Dan Schaefer|Unrecorded|Colorado Republican Former (1994-)||||
|Daniel Frisa|Unrecorded|New York Republican Former (1994-)||||
|Darrell Issa|Unrecorded|California Republican||||
|David Funderburk|Unrecorded|North Carolina Republican Former (1994-)|| Pontiac|”$5,582″|
|David Scott|Unrecorded|Georgia Democrat||||
|David Skaggs|Unrecorded|Colorado Democrat||||
|Denise Majette|Unrecorded|Georgia Democrat||||
|Dennis Cardoza|Unrecorded|California Democrat|| Chevrolet Truck|”$13,499″|
|Devin Nunes|Unrecorded|California Republican||||
|Diane Watson|Unrecorded|California Democrat|| vehicle not identified|”$10,093″|
|Dick Chrysler|Unrecorded|Michigan Republican Former (1994-)||||
|Donna Christensen|Unrecorded|Virgin Islands -|| vehicle not identified|”$3,768″|
|Dutch Ruppersberger|Unrecorded|Maryland Democrat||||
|Ed Case|Unrecorded|Hawaii Democrat|
|Edward Schrock|Unrecorded|Virginia Republican|
|Eleanor Holmes Norton|Unrecorded|District of Columbia Democrat|
|Elizabeth Furse|Unrecorded|Oregon Democrat|
|Eni Faleomavaega|Unrecorded|Samoa Democrat|
|Enid Waldholtz|Unrecorded|Utah Republican Former (1994-)|
|Eric Cantor|Unrecorded|Virginia Republican|
|Esteban Torres|Unrecorded|California Democrat|
|Felix Grucci|Unrecorded|New York Republican|
|Frank Ballance|Unrecorded|North Carolina Democrat|
|Frank Cremeans|Unrecorded|Ohio Republican Former (1994-)|
|Frank Riggs|Unrecorded|California Republican Former (1994-)|
|Fred Heineman|Unrecorded|North Carolina Republican Former (1994-)|
|Gary Franks|Unrecorded|Connecticut Republican Former (1994-)|
|George Brown|Unrecorded|California Democrat|
|Gerald Solomon|Unrecorded|New York Republican Former (1994-)|
|Ginny Brown-Waite|Unrecorded|Florida Republican|
|Glenn Poshard|Unrecorded|Illinois Democrat|
|Gresham Barrett|Unrecorded|South Carolina Republican|
|Harris Fawell|Unrecorded|Illinois Republican Former (1994-)|
|Henry Brown|Unrecorded|South Carolina Republican|
|Hilda Solis|Unrecorded|California Democrat|
|Jack Fields|Unrecorded|Texas Republican Former (1994-)|
|James Langevin|Unrecorded|Rhode Island Democrat|
|James Quillen|Unrecorded|Tennessee Republican Former (1994-)|
|Jan Meyers|Unrecorded|Kansas Republican Former (1994-)|
|Jane Harman|Unrecorded|California Democrat|
|Jay Kim|Unrecorded|California Republican Former (1994-)|
|Jeb Bradley|Unrecorded|New Hampshire Republican|
|Jeb Hensarling|Unrecorded|Texas Republican|
|Jeff Flake|Unrecorded|Arizona Republican|
|Jeff Miller|Unrecorded|Florida Republican|
|Jim Cooper|Unrecorded|Tennessee Democrat||||
|Jim Gerlach|Unrecorded|Pennsylvania Republican||||
|Jim Lightfoot|Unrecorded|Iowa Republican Former (1994-)||||
|Jim Longley|Unrecorded|Maine Republican Former (1994-)||||
|Jim Marshall|Unrecorded|Georgia Democrat||||
|Jim Matheson|Unrecorded|Utah Democrat||||
|Jo Ann Davis|Unrecorded|Virginia Republican||||
|Joe McDade|Unrecorded|Pennsylvania Republican Former (1994-)||||
|Joe Wilson|Unrecorded|South Carolina Republican|| Ford Escape|”$11,071″|
|John Boozman|Unrecorded|Arkansas Republican|| Buick LaCrosse|”$7,791″|
|John Culberson|Unrecorded|Texas Republican|| Chrysler Sebring|”$6,736″|
|John Kline|Unrecorded|Minnesota Republican||||
|John Myers|Unrecorded|Indiana Republican Former (1994-)||||
|John Sullivan|Unrecorded|Oklahoma Republican|| Chevrolet|”$15,597″|
|Jon Christensen|Unrecorded|Nebraska Republican Former (1994-)||||
|Jon Fox|Unrecorded|Pennsylvania Republican Former (1994-)||||
|Jon Porter|Unrecorded|Nevada Republican||||
|Katherine Harris|Unrecorded|Florida Republican||||
|Kendrick Meek|Unrecorded|Florida Democrat|| vehicle not identified|”$9,209″|
|Lee Hamilton|Unrecorded|Indiana Democrat||||
|Lincoln Davis|Unrecorded|Tennessee Democrat||||
|Linda Sanchez|Unrecorded|California Democrat|| Chevrolet Impala|”$4,890″|
|Linda Smith|Unrecorded|Washington Republican Former (1994-)||||
|Lloyd Dodgett|Unrecorded|Texas Democrat||||
|Marilyn Musgrave|Unrecorded|Colorado Republican||||
|Mario Diaz-Balart|Unrecorded|Florida Republican|| Chrysler 300|”$10,185″|
|Mark Kirk|Unrecorded|Illinois Republican||||
|Mark Neumann|Unrecorded|Wisconsin Republican Former (1994-)||||
|Marsha Blackburn|Unrecorded|Tennessee Republican||||
|Martin Hoke|Unrecorded|Ohio Republican Former (1994-)||||
|Max Burns|Unrecorded|Georgia Republican||||
|Mel Hancock|Unrecorded|Missouri Republican Former (1994-)||||
|Melissa Hart|Unrecorded|Pennsylvania Republican|| vehicle not identified|”$9,567″|
|Michael Burgess|Unrecorded|Texas Republican||||
|Michael Michaud|Unrecorded|Maine Democrat||||
|Michael Rogers|Unrecorded|Alabama Republican||||
|Mike Ferguson|Unrecorded|New Jersey Republican||||
|Mike Flanagan|Unrecorded|Illinois Republican Former (1994-)||||
|Mike Honda|Unrecorded|California Democrat||||
|Mike Pence|Unrecorded|Indiana Republican|| Chevrolet Venture|”$4,226″|
|Mike Rogers|Unrecorded|Michigan Republican||||
|Mike Ross|Unrecorded|Arkansas Democrat|| Ford 500; Ford Crown Victoria; Ford Expedition|”$36,343″|
|Mike Turner|Unrecorded|Ohio Republican||||
|Newt Gingrich|Unrecorded|Georgia Republican Former (1994-)||||
|Pat Tiberi|Unrecorded|Ohio Republican||||
|Peter Blute|Unrecorded|Massachusetts Republican Former (1994-)||||
|Peter Torkildsen|Unrecorded|Massachusetts Republican Former (1994-)||||
|Rahm Emanuel|Unrecorded|Illinois Democrat||||
|Randy Forbes|Unrecorded|Virginia Republican||||
|Randy Tate|Unrecorded|Washington Republican Former (1994-)||||
|Raul Grijalva|Unrecorded|Arizona Democrat|| Chevrolet Impala|”$3,946″|
|Rick Larsen|Unrecorded|Washington Democrat||||
|Rick Renzi|Unrecorded|Arizona Republican|| Dodge|”$8,919″|
|Rick White|Unrecorded|Washington Republican Former (1994-)||||
|Rob Bishop|Unrecorded|Utah Republican||||
|Rob Simmons|Unrecorded|Connecticut Republican||||
|Robert Underwood|Unrecorded|Guam -||||
|Robert Walker|Unrecorded|Pennsylvania Republican Former (1994-)||||
