Senator Kerry published the following OpEd piece in the Boston Herald on July 23, 2007. The bill that he is referencing in this article is up for a consideration on the Senate floor this week.

Children’s health must be nation’s priority

By John Kerry

For a parent, nothing is more important than the health of our children, and nothing more frightening than the fear that when a child gets sick, a visit to the doctor is out of reach.

This week, Washington has a great opportunity to insure millions more children among the 9 million who currently lack health insurance.

Instead, when it comes to insuring all of America’s children, a cautious Congress and a stubborn Republican president are offering the voters a disappointing choice: do far too little, or do nothing at all.

I intend to fight for a better option and will ask my colleagues in the Senate to vote on a measure adding $50 billion over to the next five years to the S-CHIP program — a wildly-successful children’s health care program that today insures 6.6 million kids.

The current modest bipartisan proposal would spend $35 billion over five years — far too little.

We have been modest where we should have been bold. If we, as senators, don’t stand for insuring every child in America, then what do we stand for? If America can spend $10 billion each month in Iraq, surely we can also spend $10 billion each year on children’s health.

Even more troubling, the president has launched a disinformation campaign to denounce this bill as a larger Democratic strategy or plot to massively expand federalized medicine. He has stubbornly pledged to veto a bill he hasn’t even read. Apparently, confronted with a bipartisan compromise to extend health care coverage to half of the 9 million American children without insurance today, the president sees only a vast, left-wing conspiracy.

The S-CHIP program is not some Democratic plot to socialize medicine. It’s a successful bipartisan initiative passed by a Republican Congress under President Clinton. It covers children from families whose income is just above Medicaid eligibility but far too low to afford private insurance coverage.

And it’s not government-run, either: the vast majority of S-CHIP enrollees receive their coverage through private insurance plans.

Today, Republican governors like Mitch Daniels in Indiana — Bush’s former budget chief — have done more to implement and expand it than even some of their Democratic counterparts. These governors understand that, with the cost of private insurance for that same family approaching $12,000 per year, the president is wrong to say that S-CHIP would be pushing families like these from private to government health care. For most eligible families, the real choice is this: S-CHIP or no health care at all.

Who benefits from S-CHIP? People like 9-year-old Alexsiana Lewis of Springfield, who was losing her vision due to a rare eye disease. Alexsiana’s mother edra lost her health insurance benefits when she cut back her hours to care for her daughter.

“If I didn’t have S-CHIP-funded MassHealth right now, my daughter would be blind,” Dedra said.

This boils down to a question of priorities. Washington politicians like to talk about values, but here’s a simple test of who actually values families:

How much is it worth to you to insure every child in America?

America stands behind our children and Democrats in Congress should not bend to pressure from the White House, Republicans, or special interests.

Today the president calls a $35 billion investment in children’s health care a massive expansion of federalized medicine. I call it a good start. Now let’s get to work on a bipartisan down payment on universal health care for all of our children.

The Boston Globe, on July 12th of this year, also published an editorial questioning the priorities of the Bush Administration in regards to the S-CHIP funding. The Globe’s editorial strongly backed increasing the funding bill currently under consideration in the Senate. The editorial said:

It is hard to believe that anyone would oppose giving health care to sick children on the grounds that it is a slippery slope to “federalized medicine.” Yet that is just what President Bush is saying about expanding S-Chip, the 10-year-old Children’s Health Insurance Program that is up for reauthorization.

S-Chip was enacted in 1997 to provide health insurance for children who were poor, but not poor enough to be covered by Medicaid. The program gets federal and state funding (the S stands for state). And according to the Congressional Budget Office, S-Chip has succeeded: the proportion of children without insurance has fallen by one-fourth, from 22.5 percent in 1996 to 16.9 percent in 2005.

In his 2008 budget, President Bush proposed an increase of $5 billion over five years. But this is not enough. Just to maintain its current enrollment, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that S-Chip would need an increase from 2007 to 2012 of $14 billion.

Letting S-Chip tread water is a mistake. It would deny coverage to an estimated 2 million children who are eligible but not enrolled. And it ignores a larger problem: Of the nation’s 79 million children, 9 million are uninsured, according to the Children’s Defense Fund. That’s why Democrats had sought a $50 billion budget increase — a number that’s being negotiated by the Senate Finance Committee.

As Senator Kerry wrote in his OpEd, this is a matter or priorities for our country. The United States is currently spending $10 billion dollars a month on a war of choice in Iraq. This country should be able to make the commitment to funding children’s health care and making sure that millions of the most vulnerable Americans have access to health care services.

This is a matter of priorities, and the current dispute over the S-CHIP bill shows what President Bush’s priorities are — and the priorities of this administration, once again, are not with the citizens of this nation and are not in line with the values that most Americans hold.

I’m here today because I don’t think this is a time for us to just join a debating society or echo chamber where we talk exclusively to each other; Republicans are denying the Senate a chance to find a new course in Iraq, so what are we going to do about it?

I think we need to run radio ads in the states of the most vulnerable of the Roadblock Republicans who stand in the way, making it clear to everyone that those Senators don’t deserve to be reelected because of their continued support for the Bush Doctrine of escalation without end.

And I want you to make the ad.

You may have heard about this effort; I emailed it out to the JohnKerry.com community email list last week. But I wanted to make sure all of you heard about it here on the JohnKerry.com blog as well.

Simply put, it’s been the voice of activists that have gotten us this far in the Iraq debate, not the soundbites and cookie-cutter ads of Madison Avenue media firms. So I want to empower you to speak in this radio campaign. User generated content changed Presidential debates; I know it can help change the next election around this most critical issue.

And that’s the reason we’re running this contest. We want you to submit scripts for a 30-second radio ad we can air in the states of the Senators we’ve targeted in our Roadblock Republicans campaign. We’ll whittle it down a bit for simplicity’s sake to the top twenty, we’ll record them with an announcer, then put them up for a vote from everyone. And then we air the winner. Then we’ll fundraise to run it, and you can choose with your contribution where we will air the spot. No political professionals producing the spot or choosing where to run it. It’s all done by you.

And you can do whatever you want with the ad. You can use a story from your life and put it in your own voice (maybe you know someone in Iraq or maybe you are a veteran of the conflict yourself), or you can make a factual case on why voters should consider someone else because of this issue. And what you do can be the ad that airs against the Roadblock Republicans.

Go here to submit an ad.

And let others know about this as well. If you know someone with a way with words and a desire to make a difference, tell them about this. You can give them the link to this post, or you can send them to this page, which explains the contest a bit.

Good luck!

and thanks for all your help,

John Kerry

(Also cross-posted at Daily Kos.)

