District
Office
Casework
Services
GrantsDC Office
Legislation
Issues
Committees & Caucuses
Press Office
Photo Album
Contact Me
Learn About
John
Congress
First District
Privacy Policy
|
Statement of Congressman
John Larson on H.
Res. 861
June 15, 2006
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, Mr. Murtha. Thank you for having the temerity to speak truth to power. Thank you for having the temerity to be willing to separate the war on terror from the travesty that's taking place in Iraq.
It's amazing to me that this place, as Professor Robert Remini writes, was a place where members would come down unrehearsed, without charts or graphs, to speak from their heart. They would talk about this institution and what it means to democracy all over the world. What a sham today. We should all glorify in the aspects of democracy that take place all around the world and in Iraq. But what a sham this is today that we are denied any alternative resolution. Mr. Lantos eloquently stated that point earlier today when he talked about Bob Michel and his eloquence, standing on this floor, talking about speaking truth to power.
That is what is so upsetting to the American people, and why Mr. Murtha has been recognized all around this country for standing up and speaking the truth to the American people. This is something that this Administration and, frankly, this Congress has been unable to do – level with the American people.
Let's start with leveling with the American troops and leveling with all of those families of Reservists and National Guardsmen who I speak with on a regular basis who have been deployed, redeployed and deployed and redeployed again so many times because we haven't had a plan.
Here we are in a race between cooperation and catastrophe, and the Republican majority brings to the floor a political document. This resolution is not designed to provide a new direction in Iraq or to bring this country together by leveling with our troops or our citizens. Instead it’s made up of political strategy recently outlined by Karl Rove in New Hampshire, talking points distributed by Majority Leader Boehner, and a debate sandwiched in between the President's photo op in Iraq and a White House picnic this evening.
Americans are outraged that we don't have a Congress that is willing to stand up and have accountability.
We all support the war on terror. The Democratic party, from Roosevelt to Truman to Kennedy to Jack Murtha, has stood on the watchwall of freedom and stood there valiantly, on behalf of the American people, and in this body and in this chamber have acted to unite the country in freedom’s cause. But that's not going on here today.
Instead, what we have is right out of Karl Rove’s playbook: attack Jack Murtha. Attack the messenger. That's the formula that works – it worked against Max Cleland, it worked against John Kerry, so it should work against Jack Murtha also. They want to discredit this man and discredit what he had to say because he had the temerity to speak truth to power.
In an administration that can't level with the American public and can't level with its troops, its only course is to attack the patriots like Mr. Murtha. Yet they don't criticize General Batiste, General Zinni, General Van Riper, and the five other generals who have spoken out against the war. Are they all wrong too for speaking truth to power?
Shouldn't we be talking about how we can collectively move forward in a new direction for this country, instead of a tried and true playbook of political jargon on a resolution that's non-binding, that’s only intent is political cover and fodder? In a one party town, where Republicans control the Presidency, both houses of Congress, and arguably the Supreme Court, they disallow dissent and abuse their power.
I’m proud to associate myself with Mr. Murtha and everything he stands for. The American people see in him what neither the President nor Karl Rove orchestrated puppeteers can tarnish – an authentic American willing to speak the truth.
|