|Samuel Graves|Unrecorded|Missouri Republican||||
|Scott Garrett|Unrecorded|New Jersey Republican||||
|Scott Klug|Unrecorded|Wisconsin Republican Former (1994-)||||
|Scotty Baesler|Unrecorded|Kentucky Democrat||||
|Shelley Moore Capito|Unrecorded|West Virginia Republican||||
|Sonny Bono|Unrecorded|California Republican Former (1994-)||||
|Stephanie Herseth|Unrecorded|South Dakota Democratic Challenger|
|Steve Gunderson|Unrecorded|Wisconsin Republican Former (1994-)|
|Steve Israel|Unrecorded|New York Democrat|
|Steve King|Unrecorded|Iowa Republican|
|Steve Lynch|Unrecorded|Massachusetts Democrat|
|Steve Pearce|Unrecorded|New Mexico Republican|
|Steve Stockman|Unrecorded|Texas Republican Former (1994-)|
|Susan Brooks|Unrecorded|California Republican Former (1994-)|
|Susan Davis|Unrecorded|California Democrat|
|Susan Molinari|Unrecorded|New York Republican Former (1994-)|
|Thad McCotter|Unrecorded|Michigan Republican|
|Tim Murphy|Unrecorded|Pennsylvania Republican|
|Tim Ryan|Unrecorded|Ohio Democrat|
|Timothy Bishop|Unrecorded|New York Democrat|
|Timothy Johnson|Unrecorded|Illinois Republican|
|Toby Roth|Unrecorded|Wisconsin Republican Former (1994-)|
|Todd Akin|Unrecorded|Missouri Republican||||
|Todd Platts|Unrecorded|Pennsylvania Republican||||
|Tom Cole|Unrecorded|Oklahoma Republican||||
|Tom Martin|Unrecorded|Pennsylvania Democrat||||
|Tom Osborne|Unrecorded|Nebraska Republican||||
|Trent Franks|Unrecorded|Arizona Republican||||
|Vic Fazio|Unrecorded|California Democrat||||
|Wes Cooley|Unrecorded|Oregon Republican Former (1994-)||||
|Donald Manzullo|Unknown|Illinois Republican|X| Mercury Mountaineer|”$5,549″|
|Bill McCollum|Unknown|Florida Republican||||
|Bobby Rush|Unknown|Illinois Democrat|| vehicle not identified|”$7,900″|
|Bruce Vento|Unknown|Minnesota Democrat/Farmer/Labor||||
|Chuck Rangel|Unknown|New York Dem./Lib./Working-Families||||
|Connie Morella|Unknown|Maryland Republican||||
|Corrine Brown|Unknown|Florida Democrat||||
|Danny Davis|Unknown|Illinois Democrat|| Mercury Grand|”$3,535″|
|David McIntosh|Unknown|Indiana Republican||||
|Denny Hastert|Unknown|Illinois Republican||||
|Earl Pomeroy|Unknown|North Dakota Democrat||||
|Ed Markey|Unknown|Massachusetts Democrat||||
|Ed Towns|Unknown|New York Democrat/Liberal||||
|Ed Whitfield|Unknown|Kentucky Republican||||
|Henry Waxman|Unknown|California Democrat||||
|James Hansen|Unknown|Utah Republican||||
|Jan Schakowsky|Unknown|Illinois Democrat||||
|Jim Talent|Unknown|Missouri Republican||||
|John Dingell|Unknown|Michigan Democrat||||
|Joseph Pitts|Unknown|Pennsylvania Republican||||
|Luis Gutierrez|Unknown|Illinois Democrat||||
|Marcy Kaptur|Unknown|Ohio Democrat||||
|Marty Martinez|Unknown|California Republican||||
|Maurice Hinchey|Unknown|New York Dem./Ind./Lib./Working-Fam.|| BMW 530i; Nissan Altima|”$9,080″|
|Merrill Cook|Unknown|Utah Republican||||
|Nancy Lee Johnson|Unknown|Connecticut Republican||||
|Rick Lazio|Unknown|New York Republican/Cons.||||
|Rod Blagojevich|Unknown|Illinois Democrat||||
|Ron Klink|Unknown|Pennsylvania Democrat||||
|Ronnie Shows|Unknown|Mississippi Democrat NOrman Sisisky||||
|Stephanie Tubbs Jones|Unknown|Ohio Democrat|| Chrysler 300|”$5,923″|
|Tom Campbell|Unknown|California Republican||||
|William Lipinski|Unknown|Illinois Democrat||||
|Gary Miller|NO|California Republican|XX| Ford Expedition|”$8,661″|
|John Peterson|NO|Pennsylvania Republican|XX| GMC Yukon|”$10,394″|
|Sam Johnson|NO|Texas Republican|XX| Chevrolet Tahoe|”$7,076″|
|Vito Fossella|NO|New York Rep./Cons./Right-To-Life|XX| Jeep Grand Cherokee|”$7,733″|
|Dave Camp|NO|Michigan Republican|X| GMC Envoy|”$7,772″|
|Jim Ryun|NO|Kansas Republican|X| Chevrolet Trailblazer|”$7,348″|
|John Doolittle|NO|California Republican|X| Toyota Highlander|”$3,221″|
|Kevin Brady|NO|Texas Republican|X| GMC Yukon|”$7,293″|
|Marion Berry|NO|Arkansas Democrat|X| Chevrolet Tahoe|”$5,280″|
|Mary Bono|NO|California Republican|X| Ford Expedition|”$8,776″|
|Mike McIntyre|NO|North Carolina Democrat|X| Chevrolet Trailblazer; Pontiac Grand Prix; Pontiac Bonneville|”$13,130″|
|Mike Simpson|NO|Idaho Republican|X| 2 GMC Envoys|”$8,421″|
|Roy Blunt|NO|Missouri Republican|X| Chevrolet Tahoe|”$10,846″|
|Anne Meagher Northup|NO|Kentucky Republican||||
|Asa Hutchinson|NO|Arkansas Republican||||
|Barbara Cubin|NO|Wyoming Republican||||
|Benjamin Gilman|NO|New York Republican||||
|Bill Archer|NO|Texas Republican||||
|Bill Barrett|NO|Nebraska Republican||||
|Bill Goodling|NO|Pennsylvania Republican||||
|Bill Jenkins|NO|Tennessee Republican||||
|Bill Thomas|NO|California Republican||||
|Bill Young|NO|Florida Republican||||
|Billy Tauzin|NO|Louisiana Republican||||
|Bob Barr|NO|Georgia Republican||||
|Bob Goodlatte|NO|Virginia Republican||||
|Bob Ney|NO|Ohio Republican|| Lincoln|”$12,989″|
|Bob Riley|NO|Alabama Republican||||
|Bob Schaffer|NO|Colorado Republican||||
|Bob Stump|NO|Arizona Republican||||
|Buck McKeon|NO|California Republican||||
|Bud Cramer|NO|Alabama Democrat||||
|Cass Ballenger|NO|North Carolina Republican||||
|Charles Canady|NO|Florida Republican||||
|Charles Stenholm|NO|Texas Democrat||||
|Charles Taylor|NO|North Carolina Republican||||
|Charlie Norwood|NO|Georgia Republican|| Cadillac DeVille|”$11,982″|
|Chip Pickering|NO|Mississippi Republican||||
|Chris Cannon|NO|Utah Republican|| Dodge Intrepid|”$3,735″|
|Chris John|NO|Louisiana Democrat||||
|Christopher Cox|NO|California Republican|| Chrysler Sebring|”$4,496″|
|Clay Shaw|NO|Florida Republican||||
|Cliff Stearns|NO|Florida Republican|| Chrysler Town and Country|”$7,763″|
|Collin Peterson|NO|Minnesota Democrat/Farmer/Labor|| Chevrolet Equinox; Dodge|”$9,403″|
|Dan Burton|NO|Indiana Republican|| Dodge|”$14,175″|
|Dan Miller|NO|Florida Republican||||
|Dana Rohrabacher|NO|California Republican||||
|David Dreier|NO|California Republican|| Chrysler 300|”$7,158″|