Some parts of a Senator’s job are just naturally more glamorous than others. Extended floor debates on defense spending for Iraq get lots of airtime and grab lots of headlines. High-profile Foreign Relations and Judiciary Committee hearings draw plenty of fans, watching and waiting to see who’ll end up getting grilled on camera next. But the real business of government gets done on smaller stages and in less flashy ways, too — especially when that business is, well, small.

Senator Kerry’s position as chairman of the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurshipmight not seem like the most glamorous job a politician can have. But it gives him the chance to make real differences in real peoples’ lives. And while SBA legislation might not make the front page of the New York Times very often, small businesses are the cornerstone of our nation’s economy. What affects entrepreneurs and small companies has a big effect on all of us. So here’s a rundown of what JK’s been doing in that part of the political arena lately:

— On July 18, JK chaired a hearing on the problems facing small businesses dealing with federal contracts. The hearing focused on barriers to success for small business, such as a maze of complicated regulations, contract bundling, size standards with loopholes that favor big businesses, a lack of protections for sub-contractors, and a General Services Administration schedule that’s difficult to navigate.

“The federal contracting deck is pretty heavily stacked against small businesses,” JK said at the time. “The Bush Administration keeps telling us they’re making progress, but we’re not seeing the results. And that means small firms are having a more difficult time staying competitive and doing business with the government. We can do better, and today’s hearing is a first step towards developing comprehensive contracting legislation that I will introduce later this year.”

You can read the full text of his opening statements for that hearing on the SBC website here.

— On July 23, JK helped prod the Small Business Association into extending immediate disaster relief assistance to the victims of a massive fire at a newly-redeveloped historic mill factory complex in Uxbridge, Massachusetts that affected some 135 small businesses and homeowners.

JK visited the site while the ashes were still warm and met with firefighters and emergency personnel. “The destruction caused by this fire is absolutely devastating, and because of the heroic work of firefighters from dozens of local communities, we can thank God that no one was seriously physically injured,” he said at the time. “Massachusetts has rebuilt after disasters in the past, and we will do so again. But we must not let red tape and delay stand in the way of getting assistance into the hands of businesses that need to rebuild immediately.

Later, he released this followup announcement: “I spoke to SBA Administrator Preston today and urged his immediate attention to aiding the Uxbridge Bernat Mill small businesses. I applaud Mr. Preston and the agency for moving quickly so that every resource is made available to the businesses seeking to rebuild their livelihoods and their community. I will continue to work with the SBA, state officials, and my colleagues to get these Uxbridge entrepreneurs back in business.”

— On July 24, JK signed on as a co-sponsor of a bill to overhaul the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, known as the WARN Act. The 19-year-old law requires many businesses to provide a 60-day notice before a mass layoff or plant closing, but the law is so full of loopholes and flaws that employers skirt it with little or no penalty.

Sen. Sherrod Brown introduced the bill last week – dubbed the FOREWARN Act – that would lengthen the notification period before a plant closing or mass layoff, increase penalties for violators, require more companies to provide notice before layoffs, and allow the Department of Labor and state attorneys general to represent workers in lawsuits.

JK said the bill will “soften the blow that layoffs can cause in our communities. ... Our workers deserve to know in advance if they’re going to lose their jobs. It’s critical that they have time and money to prepare for what lay ahead. When Democrats regained the majority last November, we promised to do everything we could to better protect American workers, and the FOREWARN Act will do just that.”

— On July 25, JK chaired a hearing to examine the SBA’s Disaster Loan program one month before the two-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. The committee heard from former SBA loan officer Gale Martin and SBA Inspector General Eric Thorson about charges that staff improperly cancelled already approved loans, forced loan withdrawals, or disbursed loans without the homeowner’s or business owner’s consent.

“I’m gravely concerned both by the allegations made by Ms. Martin and her colleagues and by Mr. Thorson’s findings,” said JK at the time. “We need to ensure that no victim falls through the cracks, that no one who was relying on the government for a loan to rebuild a business or a home was left wondering why the government let them down. That includes victims of Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma still to this day, victims of fire and floods in my own state of Massachusetts, and victims of future disasters. I believe that Administrator Preston has made big strides to right the sinking ship of the SBA’s disaster program, but we can always do better, and we must take action to put the tools in place that will prevent another Katrina-like response to a disaster.”

You can read the full text of his opening statements for that hearing on the SBC website here.

— On July 26, JK attached an amendment to the Homeland Security Appropriations Bill that will hold the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) accountable to federal contracting laws. TSA was originally exempted from the Federal Acquisition Regulations in the aftermath of the September 11th terrorist attacks, but has been plagued by mismanagement and huge cost overruns without the appropriate oversight.

As JK asked at the time, “Why should an agency fraught with wasteful spending and contract mismanagement continue to receive a free ride while every other major federal agency must abide by the law? The taxpayers deserve better. Our small businesses deserve better. This change to bring transparency and accountability to the TSA is long overdue.”

Part of the business of government is governing the businesses that our country is built on, and it’s good to know that a man with Senator Kerry’s credentials and integrity is always on the case — whether the job is glamorous enough to make front page news or not.

Senator Kerry delivered an especially powerful speech on the floor of the Senate on July 26. It was a strong defense of the Democrats’ legislative record in Congress and a damning indictment of the GOP’s entrenched politics of obstructionism. In that speech, the Senator put the Roadblock Republicans on notice as to what they can expect from Democrats in both houses of Congress in the weeks and months to come.

A full text transcript of the speech is posted on this website here, video footage of the speech is posted on JK’s Senate website here, and following are some key excerpts from the speech as well:

Last November was one of those truly rare moments in the short history of our country and our democracy. Any political science student taking a freshman lecture, of course, will hear how incredibly hard it is to remove entrenched congressional majorities. They know the statistics about how hard it is to defeat incumbents around here. It doesn’t happen that often.

But sometimes, the American people rise up in one moment, as they did last November, and they make history. Just six times in our 230-year history has one party lost both Houses of Congress, and 2006 was the first time the Republican Party failed to win a single House, Senate, or gubernatorial office previously held by the Democrats.

We Democrats have been in that predicament. In 1994, Democrats woke up to a landslide defeat some people thought would never come. It wasn’t always easy, it wasn’t always collegial, but we listened and we learned. Together, we reached across the aisle to balance the budget and reform welfare. We wrestled with why we had lost, and we wrestled with what we had to do in order to come together — not just as a party but as a country.

Evidently, some people still haven’t wrestled with what happened last November 7.

