Party Label No Longer Telling Re: Obama finding new allies: Republicans

Anti-war Americans should get busy and support a truly anti-war

candidate such as Mike Gravel, Dennis Kucinich, or Ron Paul now!

We should do it now when there is still time to build up an anti-war

candidate that will be competitive next year, instead of wringing our

hands and trying to decide from a short list of front-runners at this

point.

Trying to get on a bandwagon at this point is to play into the hands

of the political insiders and mainstream media (MSM).

Forget what the MSM says the frontrunners are or which person has

Steven Spielberg just endorsed.

We saw how G W Bush emerged early on as unbeatable in 2000 because of

his ``amazing feat'' of raising money.

No doubt, his feat of raising money came from his father's connection

to power.

Being capitalistic as our country is, people who have money and want

to make even more money will invariably want to spend a little more

money to buy a backdoor to the White House or some place close.

But money can hijack people's power only if the people let it happen.

The people did let it happen in the past and reaped the reward of a

Bush/Cheney administration of war and follies.

But the people do not have to keep being helpless and getting hurt by

the political insiders and the MSM if the people now wake up and take

back the people's power.

Don't let the Democrats like Biden, H. Clinton, Reid, Pelosi, et al

take you for granted thinking that you have no place to go but to go

with them wherever they will lead you.

Don't believe that they are being honest with you when they keep

submitting bills to fund the war at 10 billion USD a month which will

also fund our mercenaries in Iraq and then claim they have no choice

in the matter.

Many people who have not bought the Democrats' party line have noted

that The Democrats in Congress a) have the power to not approve money

for the war; b) do not have to submit any bill to fund the war so the

issue of overriding a presidential veto is moot (because it is the

executive branch which takes a budget to Congress for approval); and

c) never mention anything about the lawless mercenaries in Iraq they

are funding, nor that the benchmarks they are talking about are really

about stealing Iraqi oil for BigOil.

(They say that funding our troops in Iraq is to help the Iraqis to

reconcile and for the government there to have a chance to pass bills,

to achieve ``benchmarks'', so that the Iraqis can reconcile.

They think the Iraqis are as naive as we the American voters are.

It is however pretty obvious by now that the Iraqis are totally

unwilling to give up their precious national assets to foreigners,

despite many trips by the Defense secretary and other Bush officials

and by many senators and representatives to tell them to do otherwise.

Ask the senator from Oregon G. Smith about what the parliamentarians

have told him. Ask what the oil workers union representatives are

telling us. Ask why the politicians are so ``lazy'' to pass these

``benchmark'' laws, even though they represent the ordinary Iraqi

people like our congressional representatives represent ordinary

American citizens and even though they are supposed to be such

antidotes to stem further ethnic or sectarian violence. It's clear

that the Iraqi Parliament is doing its nonviolence resistance to our

attempted robbery and is in fact doing its job protecting that one

indispensable asset of the Iraqi people.

But neither the Democratic party hierarchy nor the Bush White House

would give you the honest truth about why they want to fund the

troops and get them killed by ever larger numbers. They just use

euphemisms and deceptive words. It's up to the American people to

stand up and reject the systematic deception.)

Even George Will, the columnist who often writes about constitutional

matters, recently wrote:

``As the legislative branch gropes for relevance regarding Iraq,

attention is focused on Democrats. They control Congress and could

end American involvement in Iraq but - so far - they flinch from

wielding the only power that can do that, the blunt instrument of

cutting off funds. . . .''

Pelosi and Reid are trying to tell their supporters that they can't

defund the war because they have to protect the troops. But they fail

to tell you a) it doesn't take 10 billion a month to bring the troops

home; b) the vast amount of money they've given Bush is meant to fund

the mercenaries and prolong the war indefinitely; and c) that they're

just as interested in owning Iraq in order to own a piece of its vast

oil as Bush does or that they're just as beholden to the war lobby for

which Joe Lieberman speaks as loudly for as Bush, Cheney, and Rice do.

The way Joe Biden characterizes the discontent of the voters typifies

the disdain the Democratic party hierarchy and the majority of the

presidential candidates treat the ordinary American people:

``Oh, we understand that there is only so much you (Biden

and your Democratic colleagues in Congress) can do, but we're

still disappointed . . .''