|David Vitter|NO|Louisiana Republican||||
|Deborah Pryce|NO|Ohio Republican||||
|Dick Armey|NO|Texas Republican||||
|Doc Hastings|NO|Washington Republican||||
|Don Sherwood|NO|Pennsylvania Republican|| Chevrolet Impala|”$6,332″|
|Don Young|NO|Alaska Republican|| Chrysler 300|”$9,413″|
|Doug Ose|NO|California Republican||||
|Duke Cunningham|NO|California Republican||||
|Duncan Hunter|NO|California Republican||||
|Earl Hilliard|NO|Alabama Democrat||||
|Ed Bryant|NO|Tennessee Republican||||
|Ed Pease|NO|Indiana Republican||||
|Ed Royce|NO|California Republican|| Ford 500|”$6,373″|
|Ernest Istook|NO|Oklahoma Republican||||
|Ernie Fletcher|NO|Kentucky Republican||||
|Floyd Spence|NO|South Carolina Republican||||
|Frank Dean Lucas|NO|Oklahoma Republican||||
|Frank Wolf|NO|Virginia Republican||||
|Fred Upton|NO|Michigan Republican||||
|Gary Condit|NO|California Democrat||||
|Gene Taylor|NO|Mississippi Democrat||||
|George Gekas|NO|Pennsylvania Republican||||
|George Nethercutt|NO|Washington Republican||||
|George Radanovich|NO|California Republican||||
|Greg Walden|NO|Oregon Republican||||
|Hal Rogers|NO|Kentucky Republican||||
|Helen Chenoweth|NO|Idaho Republican||||
|Henry Bonilla|NO|Texas Republican||||
|Henry Hyde|NO|Illinois Republican||||
|Herb Bateman|NO|Virginia Republican||||
|J.C. Watts|NO|Oklahoma Republican||||
|J.D. Hayworth|NO|Arizona Republican||||
|Jack Kingston|NO|Georgia Republican||||
|Jack Metcalf|NO|Washington Republican||||
|James Barcia|NO|Michigan Democrat||||
|James Rogan|NO|California Republican||||
|James Sensenbrenner|NO|Wisconsin Republican||||
|Jennifer Dunn|NO|Washington Republican||||
|Jerry Lewis|NO|California Republican|| vehicle not identified|”$6,831″|
|Jerry Moran|NO|Kansas Republican||||
|Jim DeMint|NO|South Carolina Republican||||
|Jim Gibbons|NO|Nevada Republican||||
|Jim Leach|NO|Iowa Republican||||
|Jim McCrery|NO|Louisiana Republican|| Ford 500|”$6,873″|
|Jim Nussle|NO|Iowa Republican||||
|Jim Traficant|NO|Ohio Democrat||||
|Jim Walsh|NO|New York Rep./Ind./Conservative||||
|Jimmy Duncan|NO|Tennessee Republican||||
|Jo Ann Emerson|NO|Missouri Republican||||
|Joe Knollenberg|NO|Michigan Republican||||
|Joe Linus Barton|NO|Texas Republican||||
|Joe Scarborough|NO|Florida Republican||||
|Joe Skeen|NO|New Mexico Republican||||
|Joel Hefley|NO|Colorado Republican||||
|John Boehner|NO|Ohio Republican||||
|John Cooksey|NO|Louisiana Republican||||
|John Hostettler|NO|Indiana Republican||||
|John Howard Coble|NO|North Carolina Republican||||
|John Kasich|NO|Ohio Republican||||
|John Linder|NO|Georgia Republican|| Lexus|”$6,609″|
|John Mica|NO|Florida Republican||||
|John Shadegg|NO|Arizona Republican||||
|John Shimkus|NO|Illinois Republican||||
|John Sununu|NO|New Hampshire Republican||||
|John Sweeney|NO|New York Republican/Conservative||||
|John Thune|NO|South Dakota Republican||||
|Johnny Isakson|NO|Georgia Republican||||
|Judy Biggert|NO|Illinois Republican||||
|Kay Granger|NO|Texas Republican||||
|Ken Calvert|NO|California Republican||||
|Kenny Hulshof|NO|Missouri Republican||||
|Lamar Smith|NO|Texas Republican||||
|Larry Combest|NO|Texas Republican||||
|Lee Terry|NO|Nebraska Republican||||
|Lincoln Diaz-Balart|NO|Florida Republican|| Chrysler|”$10,395″|
|Lindsey Graham|NO|South Carolina Republican||||
|Mac Collins|NO|Georgia Republican||||
|Mac Thornberry|NO|Texas Republican||||
|Mark Green|NO|Wisconsin Republican||||
|Mark Sanford|NO|South Carolina Republican Former (-2000)||||
|Mark Souder|NO|Indiana Republican|| Dodge van|”$5,760″|
|Matt Salmon|NO|Arizona Republican||||
|Max Sandlin|NO|Texas Democrat||||
|Michael Bilirakis|NO|Florida Republican|| Ford 500|”$5,774″|
|Michael Oxley|NO|Ohio Republican||||
|Nathan Deal|NO|Georgia Republican||||
|Nick Smith|NO|Michigan Republican||||
|Pat Danner|NO|Missouri Democrat||||
|Pat Toomey|NO|Pennsylvania Republican||||
|Paul Gillmor|NO|Ohio Republican||||
|Paul Ryan|NO|Wisconsin Republican|| Chevrolet|”$3,150″|
|Pete Sessions|NO|Texas Republican||||
|Peter Hoekstra|NO|Michigan Republican|| Ford Escape|”$7,165″|
|Phil English|NO|Pennsylvania Republican||||
|Philip Crane|NO|Illinois Republican||||
|Ralph Moody Hall|NO|Texas Democrat||||
|Richard Burr|NO|North Carolina Republican||||
|Richard Hugh Baker|NO|Louisiana Republican||||
|Richard Pombo|NO|California Republican|| Lincoln|”$7,086″|
|Rick Boucher|NO|Virginia Democrat||||
|Rick Hill|NO|Montana Republican||||
|Robert Aderholt|NO|Alabama Republican||||
|Robin Hayes|NO|North Carolina Republican||||
|Roger Wicker|NO|Mississippi Republican|| Buick Rainier|”$7,966″|
|Ron Lewis|NO|Kentucky Republican||||
|Ron Packard|NO|California Republican||||
|Ron Paul|NO|Texas Republican||||
|Roscoe Bartlett|NO|Maryland Republican||||
|Sanford Bishop|NO|Georgia Democrat||||
|Saxby Chambliss|NO|Georgia Republican||||
|Scott McInnis|NO|Colorado Republican||||
|Sonny Callahan|NO|Alabama Republican||||
|Spencer Bachus|NO|Alabama Republican||||
|Steve Buyer|NO|Indiana Republican||||
|Steve Chabot|NO|Ohio Republican||||
|Steve Largent|NO|Oklahoma Republican||||
|Steven LaTourette|NO|Ohio Republican||||
|Sue Myrick|NO|North Carolina Republican|| Honda Accord|”$2,577″|
|Terry Everett|NO|Alabama Republican||||
|Thomas Ewing|NO|Illinois Republican||||
|Tillie Fowler|NO|Florida Republican||||
|Todd Tiahrt|NO|Kansas Republican||||
|Tom Bliley|NO|Virginia Republican||||
|Tom Coburn|NO|Oklahoma Republican||||
|Tom DeLay|NO|Texas Republican||||
|Tom Latham|NO|Iowa Republican||||
|Tom Petri|NO|Wisconsin Republican||||
|Tom Tancredo|NO|Colorado Republican|| Chevrolet; other vehicle not identified||
|Van Hilleary|NO|Tennessee Republican||||
|Virgil Goode|NO|Virginia Independent||||
|Wally Herger|NO|California Republican|| Ford|”$8,400″|
|Walter Beaman Jones|NO|North Carolina Republican||||
|Wes Watkins|NO|Oklahoma Republican||||
|Zach Wamp|NO|Tennessee Republican||||