[ ... ]

The President said he got the message, but the question has to be asked: What have Republicans done since then? Where are they, six months after their worst electoral defeat in 50 years? What happened to the President’s post-election statements when measured against the President’s actions and those of the Republican minority in the Senate? Those actions tell a very different story.

Before the dust had settled, before defeated Republicans had even cleaned out their offices, this President and his remaining allies in Congress has made a calculation, on issue after issue, that they would just set out to stop everything from happening and then they would turn around and they would ask: Why is nothing happening under the Democrats?

This is a pure political calculation. It is wrong for the country, and I respectfully would suggest, ultimately, it will be wrong for the party. They would rather spend their time attacking Harry Reid than attacking the Nation’s problems.

‘Delay’ is no longer just a former Republican leader; it has become a Republican way of life.

We have been busy debating progress in Iraq around here and measuring benchmarks. I can’t help but think as we talk about measuring benchmarks that pretty soon the Iraqi Government is going to wonder whether the Republican caucus is going to meet any of its benchmarks or any of the country’s benchmarks.

[ ... ]

Regrettably, there is, on almost every one of these issues, today as I stand here a gap between how many of those policies that are aimed to help everyday Americans, which enjoy the majority support of the Senate, and how many have actually been signed into law. Why? One simple reason: The President and his allies in Congress have decided to use every means at their disposal just to slow it down and block it, to stand for a policy of obstruction and obstruction and obstruction, not accomplishment for the American people.

They have vetoed and filibustered and killed bills in conference. They have wasted days and days with procedural motions and delays that have nothing more to do in their purpose than to waste time and squander the trust and patience of the American people and, ultimately, to hope to be able to blame it on the Democrats.

[ ... ]

The Republicans are now setting records for filibusters and obstruction. The Senate record for filibusters is being set already, and it is only halfway through this term. To paraphrase Winston Churchill: Never, in the field of Senate legislation, was so much progress blocked for so many by so few.

Actually, they have made history, I suppose, because thanks to the Senate Republicans, L.A. is no longer the center of gridlock in America — it is right here. On issue after issue, the Republicans have chosen to filibuster — and to do so just 2 short years after they declared the filibuster, as their then-leader, Bill Frist, said in late 2004, “nothing less than the tyranny of the minority.’‘

After expressing outrage at the mere hint of a Democratic filibuster last session, the Republicans have suddenly become the principled champions of so-called minority rights in the Senate, but minority rights apply to legitimate filibusters for legitimate issues, not a policy of obstruction to stop everything that comes along.

After threatening the so-called “nuclear option’’ when Democrats stood up to defend the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, they have introduced a filibuster to stop everyday business in the Senate. Almost everything the majority leader tries to do here now requires us having a cloture vote in order to prevent a filibuster.

In fact, the rubber-stamp Republicans of the previous seven years have now become the Roadblock Republicans. The party of Abraham Lincoln has become the party of red tape — vetoes, filibusters — any means necessary to deny the will of the majority of the Senate and the vast majority of the American people.

[ ... ]

Instead of the Senate’s highest shared principles of consensus and bipartisan accomplishment, the Republicans have chosen the lowest common denominator — a zero sum game in which they are willing to gamble the American people’s loss for Republican gain. The Republican strategy seems to be to slash the tires of the Senate and then wonder why we are still stuck on the side of the road and blame somebody else for that problem.

Let me be clear what I am criticizing here. I support the right of the minority to filibuster. In fact, I have done so myself. Every Senator in this body has that right. I support that right. But when filibustering, not for the principle of the issue at hand but for the generic, broad strategy of stopping what happens here so you can blame the party in charge for not being able to finish the work, that is unacceptable. The rights of the minority in the Senate ought to be protected, but they also ought to be used responsibly too.

Mr. President, obstruction for obstruction’s sake is not in the best traditions of this great institution. It is the worst kind of cynical political calculation. I think all of us on our side would join in voting to protect the right of the minority to be able to filibuster. We all understand that what goes around comes around, and the time may come when we again may be in the minority.

We Democrats don’t want to use the nuclear option. We are not even talking about it. We want to pass bills. We want to pass bills that are supported by a majority of people in the Senate, including Republicans, and certainly supported by the majority of Americans.

I say to my Republican colleagues that there is a better way to do business. We can work together and actually do something positive for the American people. All of us know this is a uniquely challenging moment for this country. We face new threats and hurdles no generation has faced before.

We ought to be working together to solve those problems. The only chance this Senate has to make a real contribution to history is to make a bipartisan contribution. That is the only way the Senate meets its own expectations.

[ ... ]

We all know the limits of a politics of division, of partisan sectarianism. A politics of division can rush our country into war, but it cannot sustain our trust or the war itself. A politics of division has no answer for 12 million undocumented workers in our houses, fields, and factories. It has no answer for 45 million Americans with no health insurance, no answer for icecaps that are melting or a failed policy in Iraq.

The politics of division is bad for America — from the Parkinson’s patient to the undocumented immigrant to the soldier in Iraq. Nobody is benefiting from Republican obstructionism.

It is also bad for the Senate. This Senate has been known as the greatest deliberative body in the world. But there is nothing deliberative about partisan sabotage. There is nothing deliberative about blind obstructionism.

The ongoing debate we have here is about much more than Senate procedure. At its core is a debate, really, about where we are headed in our relationship with each other, Republicans and Democrats. All of us go home and hear from our constituents about how they have lost faith in Washington. All of us want to do right by the people who elected us and try to make life better for the American people.

Any Senator who has been here for a period of time has watched the decline of the quality of the exchange on both sides of the aisle in this institution. I have seen colleagues stand up against it. I remember when Senator Gordon Smith, in the middle a painful debate on Iraq, said:

“My soul cries out for something more dignified.”

I think a lot of Senators on both sides of the aisle are concerned for the Senate. Voters want a debate over ideas, not a war of words; a choice of direction, not a clash of cloture votes. The stalemate we have now is not what the Senate is renowned for. This is called, as I said, the greatest deliberative body in the world, a place where people on both sides can find common ground and get good things done for other people.

Ultimately, we are accountable to the American people — accountable for false promises, accountable for failure to address issues we promised to address, whether it is energy independence or military families who lose their benefits. We are accountable.

Mr. President, a filibuster to stop all progress, then claim Democrats aren’t doing anything, is a failed strategy. It is a failure because it doesn’t put the American people first. I believe the American people will hold a party of obstruction accountable.

Well, maybe that’s a bit of an oversimplification. This isn’t 1987, Washington isn’t Berlin, and Senator Kerry never acted in a movie where he co-starred with a chimpanzee. But there’s no doubt he feels as strongly about standing up against the excesses of the White House and its Republican supporters as any Cold War president ever did about those of the now-defunct Soviet Union.