Biden summarizes his colleagues' assessment of the American voters:

They are helpless, they have no place to go, so we'll just speak a

few soothing but meaningless words once a while to show them we care

(while keep working with the Bush White House to make sure America

will own a piece of Iraq, oil-wise or military-base-wise).

Biden, the verified plagiarist, typifies the rank of our politicians

and representatives who get to be powerful by knowing how to cheat

the American people.

And if Hillary Clinton gets the nomination, she'll either become

another Clinton administration or be defeated because the people will

dread another dynastic run of America. We talk about how bad North

Korea is because it has had a dynastic succession of rule, even though

it has yet to invade another country and we talk about our country

being a republic, yet we allow it to degenerate into dynastic rule.

And what does Hillary Clinton represent? She has pledged to the

insiders, including an official at the Pentagon that if elected and

re-elected, US troops will remain in Iraq when she leaves office,

making it at least another 10 years of occupation.

When she says she wants troops to start coming home now, she didn't

say how many, as pointed out by Ted Koppel, another journalist from

the MSM.

She has distinguished herself as a politician who wants so much to

become president that she will always speak from both sides of her

mouth.

She will take a position in such a way that first and foremost the war

lobby know that she is one of them hawks and second the casual voters

will also buy into her candidacy because she is not a Republican or

because she is a feminist or because ...

Get this:

she'll ignore you when she gets there, unless you pledge to her your

allegiance now! Why? Because she is ahead and has many political

connections from the previous 8 years of Clinton rule, and because

she is one of those who won't forget and forgive. (She is letting

you know now so you won't need to regret. How brass-knuckles-ish!

How politics-as-usual?)

They are all very superficial but ultimately destructive criteria

because of what it requires you to accept, i.e., to accept another

eight years of neocon-controlled administration in return for a

non-Republican president, for a woman president, or for being able to

latch on to a winner.

We're talking about eight more years of war and occuption beyond Bush,

if the neocons are in control.

And that is entirely antithetic to a stand which calls for ending the

war and the occupation now.

As if she's not made herself clear enough to the discerning ears,

Hillary Clinton even uttered this nonsense on the subject of a Libby

pardon:

MSNBC host Chris Matthews pressed Clinton at the labor forum on her

thoughts about whether former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter"

Libby should be pardoned. Clinton artfully dodged: "I think there

will be enough to be said about that without me adding to it."

It's clear that Hillary Clinton is really afraid of the neocons, i.e.,

the war lobby, who have been very vocal for a Libby pardon.

Remember Libby, who was Dick Cheney's most important aide before the

scandal broke, is one of the neocons. Hillary Clinton is beholden to

these people and their agenda. If you vote for Clinton, you'll be

voting for another 8 years of war under a similarly neocons-beholden

administration.

And just as Dennis Kucinich has pointed out, the Democratic party has

now proven itself to be a war party.

So, it no longer suffices to go about voting according to party label.

And this is true even on domestic issues, not just foreign policies

which are largely hegemonic, destabilizing, and vastly costly.

So, it is up to the mal-contented voters to wake up and get busy early

on. We must get organized this year if we want to shape America's

future with the 2008 election.

lo yeeOn

========

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=12916&sectionid=3510304

Pull the plug on the mercenary war

Tue, 12 Jun 2007 14:58:14

Jeremy Scahill

The Democratic leadership in Congress is once again gearing up for a

great sell-out on the Iraq war.

While the wrangling over the $124 billion Iraq supplemental spending

bill is being headlined in the media as a "showdown" or "war" with the

White House, it is hardly that.

In plain terms, despite the impassioned sentiments of the anti-war

electorate that brought the Democrats to power last November, the

Congressional leadership has made clear its intention to keep funding

the Iraq occupation, even though Sen. Harry Reid has declared that

"this war is lost."

For months, the Democrats' "withdrawal" plan has come under fire from

opponents of the occupation who say it doesn't stop the war, doesn't

de-fund it, and ensures that tens of thousands of US troops will

remain in Iraq beyond President Bush's second term. Such concerns were

reinforced by Sen. Barack Obama's recent declaration that the

Democrats will not cut off funding for the war, regardless of the

President's policies. "Nobody," he said, "wants to play chicken with

our troops."