From AP:

Motorcyclist Clocked at 155 Mph Jailed
Monday, March 13, 2006 5:37 PM EST
The Associated Press

LIVINGSTON, La. (AP) — A motorcyclist has been given a couple of days to think about the record he set — at least in the minds of state troopers.

Brian Samuel Willis, 20, was clocked zooming down Interstate 12 on Sunday at 155 miles per hour — more than two times the speed limit 70, state police said.

“That may be the fastest of all-time in the state,” said Trooper Ryan Riley of Troop A. “I can’t confirm it, but I don’t think anyone has ever gotten anybody at 155. The fastest I know of is like 144.”

Back in 04, I wound up in an interesting inter-blog fight with the commenting community over at Little Green Footballs. I’d said:

I’ve met Charles, and he’s a liberal who was shocked by 9/11 into reading Arab media, and shocked by what he saw there. I really do think he’s provided a service in opening that up to wider discussion, and I think he’s damaged the service that he does by allowing his comments to be as bile-filled as they are.

551 comments ensued, some of them thoughtful, lots of them not. I’ve held a pretty consistent view that the tone of Charles’ comments damage the message he’s trying to get out, and that the place where Charles’ commenters tend to be (we’re at war with Islam now) is the end point I’m trying hard to avoid getting to.

Kevin Drum is another blogger I’ve met and am personally fond of, and someone I have a great deal of respect for. Sadly, his comments are as bad – or I really think, worse, than Charles’.

Why worse, you ask?Well, first, because we’re not talking about a random website started by a musician/web designer (who became an aspiring media mogul later on) and a bunch of people who have gravitated to him; instead, we’re talking about the web presence – in fact, the home page of the web presence – of one of the leading partisan magazines in the country. Don’t believe me? Ask them:

Who Reads The Washington Monthly?

Time says our magazine is “must reading at the White House and on Capitol Hill,” and and The Washington Post says our magazine is “setting off the Beltway buzzmeter.” Even the conservative Weekly Standard calls us “smart.” If you subscribe, you’ll join people like Tom Brokaw, Dick Cheney, Tom Daschle, Jimmy Carter, Joe Klein, Ellen Goodman, and thousands of others who want the inside stories weeks or months before they appear in the mainstream media. That’s why James Carville says, “If you only get one magazine subscription this year, buy The Washington Monthly. If you’re getting another, buy two.”

This week, guest blogger Steve Waldman riffed off of an interesting question about the antipathy liberals seem to have for the religious – actually an important question to anyone who’s serious about seeing liberal values get greater political traction – and things go just nuts. A few examples:

McAristotle:
You need a SacRete enema, dude, is what you need.
Bob
Posted by: rmck1 on March 13, 2006 at 2:53 AM | PERMALINK

Funny thing is, I could care less what Mr. Waldman writes or says. I go to church every day, I confess my sins every day. But what I really want out of life is to find some man who can take my entire arm up his ass. I want him to feel my armpit hair making his perineum raw. That is all I want from my Christian life.
Posted by: dms on March 13, 2006 at 3:29 AM | PERMALINK

Huh. A firestorm of commentary for the latest post, already 218!
Having grown up in the South, I have to say that there’s nothing elitist or really even that intellectual about a distaste for evangelism. In the South, /if you are a thinking, rational person/, you think, no, *know* yourself to be surrounded by people that believe in flat earth and relative Gravity (heavier things fall faster) and literal Biblical inerrancy. Pinheads. Many Southerners are nice people, many of them are walking talking /real/ humble Christians. BUT. A greater proportion of them live an unexamined life. The classic Southern credo is: “The Bible says it, I believe it and that settles it”. Facts and those that present them are often seen as credulous tools of Satan or some such.
But there is *nothing* that makes an aversion towards this or an hostility for it elitist or intellectual. We should exile all of these benighted souls to a walled compound where the reality of their illusions could build up so that the insanity of it would become apparent….oh right, they’ve walled themselves already…in the South and South Dakota…….isn’t it wonderful how the South is a Garden of Eden of brotherly love, racial harmony, loving family life with no child going hungry or uneducated, no women is abused?
Yeah, I’m hostile to evangelism. I’ve seen it, I grew up with it, and it’s not Christian, it’s not moral and it’s stump dumb and proud of it.
Posted by: Stewart Dean on March 13, 2006 at 9:46 AM | PERMALINK

Another liberal-baiting, self-congratulating, troll’s rant on the front page. Fucking precious.
Posted by: Doc on March 13, 2006 at 11:13 AM | PERMALINK

And it goes on (I dipped into the discussion, and I don’t think they like me very much there)

Look, there are a certain number of fruitbats whose political allegiances probably pretty much follow an inverted Gaussian curve (lots on the ends, few in the middle). The newsworthy points raised here are two:

First, it explains why it is that as unhappy with Bush as the voting populace may be, the Democrats can’t put 06 into the bank. Because when average voters see this kind of thing – as they saw it when the Deaniacs invaded Iowa – they go “Holy Crap!” and vote for someone else.

Second, and this is a bigger concern for me – that the Democratic position is self-limiting, because it repels everyone who’s not a True Believer. As one of the commenters noted:

16pct of the Kerry vote is nearly 8pct of the electoral vote. Try winning without it. We’re tired of God-baiting, people like steve waldman here are a clear and present danger to our republic. they use the language of our enemies to try and obtain power withing our party. They try to split the religious among us from the non-religious. They try Exploit both halves against each-other so that they can rules us both. People like this are not interested in helping us, they are interested in power and dividing us to obtain that power. Be wary, there is no magic bullet. Democrats aren’t hostile to faith, we’re hostile to people who think they own the light and the truth in this world. Waldman is one of those, if we do not bow and give them their way on everything they threaten to make us second class citizens. Following people like this will leave this country shattered and broken.
Posted by: SoulLight on March 13, 2006 at 9:01 AM |
PERMALINK

This isn’t exactly an inviting stance to someone who doesn’t already agree.