The American people are getting throughly fed up with the current Administration’s disregard for the core Constitutional principles of honesty, accountability, and adherence to the rule of law. There’s no need to go into the long laundry list of egregious offenses on the part of those in the executive branch here; if somebody still doesn’t know that those who would be kings are trying to ride rough-shod over the fundamental system of governmental checks and balances that this democratic republic of ours was founded on, then they just haven’t been paying attention.

Pick up any newspaper, turn on any TV, read any blog, and you can tell that the American people have finally starting taking the words of playwright Paddy Chayefsky to heart. In his prescient script for 1976’s seminal film “Network, ” Chayefsky had his key character, ‘UBS Evening News’ anchor Howard Beale, encourage enraged Americans who had had enough of an arrogant, imperial administration to each send a telegram to the White House proclaiming that “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this any more!”

The American people are in the same mood now as they were in the mid-1970’s— only more so, and with many more crucial reasons on which to base their righteous anger this time. Faced with an administration that publicly states that it considers itself above the rule of law and that it can abrogate the Constitution any time it chooses, citizens everywhere are telling Congress in no uncertain terms that they are mad as hell and they’re not going to take this any more.

But far too many of their elected representatives, especially those on the Republican side of the aisle, are still pretending that they can’t hear the voices of the people who elected them to office. Far too many of those Republicans are still digging in their heels and throwing up roadblocks against those same core Constitutional principles of honesty, accountability, and adherence to the rule of law.

And, along with most other Americans, Senator Kerry has had more than enough of this systematic obstruction of truth and justice by those who are rapidly becoming known as Roadblock Republicans. He’s had more than enough of their politics of division, of their partisan sectarianism, of their ethical inconsistencies, of their undignified attempts to derail democracy so they can pander to the lowest common denominators of personal power instead.

The Senator left no doubt about how he feels about this deliberate obstructionism on the part of the Republican supporters of the increasingly-discredited Bush administration when he delivered a scathing speech on the floor of the Senate earlier this afternoon. It was a real barnburner of a speech, a frank indictment of the Roadblock Republicans and their failed political policies, a speech that made it unequivocally clear that JK is firmly on the side of that great majority of Americans who are mad as hell and are not going to take this any more.

I won’t try to excerpt the speech itself in this blog post — it’s much too intense, and much too carefully constructed to make its case against obstructionism in government, to snip and tuck into short textbites here on the blog. But the full copy of Senator Kerry’s speech as prepared for delivery is included in a statement that is posted on the jk.com website in the Press Release section here, in a message unflinchingly titled “Kerry Challenges Bush, Republican Allies to Stop Obstructionism.” It’s also posted in as-delivered video format here as well.

I strongly encourage you to go watch and listen to JK’s speech against the Roadblock Republicans from this afternoon for yourselves instead of just reading about it online. Yes, it really is that good. But I also encourage you to join his campaign to block them from power and to repeal their ability to keep obstructing truth, justice, and the Constitutional rule of law in Congress. You can find plenty of information about that on the top page of this website, including specific information on how you can help target specific Republican obstructionists who are due for re-election in 2008.

But there’s something more you can do to derail the Roadblock Republicans, too. Starting tomorrow, you can do more than just figuratively make your voices heard — you can make them literally heard as well, as part of a new push to make the obstructionists listen to the American public and tear down their roadblocks once and for all. You can use your own voice amplified by the power of the new media to make them hear you — not just once, but a million times over and then some.

So here’s the text of an email that’s going out to all 3 million of Senator Kerry’s online subscribers, complete with a live link that you can follow so that can start making your own voices heard by millions right away:

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the Republicans are feeling the pressure for change on Iraq. But I’m not a patient person. Especially when the lives of our troops are at stake. I refuse to wait around for the Republicans to move without giving them a little more pushing.

Quite simply, we want to take an unusual step — and we want to do it early. I think we need to run radio ads in the states of the Roadblock Republicans, making it crystal clear that they don’t deserve to be reelected because of their continued support for the Bush Doctrine of escalation without end. We need to turn up the heat even higher.

It’s the pressure of activists and the voice of the people that have gotten us this far in the Iraq debate, not the cookie-cutter ads and thirty second soundbites of Madison Avenue media firms.

So we decided, why don’t we let you speak in this radio campaign? If user generated content can change presidential debates, I know it can help change the next election on the most pivotal of issues.

That’s why we’re running a contest. We want you to send in a script for a 30 second radio spot (that’s about 65 words long), we’ll whittle it down some to the top 20, and then we’ll open up the voting to everyone. The winner that’s chosen by the people will be what we air in the states. And we’ll fundraise for the airing of that spot, with each of you able to choose with your contribution where you think we should run the ad. No political professionals making the spot, or choosing where to run it. It’s all done by you.

You can make the spot sad, or satirical, or hard-hitting. Whatever you want to do. You can make it a personal story from your life (maybe you know someone in Iraq or have a family member there or maybe you are one of the many veterans in this community), or you can make a factual case on why voters should consider someone else because of this issue, or anything else you’d like. You get it — it’s up to you. And what you do can be the ad that goes on the air targeting the Roadblock Republicans.

So click here to submit your script.

You have until midnight ET on Saturday August 11th to get your script in, so get thinking and start writing. And forward this email to everyone you think might be interested in submitting a radio spot to this contest. If you know someone who has a way with words and wants to make a difference, send this along. We’d love to get their scripts.

Thank you, and let’s make sure we get a change in course in Iraq very soon.

Good luck,

John Kerry

[UPDATE: The as-delivered text transcripts of JK’s July 26 floor speech on the Roadblock Repulicans’ policy of obstructionism is available on this website here.]

This afternoon Senator Kerry is chairing a set of timely and important Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings titled “Pakistan’s Future: Building Democracy, Or Fueling Extremism?”

The hearings are being broken up into two panels, with separate witnesses for each. Panel 1 consists of R. Nicholas Burns, the State Department’s Under Secretary for Political Affairs. Panel 2 consists of Teresita C. Schaffer, South Asia Program Director for the Center for Strategic and International Studies; Dr. Samina Ahmed, South Asia Project Director for the Islamabad-based nternational Crisis Group; and Dr. Stephen P. Cohen, Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy Studies for the Brookings Institution.

We’ll have a follow-up entry here on the JK blog with highlights from these hearings with their question-and-answer sessions once the transcripts are available. In the meanwhile, here are Senator Kerry’s introductory statements as prepared for each of the two panels:

Panel 1: Nicholas Burns

Ambassador Burns, thank you coming before the Committee today. As we all know, Ambassador Burns has had a long and distinguished career as a Foreign Service Officer, serving as U.S. Permanent Representative to NATO, Ambassador to Greece, and State Department spokesman, as well as on the National Security Council staff. He is currently the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, making him the third ranking official at the State Department, with oversight responsibility for U.S. policy throughout the world.