As the New York Times reported, "Lawmakers said they expect that

Congress and Mr. Bush would eventually agree on a spending measure

without the specific timetable" for (partial) withdrawal, which the

White House has said would "guarantee defeat." In other words, the

appearance of a fierce debate this week, Presidential veto and all,

has largely been a show with a predictable outcome.

The Shadow War in Iraq

While all of this is troubling, there is another disturbing fact which

speaks volumes about the Democrats' lack of insight into the nature of

this unpopular war--and most Americans will know next to nothing about

it. Even if the President didn't veto their legislation, the

Democrats' plan does almost nothing to address the second-largest

force in Iraq--and it's not the British military. It's the estimated

126,000 private military "contractors" who will stay put there as long

as Congress continues funding the war.

The 145,000 active-duty US forces are nearly matched by occupation

personnel that currently come from companies like Blackwater USA and

the former Halliburton subsidiary KBR, which enjoy close personal and

political ties with the Bush administration. Until Congress reins in

these massive corporate forces and the whopping federal funding that

goes into their coffers, partially withdrawing US troops may only set

the stage for the increased use of private military companies (and

their rent-a-guns) which stands to profit from any kind of privatized

future "surge" in Iraq.

From the beginning, these contractors have been a major hidden story

of the war, almost uncovered in the mainstream media and absolutely

central to maintaining the US occupation of Iraq. While many of them

perform logistical support activities for American troops, including

the sort of laundry, fuel and mail delivery, and food-preparation work

that once was performed by soldiers, tens of thousands of them are

directly engaged in military and combat activities. According to the

Government Accountability Office, there are now some 48,000 employees

of private military companies in Iraq. These not-quite G.I. Joes,

working for Blackwater and other major US firms, can clear in a month

what some active-duty soldiers make in a year. "We got 126,000

contractors over there, some of them making more than the secretary of

Defense," said House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman John

Murtha. "How in the hell do you justify that?"

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Rep. Henry

Waxman estimates that $4 billion in taxpayer money has so far been

spent in Iraq on these armed "security" companies like

Blackwater--with tens of billions more going to other war companies

like KBR and Fluor for "logistical" support. Rep. Jan Schakowsky of

the House Intelligence Committee believes that up to forty cents of

every dollar spent on the occupation has gone to war contractors.

With such massive government payouts, there is little incentive for

these companies to minimize their footprint in the region and every

incentive to look for more opportunities to profit--especially if,

sooner or later, the "official" U.S. presence shrinks, giving the

public a sense of withdrawal, of a winding down of the war. Even if

George W. Bush were to sign the legislation the Democrats have passed,

their plan "allows the President the leeway to escalate the use of

military security contractors directly on the battlefield," Erik

Leaver of the Institute for Policy Studies points out. It would "allow

the President to continue the war using a mercenary army."

The crucial role of contractors in continuing the occupation was

driven home in January when David Petraeus, the general running the

President's "surge" plan in Baghdad, cited private forces as essential

to winning the war. In his confirmation hearings in the Senate, he

claimed that they fill a gap attributable to insufficient troop levels

available to an overstretched military. Along with Bush's official

troop surge, the "tens of thousands of contract security forces,"

Petraeus told the senators, "give me the reason to believe that we can

accomplish the mission." Indeed, Gen. Petraeus admitted that he has,

at times, been guarded in Iraq not by the US military, but "secured by

contract security."

Such widespread use of contractors, especially in mission-critical

operations, should have raised red flags among lawmakers. After a trip

to Iraq last month, Retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey observed bluntly, "We

are overly dependent on civilian contractors. In extreme danger--they

will not fight." It is, however, the political rather than military

uses of these forces that should be cause for the greatest concern.

Contractors have provided the White House with political cover,

allowing for a back-door near doubling of US forces in Iraq through

the private sector, while masking the full extent of the human costs

of the occupation. Although contractor deaths are not effectively

tallied, at least 770 contractors have been killed in Iraq and at

least another 7,700 injured. These numbers are not included in any

official (or media) toll of the war.

