It’s official! Gordon Smith (R-OR) planning to run for reelection as a panderer and opportunist.
In a major speech in Congress on Thursday night, Sen. Gordon Smith called the current U.S. war effort “absurd,” perhaps even “criminal” and called for rapid pullouts. He added that he would have never voted for the conflict if he had reason to believe the intelligence the president gave the American people was inaccurate.
Citing the hundreds of billions of dollars spent and 2900 Americans deaths — and saying he needed to “speak from the heart” — Smith said, “I for one am at the end of my rope when it comes to supporting a policy that has our soldiers patrolling the same streets in the same way being blown up by the same bombs day after day. That is absurd. It may even be criminal. So either we clear and hold and build or let’s go home.”
Gordon Smith is only now at the end of his rope? Has he not been paying attention for the last three years? How is it possible that anyone with so much as a subscription to the Des Moines Register can only just now realize that U.S. intelligence was accurate? Is there something particularly magical about the number 2,899 – the number of casualties Smith cites as provoking his change of heart – that 1,000 or 2,000 doesn’t really move the soul? $100 Billion, $200 Billion: all acceptable appropriations for a failed policy, but now that we’ve hit $290 Billion, Smith has to speak out.
How absolutely convenient that Smith has a change of heart just when it’s time to run again, exactly when the Iraq Study Group and Bob Gates announcement that we’re not winning has given him cover to do so. How convenient that he can now point to another example of principled moderation to appeal to the independent voters of Oregon.
Read Smith’s whole speech in the Congressional Record. It’s like discovering a whole new senator we never knew we had.