DNC Press: ‘Senator Byrd’s Speech Opposing Iraq War 3/19/03’

Source:DNC Press– U.S. Senator Robert C. Byrd (Democrat, West Virginia) speaking out against the War in Iraq, in 2003.

“Remarkably prescient speech opposing the Iraq war by Senator Byrd in March of 2003.”

From DNC Press

I wish more people had listened to Senator Byrd in the beginning, especially in Congress but in America as a whole when the war was popular, because Senator Byrd was right all along. And had more people listened to him who wasn’t an isolationist or pacifist, or some other extremist on the Far-Left, we would’ve saved a lot of lives and money in America and Iraq. And not had gone to war over weapons of mass destruction that weren’t there when we went to war in 2003.

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Alicia Keys: ‘If I Ain’t Got You Music Video’

Source:Alicia Keys– “If I Ain’t Got You” great song and better video.

“Official Video for “If I Ain’t Got You” by Alicia Keys
Listen to Alicia Keys:Alicia Keys.”

From Alicia Keys

My favorite Alicia Keys song and still one of the best love songs of all time. She pretty much sounds like a woman who is desperate to hang on to her man in this song and to sound harsh and this is my opinion, she sounds like someone who is pretty much obsessed with her boyfriend . And doesn’t she can’t manage to live without him. While her man for whatever reason or reasons and I don’t think the song makes it clear while he’s looking to move on, but he looks ready to move on.

If you watch those true crime shows on Investigation Discovery (great network) you see shows all the time about a woman who gets dumped and then takes that disappointment out on her man and his new woman. Alicia sounds like she might be a step away from that.

Alicia Keys showing in this beautiful song and great video, that you can have style, class and substance. Not you don’t have to go-out-of-your-way to show that you’re cool or awesome with an explosive personality and knack for catch phrases and wearing loud outfits and land your now reality show from that, but having nothing upstairs. Not real talent and intelligence to go with your style.

Alicia has everything as far as voice, the ability to write and deliver music, but also to look and sound great doing her music. She sings and plays the piano and she also writes. But she’s beautiful, adorable, sexy and stylish, as she’s performing all of these talents.

This is a great song as far as the lyrics, the voice, the message, but also the video. She looks incredible in those black Levi’s. Similar to how Janet Jackson basically looks like a fashion model every time she’s out and performs in her Levi’s, because of how great she looks in them.

Alicia is a beautiful singer, because she has a great voice, but is always beautiful singing her music. She’s a diva in the best sense of the word, because on her style, but also because she always has a  real message behind her beauty and always has something important and intelligent to say.

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New York Times: Ross Douthat- ‘The Obama Era, Brought to You by the Iraq War’

Source:New York Times– “An antiwar protest in Washington in 2007. The war divided the left but ultimately energized it.Credit…Jim Bourg/Reuters” Also from the New York Times.

Source:The Daily Times

“WHEN prominent people in Washington spend an anniversary apologizing for being catastrophically, unforgivably wrong about a decade-old decision, you might expect that the decision in question had delivered their party to disaster or defeat. But last week’s many Iraq war mea culpas were rich in irony: one by one, prominent liberals lined up to apologize for supporting a war that’s responsible for liberalism’s current political and cultural ascendance.
History is too contingent to say that had there been no Iraq invasion in 2003, there would be no Democratic majority in 2012. (It’s easy enough to imagine counterfactuals that might have put Hillary Clinton in the Oval Office.) But the Democratic majority that we do have is a majority that the Iraq war created: its energy and strategies, its leadership and policy goals, and even its cultural advantages were forged in the backlash against George W. Bush’s Middle East policies.

All those now-apologetic liberals who supported the war in 2003 are a big part of this story, because without their hawkishness there would have been no antiwar rebellion on the left — no Michael Moore and Howard Dean, no Daily Kos and all its “netroots” imitators. ”

From the New York Times

OK, so I agree with Ross Douthat that the Iraq War has been good for the Democratic Party.

Political history lesson of the day: in 2003 the Republican Party had The White House with President George W. Bush and his administration, as well as a Republican Congress (House and Senate) with small majorities, but large enough for them to put through most of their economic agenda through, at least during that Congress.

With a divided Democratic opposition that really only had the Senate filibuster as a weapon they could use against the Bush Administration and Congressional Republicans. And any communications strategy and message that House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, and the Democratic National Committee could put together against the Republican Party.

In 2004, President Bush is elected, with a small majority, but enough to get him reelected. House Republicans add a few seats to their thin majority. Senate Republicans go from 51 to 55 seats in the Senate. President Bush is at around 50% approval in late 2004 and going into 2005. This all looks like the Republican Party is not only the majority party, but it’s going to be that way for a while.

As the old political saying goes (or one that I just made up) a governing party and majority is only as good as it’s ability to govern and lead. You had a divided Republican Party on Social Security reform in early 2005, with House and Senate Democrats having no political reasons to work with Congressional Republicans on SS reform and that dies in the House and Senate by the summer of 2005. Hurricane Katrina happens in the late summer of 2005 and the disaster and the Bush Administration showing almost no ability to deal with that disaster and cleanup happens as well.

Going into the summer of 2005, I don’t think anyone was predicting that House and Senate Democrats had any real shot at either winning back the House or Senate in 2006, but the debacle in the Iraq War, and hurricane Katrina, President Bush’s low 30s approval rating by late 2005, as well as the corruption that was going on with House Republicans that year and into 2006, started this feeling in the country, especially with Democrats and Independents, that united government wasn’t working and Republican Party needed a check in Washington.

So yes, the War in Iraq has been good politically for the Democratic Party, especially when you look at where they were in 2003 and where they were less 4 years later. But the country has paid a helluva a price for it economically and militarily that I believe most Americans would love to go back to pre-Iraq War and thinking there’s no real good reason to ever invade Iraq, at least at this point.

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