More significantly, there is absolutely no effective system of

oversight or accountability governing contractors and their

operations, nor is there any effective law--military or

civilian--being applied to their activities. They have not been

subjected to military courts martial (despite a recent Congressional

attempt to place them under the Uniform Code of Military Justice), nor

have they been prosecuted in US civilian courts--and, no matter what

their acts in Iraq, they cannot be prosecuted in Iraqi courts. Before

Paul Bremer, Bush's viceroy in Baghdad, left Iraq in 2004 he issued an

edict, known as Order 17 .

It immunized contractors from prosecution in Iraq which, today, is

like the Wild West, full of roaming Iraqi death squads and scores of

unaccountable, heavily-armed mercenaries, ex-military men from around

the world, working for the occupation. For the community of

contractors in Iraq, immunity and impunity are welded together.

Despite the tens of thousands of contractors passing through Iraq and

several well-documented incidents involving alleged contractor abuses,

only two individuals have been ever indicted for crimes there. One was

charged with stabbing a fellow contractor, while the other pled guilty

to the possession of child-pornography images on his computer at Abu

Ghraib prison. While dozens of American soldiers have been

court-martialed--sixty-four on murder-related charges--not a single

armed contractor has been prosecuted for a crime against an Iraqi. In

some cases, where contractors were alleged to have been involved in

crimes or deadly incidents, their companies whisked them out of Iraq

to safety.

As one armed contractor recently informed the Washington Post, "We

were always told, from the very beginning, if for some reason

something happened and the Iraqis were trying to prosecute us, they

would put you in the back of a car and sneak you out of the country in

the middle of the night." According to another, US contractors in Iraq

had their own motto: "What happens here today, stays here today."

Funding the Mercenary War

"These private contractors are really an arm of the administration and

its policies," argues Rep. Dennis Kucinich, who has called for a

withdrawal of all U.S. contractors from Iraq. "They charge whatever

they want with impunity. There's no accountability as to how many

people they have, as to what their activities are."

Until now, this situation has largely been the doing of a

Republican-controlled Congress and White House. No longer. While some

Congressional Democrats have publicly expressed grave concerns about

the widespread use of these private forces and a handful have called

for their withdrawal, the party leadership has done almost nothing to

stop, or even curb, the use of mercenary corporations in Iraq. As it

stands, the Bush administration and the industry have little to fear

from Congress on this score, despite the unseating of the Republican

majority.

On two central fronts, accountability and funding, the Democrats'

approach has been severely flawed, playing into the agendas of both

the White House and the war contractors. Some Democrats, for instance,

are pushing accountability legislation that would actually require

more US personnel to deploy to Iraq as part of an FBI Baghdad "Theater

Investigative Unit " that would supposedly monitor and investigate

contractor conduct. The idea is: FBI investigators would run around

Iraq, gather evidence, and interview witnesses, leading to indictments

and prosecutions in U.S. civilian courts.

This is a plan almost certain to backfire, if ever instituted. It

raises a slew of questions: Who would protect the investigators? How

would Iraqi victims be interviewed? How would evidence be gathered

amid the chaos and dangers of Iraq? Given that the federal government

and the military seem unable--or unwilling--even to count how many

contractors are actually in the country, how could their activities

possibly be monitored? In light of the recent Bush administration

scandal over the eight fired US attorneys, serious questions remain

about the integrity of the Justice Department. How could we have any

faith that real crimes in Iraq, committed by the employees of

immensely well-connected crony corporations like Blackwater and

Halliburton, would be investigated adequately?

Apart from the fact that it would be impossible to effectively monitor

126,000 or more private contractors under the best of conditions in

the world's most dangerous war zone, this legislation would give the

industry a tremendous PR victory. Once it was passed as the law of the

land, the companies could finally claim that a legally accountable

structure governed their operations. Yet they would be well aware that

such legislation would be nearly impossible to enforce.

Not surprisingly, then, the mercenary trade group with the Orwellian

name of the International Peace Operations Association (IPOA) has

pushed for just this Democratic-sponsored approach rather than the

military court martial system favored by conservative Republican

Senator Lindsey Graham. The IPOA called the expansion of the Military

Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act--essentially the Democrats'

oversight plan--"the most cogent approach to ensuring greater

contractor accountability in the battle space." That endorsement alone

should be reason enough to pause and reconsider.