Unfortunately, the LGF community mindset – in which the presumption is that we’re at war, and the only question is how fast the rest of the country will realize it – is more contagious, and to an extent more dangerous.

It’s contagious because every time the Islamists do something evil, some small percent of the people in the West go “fuck it” and start calculating blast patterns over Mecca.

That means that unless my peers on the left can get their act together – which is, given where we’re starting from, a damn tall order – at some point the folks standing on Charles’ side of the room are going to be a big enough constituency to start driving the political decisionmaking. You think the world doesn’t like us much now? Wait ‘till later…

The funniest thing happened to me; I went out to breakfast Friday to pitch some new business, and wound up having breakfast with a guy who used to work for John Paul Vann.

Vann is one of the legendary counterinsurgency guys – along with Lansdale. My breakfast companion had served under him as one of the Civic Action team members – where small groups of four or five Americans would bunk in a village, and lead locals in improving the illage and defending it. He told a story of a resupply helicopter showing up; Vann got off with “a toothbrush and a carbine” and spent the night.

It was an amusing anecdote, and then Joe posted his piece on counterinsurgency via black ops; it got me thinking, and I started to Google Vann a bit to see what he’d said on the subject.

I came across a fascinating article. There’s apparently an organization of former advisors called ‘Counterparts’; they publish a journal called ‘Sitrep’ The following is from an article from that journal, posted here on the web:

COUNTERINSURGENCY: The John Paul Vann Model

By Rich Webster

In November of 1968 I can remember the legendary John Paul Vann speaking to our graduation class of newly trained advisors at Di An, South Vietnam. You cant win a guerrilla war by dropping bombs from the air, he said. You may kill some of the enemy, but you will alienate the people you are there trying to help, and they will turn against you.

John Paul Vann was our Lawrence of Arabia in Vietnam. He spent 10 years there, first as an American infantry officer, then later as the main architect of the Vietnamization/Pacification program.

Other words of his I remember were, You need to go after the guerrilla with a rifle at the village level and kill them face to face. And to do that effectively, you need local Soldiers from the area to assist you. If the locals are properly led and equipped, they will do the job.

What Vann was saying seems to me to be applicable to Iraq today. You need the support of the local population and indigenous troops to combat the guerrillas/terrorists/thugs on their own turf. Large conventional American military infantry units aren’t necessarily best suited for this task.

Most think that it was just the Special Forces who were conducting counterinsurgency operations in Vietnam. Very few have heard about the Co Van Mis (Vietnamese for American Advisors) and the mobile advisory teams (MATs). After 1968, fewer than 5000 assisted, advised, and to use a recently coined term, were embedded with a 500,000 Regional Force/Popular Force Army that took the war to the enemy at the local level for a period of over five years.

There were 354 mobile advisory teams made up of five U.S. Army personnel (two officers and three NCOs). The MATs were really a scaled-down Special Forces team with one of the NCOs being a medic and there was a Vietnamese interpreter for communication purposes. As a young lieutenant, I served with a number of Popular Force platoons and Regional Force companies while a member of Advisor Terms 49 and 86.

…

Sheehan then skips five years of the war effort where the Regional Forces/Popular Forces held their own against the NVA/VC and defeated them in most of the smaller unnamed battles of the war at the village level. Then he picks up again with the 1972 Easter Offensive where Vann was killed, not by enemy contact, but by a helicopter crash during the monsoon rains. Barely 30 pages of Sheehans book are devoted to Vanns success with Vietnamization. There was hardly mention of the Regional Forces/Popular Forces [RF/PF] the home militias, the little guys in tennis shoes, who inflicted over one-third of the casualties against the enemy.

I spent almost nine months with these little guys as a lieutenant taking the fight to the VC at the hamlet and village level. Not all the RF/PFs were great soldiers, but many of them were if properly led, just as Vann had told us at the advisor school.

Nicknamed the Ruff-Puffs, they were not configured to stand up against a large force of NVA regulars, but they could provide security for the locals in a hamlet or village. The Soldiers either had their families living with them, or in the nearby village. Who better to know when the enemy was coming into a village than those who lived there?

There were many times when I knew when the Vietcong were coming into the village at night to recruit or create havoc. And then instead of being ambushed, I and my little band of Popular Force Soldiers became the ambusher. We beat the guerrillas at their own game. We took the night away from them. We no longer patrolled endlessly and aimlessly looking for a needle in a haystack, waiting for the enemy to initiate contact.

We waited for them in the darkness of the night, and kicked hell out of them. In today’s military vernacular, we preempted them. Thats how you fight the guerrilla and the terrorist and beat him at his own game.

I cringe now watching news clips on TV as young American Soldiers in Iraq are ambushed by snipers and blown up with the new version of the command controlled booby trap, the IED (improvised explosive device). But how would the young American Soldiers be able to distinguish the al-Qaida terrorist from a local Iraqi civilization? The simple answer is, they cant.

And how do they find the IED? The answer is they cant unless an informer warns beforehand as to the location.

I believe the answer to this problem is found in the type of force that Vann created in Vietnam, coordinated by CORDS (Civil Operations for Revolutionary Development Support). So different was this approach to conventional warfare tactics that Vann insisted it be operated under civilian control on equal footing with the military hierarchy. Vann really wanted the U.S. military advisors to be in command of the Ruff-Puffs instead of being advisors, but Robert Komer, the first director of CORDS, resisted this idea.

Vanns approach to counterinsurgency was the blending of all civilian agencies in Vietnam under CORDS with a loan of 1800 U.S. military personnel to serve as advisors to local Soldiers to provide security for all aspects of the U.S. effort in Vietnam. These were the front line guys who made up the mobile advisory teams, who moved from one RF/PF unit to another accompanying them on day and night time operations.

It seems to me we are always waiting for the enemy to ambush us in Iraq. The first strike is always thrown by the terrorist, and then we react by sometimes killing Iraqi civilians as the sniper fades away into the crowd. This unfortunate response is, in itself, a tactic of the terrorist/insurgent/enemy combatant.

Dont we need to pre-empt the terrorist as he is preparing the IED to blow up an unsuspecting U.S. Soldier and dont we need to know that a terrorist cell from outside Iraq has begun operating in a neighborhood? To do so, we need intelligence from the local civilians and Soldiers from the area who understand the language, customs, and dynamics of the local situation, who can easily point out strangers in the area even though they speak the same language, but look different.

The best of the MAT teams helped perform all of the above missions because they lived with their Vietnamese counterparts 24 hours a day, ate their food, got to know their families and developed friendships that last even today, 28 years after the war. The Co Vans did not retreat back to a secure base camp far removed from the people they were trying to help and defend.

…

I believe that what Vann said in the 1960s in Vietnam is relevant today in Iraq as it relates to counterinsurgency. All the high tech gadgetry and firepower that our military has today, leaves us relatively helpless when it comes to fighting the insurgent who blends in with the civilian population. An innocent civilian killed translates into a win for the terrorist. To avoid this, it takes the Soldier on the ground with a rifle taking the fight to the terrorist, in an area that he previously thought was a safe sanctuary. And to do that, you need local Soldiers familiar with the terrain, the language and the customs of the area. John Paul Vann understood that.