He is also from Massachusetts, a graduate of Boston College, and a life-long Red Sox fan—so we know he understands how to persevere through great adversity.

Ambassador Burns, this is clearly a pivotal moment in Pakistan. Our intelligence agencies have just issued a dire warning about the threat posed by Al Qaeda in the tribal areas, the Taliban is using Pakistani territory as a base for attacks in Afghanistan, there has been major increase in extremist violence following the attack on the Red Mosque, and the political turmoil surrounding the ouster and reinstatement of Chief Justice Chaudhry has put President Musharraf in a precarious position with new elections scheduled for the fall. We very much look forward to hearing your views on these issues and the Administration’s strategy for Pakistan going forward.

We all recognize that Pakistan is a key ally in the region, and our relationship is one of the most important – and complex – relationships we have anywhere in the world. We need to make clear to Pakistan – both the government and the people – that we are committed to sustaining and building on this relationship over the long term in a manner that serves both of our countries’ interests.

We also appreciate the significant contributions and sacrifices the Pakistanis have made in the fight against Al Qaeda. At the same time, it is clear that our current strategy in Pakistan has not been working as well as it can – and must—when it comes to our core objectives of fighting terrorism and promoting democracy. We understand that it is a delicate balance between moving Pakistan in a more positive direction and not causing a major rupture in the relationship. I hope we will come away from today’s hearing with a better understanding of the Administration’s plans, and how we can all work to build an effective long term strategy.

Clearly, the most pressing and direct national security concern we face in Pakistan is the resurgence of Al Qaeda in the tribal regions bordering Afghanistan. We were all deeply troubled by the recent National Intelligence Estimate entitled “The Terrorist Threat to the U.S. Homeland” which made clear that while we have been distracted and bogged down in Iraq, Al Qaeda has grown stronger than at any time since 9/11.

The NIE brought home in the starkest possible terms that Al Qaeda has “regenerated key elements of its homeland attack capability, including: a safe haven in the Pakistan Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), operational lieutenants, and its top leadership.” Osama Bin Laden and top Al Qaeda leaders are likely still hiding out somewhere in the region, and none of us here need to be reminded of the nightmare scenario of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal falling into the wrong hands.

We also know that the Taliban is using the tribal areas as a base for launching attacks against coalition forces in Afghanistan, and our generals tell us that Taliban leaders have maintained a headquarters in Quetta. It is clear that we cannot succeed in the vital mission of stabilizing Afghanistan if the enemies of the coalition and the Karzai government enjoy a safe haven right across the border.

General Eikenberry, the former commanding general in Afghanistan, summed it up simply: “Al Qaeda and Taliban leadership presence inside Pakistan…must be satisfactorily addressed if we are to prevail in Afghanistan and if we are to defeat the global threat posed by international terrorism.” In other words, the central front in the fight against terrorism is right where it has always been: along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. We simply cannot allow history to repeat itself, and many of us are concerned that we do not have an effective strategy to counter this threat.

Our intelligence community has linked the resurgence of Al Qaeda and the Taliban in this area directly to an agreement that President Musharraf struck with tribal leaders in Waziristan. I traveled to Pakistan around that time, and even then many of us had real concerns about the deal. The Administration has now finally acknowledged that it has not worked for Pakistan, and it has not worked for the United States. After the attack on the Red Mosque, even Taliban declared the deal was dead—and we have seen increased presence of Pakistani troops in the area since then.

Yet still, we hear that President Musharraf is actually trying to revive that agreement. Going back to a failed strategy is not the answer. The Administration has also made it clear that they have not ruled out U.S. military options in the area. We must be prepared to use force if necessary to protect our interests, but sending U.S. ground troops into Pakistani territory raises many difficult issues for us and for Pakistan.

We also have a five year, $750 million dollar plan for winning over the local population in this area, but real concerns have been raised about whether that money can actually be put to good use. We will be very interested to hear your views on the Administration’s strategy for dealing with this very real threat in both the short and long term.

We must also consider the role of U.S. aid in advancing our interests. Since 9/11, we have given Pakistan roughly $10 billion dollars in aid—and likely billions more in covert assistance. Roughly 75% of this aid has gone to reimbursement of counter-terrorism expenses and other security assistance. We clearly have a right to expect more in return for the massive amount of aid we are providing for the fight against terrorism.

At the same time, less than 10% of our aid goes to development and humanitarian assistance, and we must give strong consideration to whether targeting more aid to projects that help the Pakistani people directly would be more effective. One area we should pay particular attention to is funding for education, which the 9/11 Commission emphasized was key to promoting moderation – this is especially important given that more than half of Pakistan’s population is under 15 years of age.

We have also reached a critical period for the future of democracy in Pakistan. It is clear that reinforcing our strong commitment to democracy, human rights, and respect for the rule of law is in the best interests of Pakistan and the United States.

President Musharraf’s term is set to expire this fall, and under Pakistani law the National and Provincial Assemblies must conduct new presidential elections by October, with new legislative elections to follow. The Pakistani Supreme Court may have to rule on whether President Musharraf can stay on in his role as chief of the military, and whether he can legally be re-elected by a lame duck Parliament. Now that Chief Justice Chaudhry has been reinstated to the Court, there appears to be a strong possibility that it will rule against President Musharraf on these questions.

We need to be prepared for this eventuality, and the possibility that President Musharraf may leave or be forced out of office. In fact, although he may be hedging on this now, President Musharraf has said in the past that he will relinquish his military role, and Khurshid Kasuri, the Foreign Minister of Pakistan, said during his recent visit that President Musharraf was still planning to do so. We must make it clear that we expect President Musharraf to live up to his promise.

It is also critically important that the upcoming elections are free and fair, and we should work to ensure they are conducted transparently and legitimately. This will send a very important message of support to the people of Pakistan, who are increasingly insistent on restoring true democratic rule, and will help to undermine extremists. We must also continue to raise our strong concerns over unexplained disappearance of some 400 people, the arrest of hundreds of political activists from opposition parties, and the recent crackdown on the media.

Finally, we must also consider Pakistan’s relationship with India, especially when it comes to Kashmir, the security of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, and the current status of our efforts to ensure that the proliferation disaster we experienced with the A.Q. Khan network is never repeated.

Thank you again for being here today.