Then there is the issue of continued funding for the privatized shadow

forces in Iraq. As originally passed in the House, the Democrats' Iraq

plan would have cut only about 15 percent, or $815 million, of the

supplemental spending earmarked for day-to-day military operations "to

reflect savings attributable to efficiencies and management

improvements in the funding of contracts in the military departments."

As it stood, this was a stunningly insufficient plan, given ongoing

events in Iraq. But even that mild provision was dropped by the

Democrats in late April. Their excuse was the need to hold more

hearings on the contractor issue. Instead, they moved to withhold--not

cut--15 percent of total day-to-day operational funding, but only

until Secretary of Defense Robert Gates submits a report on the use of

contractors and the scope of their deployment. Once the report is

submitted, the 15 percent would be unlocked. In essence, this means

that, under the Democrats plan, the mercenary forces will simply be

able to continue business-as-usual/profits-as-usual in Iraq.

However obfuscated by discussions of accountability, fiscal

responsibility, and oversight, the gorilla of a question in the

Congressional war room is: Should the administration be allowed to use

mercenary forces, whose livelihoods depend on war and conflict, to

help fight its battles in Iraq?

Rep. Murtha says, "We're trying to bring accountability to an

unaccountable war." But it's not accountability that the war needs; it

needs an end. By sanctioning the administration's continuing use of

mercenary corporations--instead of cutting off all funding to

them--the Democrats leave the door open for a future escalation of the

shadow war in Iraq. This, in turn, could pave the way for an array of

secretive, politically well-connected firms that have profited

tremendously under the current administration to elevate their status

and increase their government paychecks.

Blackwater's War

A decade ago, the company barely existed; and yet, its "diplomatic

security" contracts since mid-2004, with the State Department alone,

total more than $750 million. Today, Blackwater has become nothing

short of the Bush administration's well-paid Praetorian Guard.

It protects the US ambassador and other senior officials in Iraq as

well as visiting Congressional delegations; it trains Afghan security

forces and was deployed in the oil-rich Caspian Sea region, setting up

a "command and control" center just miles from the Iranian border. The

company was also hired to protect FEMA operations and facilities in

New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, where it raked in $240,000 a day

from the American taxpayer, billing $950 a day per Blackwater contractor.

Since September 11, 2001, the company has invested its lucrative

government payouts in building an impressive private army. At present,

it has forces deployed in nine countries and boasts a database of

21,000 additional troops at the ready, a fleet of more than twenty

aircraft, including helicopter gun-ships, and the world's largest

private military facility--a 7,000 acre compound near the Great Dismal

Swamp of North Carolina.

It recently opened a new facility in Illinois ("Blackwater North") and

is fighting local opposition to a third planned domestic facility near

San Diego ("Blackwater West") by the Mexican border. It is also

manufacturing an armored vehicle (nicknamed the "Grizzly") and

surveillance blimps.

The man behind this empire is Erik Prince, a secretive, conservative

Christian, ex-Navy SEAL multimillionaire who bankrolls the President

and his allies with major campaign contributions. Among Blackwater's

senior executives are Cofer Black, former head of counterterrorism at

the CIA; Robert Richer, former Deputy Director of Operations at the

CIA; Joseph Schmitz, former Pentagon Inspector General; and an

impressive array of other retired military and intelligence officials.

Company executives recently announced the creation of a new private

intelligence company, "Total Intelligence," to be headed by Black and

Richer.

For years, Blackwater's operations have been shrouded in secrecy.

Emboldened by the culture of impunity enjoyed by the private sector in

the Bush administration's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Blackwater's

founder has talked of creating a "contractor brigade" to support US

military operations and fancies his forces the "FedEx" of the

"national security apparatus."

As the country debates an Iraq withdrawal, Congress owes it to the

public to take down the curtain of secrecy surrounding these shadow

forces that under gird the US public deployment in Iraq. The President

likes to say that defunding the war would undercut the troops. Here's

the truth of the matter: Continued funding of the Iraq war ensures

tremendous profits for politically-connected war contractors. If

Congress is serious about ending the occupation, it needs to rein in

the unaccountable companies that make it possible and only stand to

profit from its escalation.