The Vietnam Was has been misremembered, misunderstood, and misreported in regard to John Paul Vanns effort with Vietnamization and the fighting ability of the South Vietnamese Soldier. Sheehan has done them a great disservice in hi book, A Bright And Shining Lie, from which a movie of like title was made.

Few know that the Viet Cong lost the war, and that they were no longer a viable force after 1968. The Viet Cong could not have won the war and bested the South Vietnamese Army in battle. The advisory effort in Vietnam wasnt perfect, but the South Vietnamese forces held their own in the 1972 Easter Offensive by the North.

The South Vietnamese Army (ARVN) was finally defeated in 1975 when they were invaded by the fifth largest army in the world. They were invaded by 17 divisions of the North Vietnamese Army to include over 700 tanks that steamrolled everyone in front of them. The North Vietnamese were still being supplied with war materiel by their allies, the Soviets and Chinese, while the allies of the South Vietnamese, the United States, abandoned them in their hour of need.

The ARVN were also disadvantaged and vulnerable because they had to defend everywhere, and the NVA could concentrate superior forces at weak points in the South.

The myth perpetuated by the anti-war media was that the South Vietnamese military was no good. I returned to the province capital of Xuan Loc, Vietnam, in 2002 and visited the large communist cemetery there filled with 5000 graves. This is where the last battle of the Vietnam War was fought, where the 18th ARVN Division defeated three NVA divisions before finally being overrun by 40,000 of the enemy.

Would Vanns model of counterinsurgency work in Iraq today? Thats a good question, but what is the alternative? Our Soldiers now are getting tired, and our forces are being stretched too thin to continue the mission indefinitely.

The architect of the 1975 invasion of South Vietnam, North Vietnamese Tein Van Dung, in an indirect manner, gave Vann a complement for his conduct of the pacification program. In his book, Great Spring Victory, he never once mentions revolutionary warfare or the guerrilla tactics of the Viet Cong as aiding him in his final assault on the South. Thats because Vann’s program of Vietnamization had basically wrested control of the south from the guerrillas who we no longer a viable fighting force.

Thats rather ironic, isnt it? The myth exists today that peasants wearing rubber tire sandals employing guerrilla tactics won the war in Vietnam.

Our officials in Iraq are saying it will take three to five years to build an Iraqi Army. With Vanns model, we could have taken the best of the 500,000 former Iraqi military, and put them under the control of U.S. military advisors. Instead of having young American soldiers patrolling the streets of Baghdad and the smaller cities around the country, surely we could have used Iraqi soldiers advised by several thousand American military personnel. Instead, we sent them home to do what?

Unlike Vietnam, there is no outside Army that is going to invade Iraq in division-size strength and overwhelm our military units there. Our powerful and well-trained military units, with the aid of the British, have already won the big battles of the war. Now we need small units of local Soldiers taking the war to the enemy at the village level. I see no other way to preempt the terrorist before he has the time to act.

Go over and read Victor Davis Hanson on Iraq at NRO. he details the growing consensus among the punditry that the war is lost, and then goes on:

There are many reasons why such pessimism, and indeed depression, is unwarranted — although I concede that very few Americans and still fewer pundits would agree with my own explanations.

He points out things which I fully agree with – we are closer to our European former-allies; closer to emerging world power India; closer to Japan. Elections worldwide (with the notable exception of Spain) have moved governments closer to – not further from – the US.

Our military is better, more capable – albeit more strained – than it was three years ago.

Our enemy has placed his cards on the table, and people around the world are looking at reality, and beginning to make decisions based on that reality – decisions that will be in our interest in the intermediate and long run.

Kaplan, in the Atlantic article I blogged below, says:

The patrol wasn’t over. After dark, we went house to house in another neighborhood from which mortars had been fired at a new Iraqi police station. In the fifth house, someone finally cooperated and supplied information about the make of the car, the men inside it, and where they had set up the mortar. The next step would be to deploy snipers there for several days running, hoping to eliminate the culprits when they returned. If that happened, the people in the other four houses might start cooperating. “I hate to say it,” said Turner, “but sometimes the best confidence-building measure is to kill certain people.” Another thing you could do was to pay people significantly for tips that turned out to be accurate. None of this was new, or noble. But these young soldiers were learning by trial and error that such tactics worked, assuming you had a lot of patience. It was like the old clichés about watching the grass grow, or the paint dry. “The media says there’s no strategy to win this war,” Turner observed. “There is; we’re doing it. But it’s slow, and it doesn’t make headlines like Abu Ghraib.“

[emphasis added]

One thing that I see is that opponents to the war often seem to vacillate between images in which our opponents are inexhaustible, overwhelming in number, and implacable – and those in which our heavy-booted power unjustly tramples the weak and powerless.

We are powerful; but our enemies have power as well. We have to defeat their power, and we can do it – in an instant of unthinkable brutality, or slowly, over time with patience and judicious application of force.

Hansen concludes:

So here we are — close to victory abroad, closer to concession at home.

And I agree. I am befuddled by those who – like Andrew Sullivan – once supported the war and now try and distance themselves from the reality of it.

Has the war been conducted with perfect – or even acceptable – competence? Hardly. But what war has? For that matter, what effort of any consequence has been – what is the project that our critics would measure the war against?

So what’s my response, what’s my role? To play some small part in pushing back against consensus, and to push for things that I think matter – like aid to rebuild Iraq, and an Army with enough troops to maintain the effort in Iraq and credibly deal with the rest of the threats we face.

Now that AT&T is taking over the world again, maybe we can get them to stop ripping off the soldiers in Iraq. From the (cleverly named!) Fractals of Change blog (h/t Jeff Jarvis):

It’s bad enough that they overcharge domestic customers but we have alternatives. The soldiers don’t because, according to The Prepaid Press, AT&T has an EXCLUSIVE contract to put payphones in PBXes in Iraq and Afghanistan. But, you ask, can’t the soldiers get cheap calling cards to call the US? No! Because AT&T is using (abusing!) its position as monopoly supplier of payphones to block the 800 numbers necessary to use nonAT&T calling cards.

This blocking is illegal in the US but, AT&T told our friend Gene Retske, editor of The Prepaid Press, the rules are different in Iraq. Right.

The soldiers could probably call cheaper if they used Iraqi pay phones. But, assuming there are any working payphones on the streets of Iraq, it’s still not a good idea for American soldiers to be standing on the corners talking on them. That’s why there are phones in PBXes. Too bad the soldiers have to pay $.21/minute to call home on them.

The wholesale rate for calls to the US is less than one cent a minute. Skype charges about 1.5 cents RETAIL to call the US from anywhere in the world. You can buy prepaid cards almost anywhere in the world to call the US for less than two cents a minute. AT&T charges soldiers in Iraq twenty-one cents.

You can fill out a form to contact AT&T here. Give them your area code – or mine, 310, and under “Topic” select ‘Products and Services’ and ask them if this is true, and if so let them know what you think of this.

In my post below criticizing the “netroots” (see also Jason Zengerle at The Plank here and here, as well as Kevin Drum’s response) I made the point that one thing that the Democratic Party ought to do to win was

1) Figure out a strategy for dealing with Islamism that doesn’t involve a) super-ninja warriors who will, undetected, identify and mysteriously kill bad guys without disturbing anyone else or b) NUKE THE BIYATCHES;

Whereupon commenters Chris and Davebo went ballistic.

Davebo:

Let’s review the “solutions”.