Panel 2: T. Schaffer / S.Ahmed / S. Cohen

I’d like to welcome our distinguished panelists, Ambassador Schaffer, Dr. Ahmed, and Dr. Cohen, to the Committee today. Thank you all for taking the time to testify, we really appreciate having the benefit of your insights.

Ambassador Schaffer has had long and distinguished career, first as a Foreign Service Officer serving in Islamabad, New Delhi, and Dhaka, then as ambassador to Sri Lanka and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia. She currently serves as Director of South Asia studies at CSIS.

Dr. Ahmed is South Asia Project Director for the International Crisis Group. She brings a unique and invaluable perspective from her extensive experience on the ground in Pakistan, where she was worked at the Institute of Regional Studies in Islamabad and Karachi. I had the opportunity to hear from Dr. Ahmed yesterday and look forward to continuing our discussion today.

Dr. Steven Cohen comes to us today from the Brookings Institution, where he is a Senior Fellow for Foreign Policy. Before that he served on the Department of State’s Policy Planning Staff. He is widely recognized as a leading expert on Pakistan, and in addition to teaching for many years at the University of Illinois, Georgetown and elsewhere, he is the author of numerous books on Pakistan, India and nonproliferation issues.

We are fortunate to have such a knowledgeable and distinguished panel of experts here with us today. We look forward to hearing your views on the current situation in Pakistan and where we go from here. Welcome.

Earlier today, Senator Kerry held a joint press conference with Senator Jack Reed to discuss the Levin-Reed-Kerry amendment and respond to President Bush’s rhetoric regarding Iraq.

Senator Kerry: I’m pleased to be joined by Senator Reed in responding on behalf of the leadership with respect to the President’s comments in South Carolina this morning. The President is trying to scare the American people into believing that Al Qaeda is the rationale for continuing the war in Iraq. And today he said nothing new about Al Qaeda itself — and basically nothing that we would differ with, with respect to the purposes and goals of Al Qaeda .

We all understand that Al Qaeda is a danger. And we all understand what its goals are. But 9/11 was not plotted in Iraq. 9/11 did not happen from an Al Qaeda in Iraq. It happened from Osama bin Laden and an Al Qaeda in Afghanistan — an Al Qaeda that is now larger and reconstituted and dangerous, if not more so, than it was then.

The President is picking the wrong rationale for this war. And he’s also setting up a phony argument about what it is that we have to continue to do in Iraq. We are not in Iraq because Al Qaeda is the principle threat in Iraq. There was no Al Qaeda in Iraq, as the President pointed out beforehand. And the fact is that Al Qaeda has grown in its strength and in its presence in Iraq because we are there. So I think it is important for us to realize that all of us are committed to destroying Al Qaeda.

But Al Qaeda is not going to be ultimately destroyed in Iraq, unless the Iraqis themselves join in this fight. And Al Qaeda is not the principal killer of American forces in Iraq. Those forces are dying because of IEDS, because of insurgents, and because of the struggle between Shi’ia and Sunni. And that struggle cannot be resolved militarily.

The President didn’t deal with any of those realities. He never addressed the question of the political settlement. He never re-spoke about the fact that there is no military solution, which he has said previously. He simply talked about more of the same — and for the false reason of solely going after Al Qaeda.

One other point: the President talked about the success of al-Anbar province. The fact is that in al-Anbar, where you have principally Sunni living, the Sunni sheikhs, chiefs, decided that they wanted to protect their sons and daughters and families from Al Qaeda. And so they did join up with Americans to do that. And there has been some success in al-Anbar. But that is a very different situation from what you find in the rest of the country, where you have Shi’ia and Sunni that are killing each other, and where you have none of the same equation that is possible to achieve.

So I think that for all of us, today was a continuation of more of the same. The President is putting forward a false rationale to the American people for the continuation of this war. The fact remains, unchanged, that the only way the Iraqis are going to stand up is if we make clear to them that we are going to be withdrawing our troops over a period of time — with the exception of those necessary to chase Al Qaeda, those necessary to complete the training, and those necessary to protect American forces. That is the real rationale for which we ought to be staying, not because of Al Qaeda.

And finally, let me just point out that this is the National Intelligence Estimate. This is the public National Intelligence Estimate. A week ago, the National Intelligence Estimate contradicted what the President said today. It made it clear that Al Qaeda is stronger today, is reconstituted, and also made it clear that our presence in Iraq is attracting forces to Al Qaeda.

Al Qaeda gets stronger because we’re there, Mr. President, not weaker. And if we begin to shift this responsibility to the Iraqis, most of the experts will tell you, the Iraqis do not want Al Qaeda in Iraq. And if we begin to reduce our footprint, I’m confident the Iraqis will begin to reduce the Al Qaeda footprint.

[snip ]

Reporter: Senator, if a U.S. withdrawal from most of Iraq, leaving a component to fight Al Qaeda, goes ahead — how many troops will be needed to complete that mission? Especially, is there are scenario where, if this political reconciliation doesn’t take place, and violence is raging in Baghdad, will U.S. troops be told to sit on the sidelines, in the eyes of the world?

Senator Kerry: Let me say first of all that we have always said, and our legislation is very specific, that we leave the discretion to the President of the United States to determine what number would be necessary to accomplish the three missions. We do change the mission. Those three missions, we repeat, are: To complete the training of the Iraqi forces so they can stand up for themselves and prevent the very chaos that you’re just talking about. Secondly, to continue to chase Al Qaeda — which is the mission the President accused us today of not caring about, but we specifically allow for our ability to be able to pursue that mission.

Now, speaking from a military point of view — and I’m sure Jack Reed will agree with me, in fact he just commented about this — that you could probably go after Al Qaeda with special operations capacity, providing your intelligence and other secrity is adequate on the ground. So there are some suppositions here: That you’re able to transfer responsibility to the Iraqis, that they’re beginning to stand up as the President has said our policy always is, you might get them to stand up, and then you can begin to stand down and reduce the numbers.

The President is in effect saying that his entire policy for the past years is a failure. Because he isn’t talking about standing down anymore as they stand up, he’s talking just about more of the same, and staying. And it directly flies contrary to what our intelligence community is telling us about how that contributes to terrorism.

And the third thing that we would leave the President the discretion to leave forces for is to protect American forces and facilities. As you draw down — as we’ve learned in other incidences — you’ve got to provide protection. We have embassy personnel there, we have contractors, we have USAID, we have others who are doing the job, and they need to be protected.

So we believe that by changing the mission to reflect the reality they have talked about but never translated into policy, we in effect can produce the best success that you could get out of a bad situation. Now, with respect to the chaos that you hear people talking about if America withdraws precipitously, once again: Nothing in our legislation contemplates “precipitous”. It’s a year from now. That would be the sixth year of the war. It contemplates succeeding in the training and transfer of responsibility.