E-mail this to a friend

Printable version

Press TV 2007.

-------------

Newly empowered Democrats draw wrath of voters

By Thomas Ferraro Mon Jun 18, 8:38 AM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The new Democratic-led Congress is drawing

the ire of voters upset with its failure to quickly deliver on a

promise to end the Iraq war.

This is reflected in polls that show Congress -- plagued by

partisan bickering mostly about the war -- at one of its lowest

approval ratings in a decade. Surveys find only about one in four

Americans approves of it.

"I understand their disappointment," said Senate Democratic leader

Harry Reid of Nevada. "We raised the bar too high."

In winning control of Congress from George W. Bush's Republicans

last November, Democrats told voters they would move swiftly to

withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq.

But they now say voters must understand they need help from

Republicans to clear procedural hurdles, override presidential

vetoes and force Bush to change course.

Democratic Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware said he explained this

recently to anti-war demonstrators. "'We know. We know,"' he quoted

them as replying. "But we are so disappointed."'

Biden, seeking the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, said:

"Voters are going to be mad with us until we end the war."

House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said some Democrats

understand "we can only do so much."

"Others are just very unhappy. I include myself among them,"

Pelosi, of California, told The New York Times.

Republicans have increasingly voiced their own concerns. Yet most

have stood by Bush -- at least for now -- and given him the votes

he needed to block timetables for withdrawal.

Republicans also are tweaking Democrats on other fronts, such as

stalled efforts to upgrade health care and reduce the cost of

college and energy.

'DO-NOTHING CONGRESS'

They are even adopting the same line Democrats once used against

them, calling this "a do-nothing Congress."

"If Democrats fail to reverse course, the dynamics in the 2008

elections may shift significantly, allowing Republicans to run as

the party of change ... only two years after Democrats successfully

campaigned on that same theme," Senate Republican leaders told

their ranks in a letter last week.

Just as it was before last year's elections, polls show most

Americans believe the United States is headed in the wrong

direction.

"The primary reason is war," said James Thurber of American

University's Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies.

But there are other reasons. "People have problems in their lives

and they don't see the White House or Congress dealing with it,"

Thurber said.

A Quinnipiac University poll this month found Congress with an

approval rating of just 23 percent. "People voted for change. But

they don't think they got it," said Peter Brown, an assistant

director of the poll.

A Gallup poll last month put Congress's approval rating at 29

percent. The number had fallen to 21 percent last December, just

weeks before Republicans yielded control.

Still, the new polls have stung Democrats and put them on the

defensive.

Democrats point to the nearly daily congressional oversight

hearings they have held into how Bush does business, many dealing

with the war. They also note that unlike Republicans last year,

they passed a federal budget plan.

But among Democrats' top legislative promises, just one, the first

increase in the federal minimum wage in a decade, has been passed

by Congress and signed into law by Bush.

Congress recently approved another priority -- a bill to expand

federally funded embryonic stem cell research. But Democrats are

not expected to be able to override a Bush veto.

On another high-stakes issue, top Senate Democrats and Republicans

were struggling to pass legislation to overhaul U.S. immigration

laws, despite attacks from many conservative Republicans and some

liberal Democrats.

Democrats intend to crank up pressure on Bush with votes on

proposals to revoke Congress' 2002 authorization of the war, set a

deadline for troop withdrawals and increase requirements for troop

readiness. Republicans will likely block them.

"We're disappointed the war drags on with no end in sight, but

realize Democratic leaders can only accomplish what they have the

votes for," said Brad Woodhouse of Americans United for Change, a

liberal group active in the anti-war movement.

Pelosi and Reid wrote Bush last week urging him to listen to the

will of people on Iraq. "Work with us," they pleaded.

In article <miSdi.5184$c06.1613@newssvr22.news.prodigy.net>,

Bruce Olin <bruce_olin@hotmail.com> wrote:

>Obama finding new allies: Republicans

>Many cite war in Iraq, spirit of political unity as issues

>June 19, 2007

>BY JENNIFER HUNTER Sun-Times Columnist

>http://www.suntimes.com/news/hunter/433292,CST-NWS-hunter19.article

>

>There is an interesting phenomenon that has arisen over the last few

>months:

>a trend of moderate Republicans who want to vote for Barack Obama. It may

>seem counterintuitive, conservatives supporting a candidate who

>wants to tax

>the wealthy and embrace the conventions in the Kyoto Accord, but there is

>something in Obama's message about ridding politics of partisanship that is

>appealing to these Republicans.