Figure out a strategy for dealing with Islamism that doesn’t involve a) super-ninja warriors who will, undetected, identify and mysteriously kill bad guys without disturbing anyone else or b) NUKE THE BIYATCHES;

Yep, I believe it was Hillary who suggested method A and Howard Dean who went with the NUKE THE BIYATCES (YeeHa!)
Oh wait, never mind. Those are the two proposals that the Armed Agnostic believes have been suggested.
Well, at least he’s got his finger on the pulse of the DNC right?

Today, the core principles of the (mainstream) D foreign policy are: build better defenses; back out of Iraq as quickly as we can with any grace; possibly say mean things to the Saudis while buying their oil and taking their political and foundation cash (note that the GOP is even better at doing that).

Nope, scratch that.

Um, as politely as possible, bullshit.

Here’s the core issue; there are relatively serious terrorists throughout the world many of whom are in places who wouldn’t look kindly on US troops or proxies invading their territory and killing people.

And the standard line from many serious thinkers close to the beating heart of the Democratic Party is that “we’ll go find the terrorists wherever they are and go kill them!” (the variant being that sometimes we’ll do it in concert with our allies).

You don’t agree? Let’s go to the record.

Here’s the best quote, from TNR’s endorsement of Kerry in 2004:

It is conceivable that, in the coming years, the United States might need to launch military action against another Muslim regime (though, given how greatly Bush has overextended the military, it is hard to see how we would do so). But the war on terrorism is far more likely to require military action within states, to secure lawless areas that terrorists have exploited.

The Bush administration’s misguided tendency to see Al Qaeda as the instrument of rogue governments made it more willing to use force against Iraq but less willing to use force in Afghanistan after the Taliban fell. Kerry, by contrast, seems inclined to use American power where it could genuinely damage Al Qaeda. Even during the Democratic primaries, he attacked the Bush administration for not sending U.S. troops into Tora Bora to destroy Al Qaeda and Taliban remnants in the waning days of the Afghan war. He has proposed doubling U.S. Special Forces for operations just like that. And he has proposed strengthening America’s capacity to act–including even militarily–to prevent nuclear proliferation, an issue on which the Bush administration has proved astonishingly passive.

Kerry’s apparent willingness to act within states is particularly important because the U.N.’s obsession with sovereignty renders it impotent in such circumstances.
[emphasis added]

Right then. We’ll go do military-type things within sovereign states and call that a policy designed not to piss off the rest of the world (much less get them to potentially declare war on us, since those actions themselves, whether done by Special Forces operators or Predators would be an act of war). And the UN’s “obsession” with soverignty won’t stand in the way. Riiiight, that’s going to play out well in the intrenational arena.

I’ll skip over the question of whether they really mean it or not (I have a hard time believing liberals would support a covert war of assasination), and grant them that they mean what they say. This is a step-away-from-the-crack-pipe set of policy solutions.

Let me repeat; we’re talking about taking unilateral (or semi-unilateral, with a “Band of brothers” type alliance) military action that results in killing or capturing people on foreign soil, using the people and resources of our military. And we’re not going to do this as the exception, but as the root policy? Are they kidding?

TNR was far from misinformed is taking this stand; here’s Kerry and Edwards in their own words.

John Kerry, Seattle May 27 2004:

“As commander in chief, I will bring the full force of our nation’s power to bear on finding and crushing [terrorist] networks,” the Democratic presidential candidate said in a speech here. “We will use every resource of our power to destroy.”

At JohnKerry.com:

Launch and Lead A New Era Of Alliances.

The threat of terrorism demands alliances on a global scale – to utilize every available resource to get the terrorists before they can strike us. Kerry-Edwards will lead a coalition of the able – because no force on earth is more able than the United States and its Allies.

On CNN:

SEN. JOHN EDWARDS (D-NC), VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I’ll add one thing to that, because John and I have talked about this specifically. If he has reliable information that he’s confident of, that a terrorist cell is about to strike the United States and they are somewhere else, he will go get them, before they get us. And we need to be absolutely clear.

Here’s Howard Dean, in a speech to The Pacific Council on International Policy, Los Angeles, California on December 15, 2003

We and our partners must commit ourselves to using every relevant capability, relationship, and organization to identify terrorist cells, seize terrorist funds, apprehend terrorist suspects, destroy terrorist camps, and prevent terrorist attacks. We must do even more to share intelligence, strengthen law enforcement cooperation, bolster efforts to squeeze terror financing, and enhance our capacity for joint military operations all so we can stop the terrorists before they strike at the US.

Here’s The Prospect again:

The Liberal Uses of Power
Clarity in dealing with terrorism, yes; and also in living up to our highest ideals.
By Paul Starr, Michael Tomasky and Robert Kuttner
Issue Date: 03.05.05

When facing a substantial, immediate, and provable threat, the United States has both the right and the obligation to strike preemptively and, if need be, unilaterally against terrorists or states that support them.

…

That alternative can embrace, in our view, both a commitment to building an international structure of cooperation and a recognition that, where terrorism is concerned, preemptive, unilateral, and decisive force may be legitimate.

The right of preemption, however, is not the same as a blanket entitlement to preventive war to overthrow hostile regimes that pose no immediate threat, particularly where other countermeasures, international in scope, may be sufficient to achieve the purpose.

So we can go kill people in foreign lands, but we can’t actually – you know the way it’s historically been done since Westphalia – go to war with the state supporting or housing them.

Somehow I’m reminded of The Merchant of venice.

I’m not going to go down the “was Iraq supporting or housing terrorists” line here; it’s a separate debate well worth having. I’m talking prospectively what our policy tomorrow will be and what the leading Democrats in the country are saying it should be (I’ll discount Lieberman and Gephardt because, after all, the netroots will have defeated them soon and they won’t be a factor – joking!)

I’ve talked about why I think entirely covert wars are a horrible idea in the past, and criticized those who think that they are the solution as well.

Hit Squads And “Pacifists

Another Problem With The “Law Enforcement” Model of Fighting Terrorism

So let me suggest that one powerful step that Democratic thinkers could take is to wake up and deal with the issues that face us in ways that make sense; after all those of us who trust the American voters believe they will know it when they see it.

If you’re a subscriber to The Atlantic (and you ought to be) go check out Robert Kaplan’s latest “The Coming Normalcy” – an account of his recent trip to Iraq [PDF version free at Michael Yon’s].

I’ve updated and extended this post, and here are three quotes to get you started:

But by the time 1-25 left Mosul, a year later, mortar attacks alone had fallen from 300 a month to fewer than ten. Other forms of insurgent activity dropped to the point where international journalists no longer considered Mosul an important part of the ongoing Iraq story—a fact evidenced by their thin presence in the city. Meanwhile, the local police force was now back up to 9,000, and the number of police stations had expanded from five to twenty-four. More important, the number of intelligence tips called in by the local population had risen from essentially zero to some 400 per month.

The kind of chaos that 1-25 had alleviated in Mosul has been an abiding interest of mine. Twelve years ago in this magazine, I published an article, “The Coming Anarchy,” about the institutional collapse of Third World countries owing to ethnic and sectarian rivalries, demographic and environmental stresses, and the growing interrelationship between war and crime. Was it possible that Iraq, of all places, might offer some new ideas about how situations of widespread anarchy can be combated? It certainly was the case that, despite a continuing plague of suicide bombings, significant sections of the country were slowly recovering from large-scale violence, as well as from the effects of decades of brutal dictatorship. The very U.S. military that had helped to bring about the anarchy in Iraq was now worth studying as a way to end it, both here and elsewhere in the Third World.