Secondly, we have very significant forces in the region — forces in the Gulf, in Bahrain, in Kuwait, in other Gulf states, and so forth. And given the forces that would be at the President’s discretion to complete the task in this new mission, this more realistic mission, we believe that there would be an adequate buffer for emergency response of any kind.

Third, we also have a very significant diplomatic initiative contained within this overall policy and mission change. And that is dramatically lacking today. There is almost an absence of the kind of ongoing diplomatic lift that we’ve seen in past conflicts, which is essential to getting the stakeholders to resolve the issues that are outstanding between them.

And we are obviously banking on the notion that the President’s discretion, ultimately, as to the forces left behind, will be based on the success of the diplomacy that comes because you have triggered a different attitude in all of the participants in the region by virtue of the fact that you’re leaving. You’ve changed the equation from what it is today. So the minute you begin to make clear America is not staying, we are going to depart, we are transferring authority, then the responsibilities of Saudis, Jordanians, Egyptians, Syrians, Iranians all shift — as do the responsibilities of the politicians within Iraq themselves.

So—you know, the President is very good at putting red herrings, straw men up in front of all of you. The biggest straw man today was the flawed logic that he accused Democrats of when they say that Al Qaeda wasn’t there before we went there. And then he translates that and says the following: That that somehow suggests that those who make that argument are suggesting that terrorism is caused by American actions. No. No. That’s not what we’ve ever said, that’s not what we’ve ever intimated, that’s not even the remote suggestion. Of course terrorism is not initiated — nor was 9/11, nor was the Cole, nor the other instances that he talked about.

But this is the bottom line: Al Qaeda was not in Iraq before we went there. And while there was an Al Qaeda and they wanted to hurt us, and do other damage, and have a caliphate in the region, the fact is that they were not in Iraq and 9/11 was not planned in Iraq. And the fact is also that our own intelligence community tells us today unequivocally that our presence in Iraq has created more terrorism, attracted more terrorists, created more terrorists.

And that’s what we’re saying to the President: Not that we caused terrorism per se, but his decision to put American troops in Iraq has acted as a magnet and as a target and as an incentive. And we have seen the intelligence documents that have been found in Afghanistan, that Al Qaeda is using our presence in Iraq as a recruitment tool and as a fundraiser for their activities.

Pakistan is one of our staunchest allies in the global war against terror. At least that’s what those in the White House keep telling us. Then why are the Taliban and al-Qaeda regaining their power and becoming more comfortably entrenched in their Pakistan strongholds every day?

Part of the problem is political — Pakistan is a complex country with many competing constituencies, and President Pervez Musharraf has to maintain a very delicate balance among multiple factions in order to stay in power. It’s the sixth most populous country in the world (the second largest with a Muslim majority), and there is a long history of conflicts between its various tribal, social, and ethnic groups.

Part of the problem is geographical — Pakistan is a large country in a difficult location, sharing its borders with Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. Its 500-mile-long border with Afghanistan is particularly porous due to its extremely rugged terrain and the local tribes’ long history of resisting interference by outsiders in that region.

Part of the problem is economic — the tribal regions of northwestern Pakistan are among the poorest areas of the world, and the only sources of income for the residents there are smuggling, drugs, and the Taliban/al-Qaeda insurgency operations. Musharraf’s government relies heavily upon the billions of dollars in aid it receives from the U.S., but its economic clout is still stretched very thin in many parts of the country.

Part of the problem is cultural/religious—the Pakistani government is engaged in a bitter, intense struggle with hard-line Islamic extremists on the one hand and those pushing for greater social and democratic freedoms on the other. In the northwest border areas in particular, the only functioning social structure is tribal and the only available education is in the strongly anti-Western Islamist madrassahs.

Musharraf and his government are in a very precarious position in Pakistan. He had to survive numerous assassination attempts while trying to clamp down on a nationalist insurgency in the province of Baluchistan and militant uprisings in the breakaway tribal regions. While he has to maintain a strong relationship with the Bush administration in order to keep receiving military and financial aid from the U.S., he also has to maintain a second parallel track of internal political accommodation with the competing forces that threaten to tear apart his country and bring down his unstable government.

Despite the billions of dollars that the Bush administration has poured into Pakistan to help shore up Musharraf’s position, the White House has been increasingly frustrated by our Pakistani ally’s inability to keep out the Taliban and destroy the al-Qaeda strongholds along its border with Afghanistan. In recent days the U.S. has been ramping up its rhetoric and has threatened not just airstrikes against Al Qaeda inside Pakistan, but sending ground troops into the country to take on the insurgents directly as well.

Senator Kerry has always insisted that the Bush administration erred greatly in diverting its focus away from Afghanistan in order to pursue its failed policy of invading Iraq under false pretenses. He has made it quite clear over the last five years that the U.S. needs to concentrate on dealing with the Taliban, al-Qaeda, and Osama bin Laden in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border regions where they are comfortably entrenched rather than letting itself get trapped in a no-win quagmire in Iraq.

Senator Kerry has sponsored and cosponsored several different pieces of legislation dealing specifically with the question of how to deal with al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and this week he will be chairing hearings for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee focusing on the Bush administration’s plans for taking the fight to the insurgents where they actually are. As he said in a statement released earlier today,

Just last week we were reminded of the glaring reality that al-Qaeda is regrouping and growing stronger in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The new NIE report had better be a long overdue wakeup call about the importance of fighting terrorism where the terrorists are — in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Just as this administration took its eye off the ball after 9/11 and failed to capture or kill Osama bin Laden at Tora Bora when we had him surrounded, now the war in Iraq has diverted attention from the fight against those who attacked us on 9/11.

Our troops in Iraq have made us all proud, and they have done their job. Now it’s time for Iraqi politicians to stop squabbling and bring about the political solution necessary to end the violence there. No matter how much lip service the administration pays to taking the offensive on terrorism, we must be smarter and stronger in our hunt for the terrorists by recommitting to Afghanistan and Pakistan, and by having a smart strategy for diplomacy and redeployment in Iraq, denying extremists what has been their best recruiting tool.

On Wednesday I will chair a hearing in the Foreign Relations Committee to question Undersecretary for Political Affairs Nick Burns about the administration’s plan for Pakistan — and help push the debate about how we can successfully reengage in the fight there.

Yes, Pakistan is problematic. But the problems with Pakistan can only be solved by addressing them directly, rather than by sweeping them aside in order to chase chimeras in Iraq.

(Senator Kerry sent this informal letter out to members of his 3-million-strong email list on Friday afternoon, at the end of an especially busy week in Washington.)