>

>He doesn't carry the baggage of a Hillary Clinton. He is new; he seems

>authentic -- although his connection to indicted fund-raiser Tony Rezko has

>made some previous supporters wonder -- and he has more gravitas

>than pretty

>boy John Edwards. The Republicans who like him may have supported John

>McCain in the past, but after eight years of the Bush White House they feel

>they can no longer support the Republican field. The idea of a

>congressional

>glasnost -- a harmonic nonpartisanship in Washington -- is an Obama goal

>they endorse.

>

>Some of these right-wing Obama supporters are putative country club

>Republicans, hailing from areas similar to the North Shore of Chicago.

>Others are professionals who are disillusioned by the Bush administration's

>failure to develop a sound domestic policy to redress issues of health care

>and Social Security or to end the relentless war in Iraq.

>

>Add to this the secrecy of the Bush administration, the Scooter Libby

>affair, the unfortunate choice of Alberto Gonzales as attorney general, the

>scandals of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, the Tom DeLays and Mark Foleys, and

>there remains an unsavory stew of problems for those once proud to call

>themselves Republican.

>

>"From a philosophical point of view I still see myself as a Republican,"

>says Kenneth Wehking, 38, a Denver man who works for a software company.

>That means being fiscally conservative and moderate on social issues,

>Wehking believes.

>

>At one time he supported John McCain for those very reasons, but now he is

>attracted to Obama and belongs to a group called Republicans For Obama. He

>likes Obama's philosophy: the need to rid the country of the

>red/blue divide

>that has made it impossible to move forth legislation in immigration or

>health care.

>

>"Obama is one of the first candidates who truly seems to embody a spirit of

>working together and moving forward," he says.

>

>Randy Cooper, a 60-year-old lawyer from Eaton, N.H. -- not a member of

>Republicans for Obama -- says he grew up as an Eisenhower Republican. He

>supported George Herbert Walker Bush and John McCain. But Cooper began to

>feel that George II and his acolytes, Vice President Dick Cheney and

>Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, were being disingenuous about the

>reasons for going into Iraq.

>

>At first Cooper supported the war "based on what the president told

>us." But

>then he began to ask questions: "I absolutely feel we were lied to. There

>were other reasons [bush] wanted to go into Iraq. It wasn't just about

>weapons of mass destruction."

>

>And Cooper became so disillusioned that in 2004 he voted for John Kerry.

>That's when Obama caught his eye, delivering his famous keynote address at

>the Democratic National Convention in Boston.

>

>"Part of me thinks that a new generation should take over," says Cooper.

>"Our generation hasn't done all that good a job. Maybe the strife of the

>1960s was just too hard to overcome.

>

>"With Obama you get integrity and character that are so much more important

>when it comes to leadership than anything to do with experience."

>

>The war is the main issue for many of these Democratically inclined

>Republicans and it is how the war has tarnished America's profile

>abroad. "I

>went to India last February," recalls Chicagoan Dian Eller, who works in

>philanthropy. "And the first thing my driver asked was if I had voted for

>Bush." Eller did vote for Bush the first time around, but not the second

>because she "was angry and disappointed about the war." But the pointed

>questions from the Indian driver made Eller very uncomfortable. "I am so

>upset about the way people feel about our country."

>

>She wants to vote for someone who is a healer, who can restore America's

>respect in the world. She did think about Obama for a long time until she

>read the recent Sun-Times and New York Times stories about his early

>connection to the indicted Rezko, and it made her wonder. She is still

>thinking about whom to support, although it likely will not be a

>Republican.

>"Where in the world," she asks, "can we find a candidate who is different?"

>

>--

>"The first casualty of war is not truth, but perspective.

>Once that's gone, truth, like compassion, reason,

>and all the other virtues, wanders around like a wounded orphan."

>

>Ente Grillenhaft

>

>