You’ll note that – in opposition to the bleak view of his earlier piece (which was itself largely informed by the battle of Mogadishu) – Kaplan sees a path to success.He’s not completely happy, however.

It was surreal. The stability of Iraq will likely determine history’s judgment on President George W. Bush. And yet even in a newly secured area like this one, the administration has provided little money for the one factor essential to that stability: jobs. On a landscape flattened by anarchy in 2004, the American military has constructed a house of cards. Fortifying this fragile structure with wood and cement now will require more aid—in massive amounts, and of a type that even America’s increasingly civil affairs–oriented military cannot provide. This house of cards, flimsy as it is, constitutes a substantial achievement. But because Washington’s deeds do not match its rhetoric, even this fragile achievement might go for naught.

and, finally

A final impression of Iraq: one day I had gone with a group of American soldiers to the sprawling ruins of Hatra, a city that was founded after the fall of Nineveh, at the end of the seventh century B.C., and reached its peak in the second and third centuries A.D. Hatra lay in the desert southwest of Mosul, empty of other visitors, without even a guardrail or derelict ticket stand, as though awaiting rediscovery by some Victorian-era explorers. Indeed, the only sign of the twentieth century were the initials of Saddam Hussein, carved into bricks throughout the complex and looking like the marks of just one more tyrant from antiquity.

Hatra had flourished as a Silk Road nexus of trade and ideas; its mix of Assyrian, Hellenistic, Parthian, and Roman styles set the stage for early Islamic architecture. The ruins encouraged me to think that Iraq’s best available future was as a similar east-west crossroads, in a Middle East of weak, decentralized states—states that would replace the tyrannical perversions of the modern nation-state that now exist, and are crumbling. In decades ahead, cities like Mosul and Aleppo would be oriented, as they were in the past, as much toward each other and toward cities in Turkey and Iran as toward their respective capitals of Baghdad and Damascus. Borders would obviously matter less, as old caravan routes flourished in different form. Something comparable has already begun in the Balkans, a far more developed part of the Ottoman Empire than Mesopotamia. In Mesopotamia, this transition would be longer, costlier, and messier. We are in for a very long haul. Except for the collapse of Turkey’s empire, the creation of the state of Israel, and the Iranian revolution, nothing and nobody in a century has so jolted the Middle East as has George W. Bush.

Normalcy can be taken in a number of ways; Iraq will move away from chaos and become normal because of our efforts; or else what we are doing in Iraq will become normal as we struggle against chaos elsewhere in the world. An interesting question to think about…but the simple fact of it is that what we are about will take time and persistence. The Iraqis think so, in Kaplan’s piece:

The offer of safety was backed up with the muscle of the dominant Jabouri tribe, which had decided to go with the Americans against the insurgents—but only after the American military had, month after month, demonstrated its resolve.

And the American troops say so as well:

“The media says there’s no strategy to win this war,” Turner observed. “There is; we’re doing it. But it’s slow, and it doesn’t make headlines like Abu Ghraib.”

Let’s go to the key point; the troops on the ground are doing what they are supposed to, and fairly well. The Administration is failing them because it can’t get reconstruction aid out – even in modest amounts – fast enough and over a wide enough territory to tip the political balance. WTF, President Bush? There is no excuse for this except complacency or cowardice; either they don’t really care what happens in Iraq or the Administration is so craven politically that it cannot stand up and demand what is needed to win.

Wretchard, at the Belmont Club comments on the article and says that we face a Manichean struggle between order and civilization and chaos:

Saddamite Iraq, like most terrorist-supporting states threatening the world today, are like the landscape of 1812 in that they were cauldrons of anarchy given a semblance of shape by fragile, yet brutal shroud-like states. Occasionally some force of exceptional virulence would escape or be set loose to ravage the outside world: destroy a temple in India, athletes in Munich or a subway in Paris. Through the 80s and 90s the rest of the world toted up its losses at each outbreak, mended its fences and hoped it would never happen again. But after September 11 the problem grew too big to ignore, yet the question of how to destroy anarchy, already by definition in a shambles, remained.

Anarchy is self-defending, as the failed United Nations relief mission to Somalia in 1990 discovered to its cost. It will appropriate relief supplies, money and aid workers themselves as gang property, the economic basis of its system. Anarchy absorbs violence just as it absorbs relief and even gains strength from it when weapons, designed to disrupt ordered societies, are unleashed on it. Countries like Pakistan, Syria, Iraq and Iran are defended less by frontier fortifications than by the sheer toxicity of their societies. Not for nothing did Saddam release tens of thousands of hardened criminals from jail immediately before the invasion of Iraq. They were his wolves upon the frozen steppes.

I think he’s partly right, but largely wrong.

The part that’s right is where the ungovernable chaos is either manipulated by greater powers (the Palestinians) or fueled by a rentier economy. Would Hugo Chavez matter if he didn’t have oil money to keep his economy awash and fund his adventures? Would Osama Bin Laden?

It’s the connection points between the anarchy and order that need to be managed, and those are few enough and identifiable enough that we can, in fact, manage them. We’re doing it in Iraq; we’re buying the time with our soldier’s sweat and blood to make change.

The question is – will we use the time? Or waste it?

One issue I’ve blogged about pretty extensively is my concern about the ‘suicidal lemming’ wing of the Democratic Party and what it’s going to do for the forces of true progressivism in this country.

It’s the wing that positive, just positive, that masses of voters will come out and support them if only they are firm enough in their positions – positions near and dear to the hearts of coastal elites, but pretty distance from those living paycheck to paycheck in exurbia and flyover country.

Molly Ivens cuts loose:

As usual, the Democrats have forty good issues on their side and want to run on thirty-nine of them. Here are three they should stick to:

1) Iraq is making terrorism worse; it’s a breeding ground. We need to extricate ourselves as soon as possible. We are not helping the Iraqis by staying.

2) Full public financing of campaigns so as to drive the moneylenders from the halls of Washington.

3) Single-payer health insurance.

Every Democrat I talk to is appalled at the sheer gutlessness and spinelessness of the Democratic performance. The party is still cringing at the thought of being called, ooh-ooh, “unpatriotic” by a bunch of rightwingers.

Molly needs to get out more. She’s talking to all the people Pauline Kael was talking to back in 1968. Now each of those issues has a constituency. And it’s not a small one. But it’s not enough to win national elections, or even to win Congressional ones outside of the deep-blue pockets.

Today we have evidence of that, as the netroots dumped cash, electrons and credibility onto House candidate Ciro Rodriguez in Texas-28; he got beat by Henry Cuellar, who famously hugged Bush at the SOTU.

This brings the netroots record to 0-and something.

At what point do the leaders of the netroots look at the evidence, and consider modifying their course?

Here are the people I’d really, really like to avoid bombing:

A group of about 130 women’s rights activists who gathered in Deneshjoo Park in central Tehran to celebrate International Women’s Day were brutally beaten by the police. As soon as the program started with distributing some brochures and chanting Iran’s women’s movement song, the police informed the attendants that their gathering is illegal and they should leave the premises. Then the police started beating men and women present in Daneshjoo Park and the program was ended. Simin Behbahani, the Iranian elderly famous poet was among the people who have been beaten.

Go see more photos at Arash Ashoorinia’s site. (h/t – Global Voices)