GOP's Chambliss Compares Iraq Troop Rotations To WW II

It's no secret that Republican Saxby Chambliss of Georgia is not considered one of the deepest thinkers in the United States Senate. He doesn't do a hell of a lot legislatively and, after all, he only got there by the swift-boating of highly-decorated Vietnam Veteran Max Cleland, whose Senate seat Chambliss took in 2002 by running television ads depicting Cleland with Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.

And since coming to the Senate, his tenure has been most notable to the extent that, even in a Congress characterized by Republicans who serve solely as rubber stamps for George W. Bush, he's among the most compliant even by that lot's sorry standards.

So it's no surprise that Chambliss went to the Senate floor this week to argue against Virginia Democrat Jim Webb's bill to mandate more time at home for Iraq combat troops before Bush could sent them right back into battle. What is amazing is the sheer stupidity of what he said.

"It is an unwise and harmful effort to limit the ability of the President and his military leaders and handicap their use of personnel and resources available to them," said Chambliss, in arguing for sending troops back to Iraq with insufficient rest and medical care.

Now, that's just spin and not the really dumb thing -- though one could wonder how anyone could at this point rant about how we should let a proven incompetent like Bush manage a game of Monopoly, much less the U.S. military after the mess he's made of things.

But have a look at what Chambliss said about how troops in World War II were deployed for much longer and how he tried to use that as a stick with which to beat Webb for being "out of step with history" in his efforts to keep military men and women home longer with their families:

"Senator Webb's amendment would preclude deployment of certain active and reserve forces based on the number of days they have spent at home. Keep in mind these restrictions would apply to the Nation's most experienced and capable troops during a time of war when we face an unpredictable and highly adaptive enemy.

"Keep in mind that during World War II and other wars of this country, service members participating in those wars deployed for 3 and 4 years with little or no break. With this in mind the current proposal by Senator Webb seems out of step with history and what it has taken to win the wars of this country. I can think of no way in which the Webb amendment will help our Nation succeed in Iraq."

Leave it to a Republican desperate to bail out Bush, to compare World War II and the gravity of that global conflict with Bush's war of choice about absolutely nothing.

And here's the real kicker: Chambliss cynically uses the work ethic of America's troops as a bizarre frame of reference for how Democrats really aren't supporting the troops by taking them out of the Iraqi civil war so they can spend more time with their families.

"Public approval ratings for the President and for Congress may be at all time lows, but the admiration of the American people for our military only gets higher. Why? Well, one reason is they take their responsibilities seriously and they train, prepare, and plan to win," he said. "And we should let them win -- not legislate a recipe for failure which the amendment clearly does."

I'm sure that the average soldier would have a real hard time with that "recipe for failure" when he or she is getting to sleep late with a spouse on Sunday morning or attend their child's Little League game this summer instead of being stuck in the middle of a firefight in Fallujah.

And I know you're wondering, given that both Webb and his bill's cosponsor, Republican Chuck Hagel, are Vietnam combat Veterans, about the military record of a blood-and-guts guy like good old Saxby.

You guessed it -- he didn’t do time in the military. He got a student deferment so he could attend law school and was subsequently given a medical deferment because of a bad knee.

But now, that's really no surprise, is it?

You can read more from Bob at BobGeiger.com.

He was put in office by agri-business and medical corporation money.

And if my own Oregon didn't keep sending the likes of Gordon "Pondkiller" Smith to the Senate, I'd say Georgians should be ashamed to have such a man represent them. Webb's far too decent a man to do it, but even my pacifist sensibilities are so offended by Chambliss, I'd consider looking the other way if Webb popped him one right in the snoot.

I will never forgive that piece of crap for what he did to Max Cleland. It used to be that just about the only reason I wasn't ashamed to live in Georgia was Ray Charles, but he's dead. Wait...there's still Jimmy Carter. Yea!

I know no one has seriously raised this issue before, but could Chambliss have really won that election? I mean, is it possible that in the State of Georgia there are more people who are so stupid, pigheaded, ignorant, foolish, and excremental that they would vote for this horse's colon than there are people who would vote for Max Cleland? Is this pathetic coward popular with any group in the State?

(Also, has he ever apologized to Senator Cleland for the smear campaign he and his gutless lying supporters ran against him?)(That was a rhetorical question.)

at least in the part of the state I live in it doesn't matter how unpopular Dumbya is, how unpopular the war is. A rethug could get caught offering a blowie to an undercover cop and he'd probably still win in a landslide. And what's weird is that the state gov't had been entirely democrat for something like 130 years prior to Governor Fudd, who campaigned largely on a promise to give the rednecks their klan flag back. In six years we went from staunchly dem to bushbot central. I'm not a church-basher but I think a lot of it is religious...the thugs have been unimaginably successful in promoting the idea that only conservatives are moral, that liberal = evil, etc. And the people eat it up like NASCAR.

They don't show their lower body on C-span, but you would see him wearing his pads for an app't in the WH.

What an embarrassment to the people of GA electing him over Max Cleland. You couldn't get me to move to that state on a bet.

you're absolutely right. There are a lot of good people down here, but still.... What gets me down even more than dealing with ass-backwards clods is the people who try to excuse the clods by saying that they're "old fashioned." Well...I'm fed up with people who can't acknowledge the fact that it's no longer 1927.

They're still figthing the Civil War

I've had fellow DUers who were natives take me to task for indulging in stereotypes that "weren't true," but it's been my experience that many of them are true, or at least have strong basis in reality. There is a lot of truth to the positive stereotypes of Southern hospitality, but there are also a lot of very real redneck stereotypes. I come from an area of Pennsylvania notorious as a Klan breeding ground, so I know bigotry is not confined to the south. But down here they have a mythology to wrap their bigotry around -- "Lost Cause Religion." Going back to Ponce de Leon there is...what?...over 400 years of history of Europeans in southeastern North America, but when these clods speak about their "heritage" they mean only 1861-1865. They can yammer on about states rights as much as they want, but the fact is that great-grandpappy went to war so that his countrymen could continue to use human beings as farm equipment. It's amazing how so many people have no understanding why the confederate flag and other rebel crap could be offensive to others.

He was in almost EVERY photo-op from the very first month he got to the Senate! I've never figured out HOW a freshman Senator always appeared in all the shots of Shrub signing a new law, or babbeling about some stupid success he received via his rubber-stamp Congress.

This AH is MY Senator, and I've never gotten a straight answer from him since he was elected. I'm hoping he gets defeated in 08. Lots of Georgians were pi**ed at him for his position on the immigration bill!

in response to online petitions and whatnot, because I know they're simply going to reiterate his position that Dumbya is the vicar of Christ and we must all acquiesce. Fuck him.