Bottom line — no sugarcoating it — I’m not happy we couldn’t break the GOP filibuster on Iraq. But I’m writing just to let you know that I can feel the progress we’re making.

Here’s what I take away from the week that’s ending. First, you’ve got a whole lot of Senators who voiced opposition to the current disastrous course in Iraq, but couldn’t bring themselves to admit that we needed an open debate on what the new course should be. They filibustered, throwing up a roadblock to any new course. (OK, that’s deeply frustrating—but then again two years ago could you imagine the day when the President would have such intense criticism from his own right flank on Iraq? The dam is breaking.)

But most importantly, we’re not going to let the roadblock stand. We, and I mean all of us who have been pressing and pressing on the war, have now made it clear in both parties that this Iraq policy is beyond broken. Last year, only 13 Senators voted for the Kerry-Feingold bill to set a deadline to redeploy; now it’s the unified Democratic position. In May, Republicans were dismissing even tough questions about the escalation. Now, they’re falling all over themselves to distance themselves from the President.

So we’re making progress. But progress doesn’t mean anything to the troops in the field. We need to get results. It’s just plain wrong for some people to admit that the policy is broken, but then filibuster attempts to fix it. If the policy is broken, we owe it to all Americans to hold open debate and arrive at a solution.

We’ll keep slugging until we’ll get there.

Thanks, John Kerry

P.S. — You and I know damn well what happens at moments like this: the Administration attacks their opponents ruthlessly. They smear, they lie. Yesterday they went after Sen. Clinton. I stepped up to defend her. Tomorrow who knows which Democrat they’ll attack. Here’s what I’m asking you: I don’t care if you have a horse in 2008, or who you’re supporting. Anytime you see a Democrat get attacked, please step up and defend them.

"When you're in trouble, blame somebody else." That's a basic rule of playground politics. We might expect to see that tactic being used in grade school, but not in Washington. And especially not when so many lives are at stake.

Feeling pressured by a growing anti-war sentiment among voters and increasing calls for a change of course in Iraq, politically-dominated officials in the Pentagon chose this week to lash out at one of their higher-profile critics on the Democratic side of the aisles. Undersecretary of Defense Eric Edelman sent a sharply-worded letter to Senator Hillary Clinton on July 16, responding to questions she raised back in May in which she asked the Pentagon to detail how it is planning for the eventual withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Iraq. She had inquired about logistical planning for such a scenario, pointing out that whenever troops do leave Iraq it will be no simple task to transport all the people, equipment and vehicles back out of the country in the face of probable hostile opposition on the ground there.

Undersecretary Edelman's surprising response was essentially to accuse Senator Clinton, a leading Presidential candidate and an established member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, of seeking to aid and abet the enemy. Edelman wrote, "Premature and public discussion of the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq reinforces enemy propaganda that the United States will abandon its allies in Iraq, much as we are perceived to have done in Vietnam, Lebanon and Somalia. ... Such talk understandably unnerves the very same Iraqi allies we are asking to assume enormous personal risks.”

If questioning the administration's policies in Iraq is anti-American, then according to all the latest polls more than three-quarters of Americans are guilty as charged. If calling upon the Administration to change its course in Iraq is aiding the enemy, then a growing coalition of Senators and Representatives from both sides of the aisles is guilty as charged. If asking the military to consider contingency plans for withdrawing safely from Iraq is abetting the terrorists, then everyone from Generals Pace and Petraeus on down is guilty as charged.

Senator Kerry has always been ready to defend his fellow Democrats against political attacks, and he released this statement in support of Senator Clinton:

This Administration reminds us every day that they will say anything, do anything, and twist any truth to avoid accountability. Their latest assault on Sen. Clinton comes from a tired partisan playbook and it’s a disgrace. They ought to be planning to save lives -- not plotting to save face.

One of the great tragedies of the war in Iraq has been a total lack of planning by the Administration. Failure to plan for protecting troops with the right equipment, failure to plan for treating specialized injuries and failure to anticipate the bloody civil war.

I think it is entirely appropriate for the Pentagon to show how it is planning for the eventual redeployment of troops out of Iraq. We have a right and responsibility to know that our troops will return home in an orderly and safe manner and every reason to be skeptical given the reckless way our troops were put in harm’s way.

Senator Clinton was right to ask the Pentagon for answers and the Administration’s smear tactics in response are wrong but not surprising.”

That the Pentagon chose Senator Clinton to be the target of this canard attempt to reframe the discussion in slanted and self-serving terms at this critical point in time seems especially ill-considered, and it has resulted in a great deal of undesired blowback against the White House. Bloggers, newspaper columnists, radio talk-show hosts, and average Joes and Janes on the streets of America all seem to be taken aback by the unnecessary anger and the inappropriate rhetoric of Edelman's attack on Senator Clinton. As MSNBC news commentator Keith Olbermann put it in a scathing 'Special Comment' on his evening broadcast last night,

It is one of the great, dark, evil lessons, of history.

A country — a government — a military machine — can screw up a war seven ways to Sunday. It can get thousands of its people killed. It can risk the safety of its citizens. It can destroy the fabric of its nation.

But as long as it can identify a scapegoat, it can regain or even gain power.

The Bush administration has opened this Pandora’s Box about Iraq. It has found its scapegoats: Hillary Clinton and us.

[...]

The fault, brought down, as if a sermon from this mount of hypocrisy and slaughter by a nearly anonymous undersecretary of defense, has tonight been laid on the doorstep of... Sen. Hillary Clinton and, by extension, at the doorstep of every American — the now-vast majority of us — who have dared to criticize this war or protest it or merely ask questions about it or simply, plaintively, innocently, honestly, plead, “Don’t take my son; don’t take my daughter.”

[...]

A spokesman for the senator says Mr. Edelman’s remarks are “at once both outrageous and dangerous.” Those terms are entirely appropriate and may, in fact, understate the risk the Edelman letter poses to our way of life and all that our fighting men and women are risking, have risked, and have lost, in Iraq.

Senator Clinton was right to ask the Pentagon about its plans for extricating or sons and daughters safely from Iraq. Senator Kerry was right to speak up boldly in her defense. As he has pointed out before, dissent is not unpatriotic; disagreement is not the same thing as dissent; and asking for answers is not the same thing as attacking an administration in any case.

Undersecretary Edelman and those in the administration to whom he reports are completely wrong to accuse Americans of aiding the enemy when all those Americans are asking is to know how those in the White House intend to extricate us from the unnecessary, unwinnable quagmire in Iraq that the Bush administration foisted upon the rest of us under false pretenses.