 | I saw Seattle's favorite bug-eyed street corner lunatic/Congressman, "Baghdad Jim" McDermott, at a community forum in Seattle last night. He made a number of very interesting comments that are worth sharing. |
1. "When our kids go to Europe they all sew maple leafs in their packs because they're afraid to be seen as Americans"
Perhaps some do, but is it true that they all do? Or does the Congressman shape his world view only by listening to people who are ashamed of being Americans?
2. "We killed 25,000 Iraqi civilians"
I called the Congressman's Seattle office to ask where he got this number from, and the most accurate citation his spokeswoman could give me was to "go look in the newspaper". His Washington DC office wasn't any more specific. The anti-war website IraqBodyCount.net estimates an upper bound of 16,329 Iraqi civilian deaths from the invasion through today. Many of these deaths are attributable not to U.S. and coalition forces, but to the "insurgents" (car bombs, mortars, etc.). Perhaps when the Congressman says "we", he includes himself among the insurgents.
3. McDermott also mentioned that the number of civilian casualties has increased since the U.S. handed control over to the interim government. I asked the Congressman if he doesn't have confidence in the interim government would he rather put Saddam Hussein back in power? He went off on a rambling speech about how the President "lied" and that he, Jim McDermott, served in Vietnam. I interrupted him to say that he wasn't answering my question and I didn't ask about Vietnam. McDermott is and always was opposed the war, so did he want to put Saddam Hussein back in power? He became very angry and said "That's a stupid question. Maybe you should ask my opponent that question" Stupid question, perhaps, but he never answered it. Instead he said he objected to the war to remove Saddam and that There are lots of bad dictators in the world. We can't just go around removing dictators we don't like. It would be like me punching the lady over there because she was thinking bad thoughts.. He has a point, but I guess it should depend on how many hundreds of thousands of people the "lady over there" has to kill before the Congressman thinks it's okay to punch her.
4. Another person in the audience asked what the Congressman had ever done for his district. His answer: "The University of Washington is Number One in Public Funding. Number One."
When I called the Congressman's Seattle office for a definition and citation of "Number One in Public Funding", the spokeswoman suggested that I look it up on google. The Washington D.C. office was a little more helpful in explaining that the UW is "Number one for public colleges for federal grants". A spokesman for the UW explained further that "The University of Washington is the number one recipient of federal research grants among public universities, and has been for over twenty years". The other UW, my alma mater the University of Wisconsin, also routinely claims to be "the largest receiver of federal funding for research", so it all depends on what you count to be Number One.
In any event, the UW spokesman also indicated that "These grants are awarded in a competitive, peer-review process and it's hard to make the argument that it has very much to do with anything that Congressman McDermott has done.".
Baghdad Jim McDermott -- street corner lunatic or valuable public servant? We report, you decide.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at October 28, 2004 11:51 AMI think he's getting senile. But Carol Cassidy is also a loon -- she sincerely believes she can win.
I'm writing in Brien Bartels for that race.
Posted by: Jacqueline on October 28, 2004 04:28 PMOn point 2: 100,000 dead Iraqis seems to be a more appropiate total number.
Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Perle, Rumsfeld and the rest of the gang SHOULD go to jail.
And by the way: I wipe my ass with a U of Wisconsin banner.
Posted by: Sortling on October 28, 2004 08:04 PMI have galumphed around Europe (Greece counts, right?) twice in the last two years as an unrepentant American, and have not been as much as sniveled at. In fact, the Greeks were warmly hospitable, and the other furriners from W. Yurrup were likewise.
Only in the minds of lefties and the MSM lives the urban legend of the Ugly American.
And speaking of which, if anyone actually read the book of that name, you'd find that the 'ugly' character was the only one with the sense to get acquainted with the languages and customs and people of the far-off country he worked in, and how much of a success he was on account of it.
So to use a nuanced expression borrowed from the ever-more-sophisticated Europeans, Jim McDermott should p*ss off and retire.
Posted by: Insufficiently Sensitive on October 29, 2004 07:42 AMMcDimwitt caught lying again about Vietnam service, (what is it with dems and there inability to tell the truth about nam). McDimwitt is always talking about his 'nam service. 'Nam era vets make a very sharp distinction about serving in country, or in 'Nam, or Vietnam era service ie. not in 'Nam.
McDimwitt never served in country, he served as a Psychologist in San Diego during Vietnam. He is not a Vietnam vet. He is a Vietnam era vet.
Illegal wiretaping, lying, stupidity (Saddam is more trustworthy than Bush) etc... McDimwitt has got to go.
Posted by: JCM on October 29, 2004 03:31 PM
According to a study published in the Lancet (one of the most prestigious medical journals in the world) on 10/29/04:
Making conservative assumptions, we think that about 100000 excess deaths, or more have happened since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Violence accounted for most of the excess deaths and air strikes from coalition forces accounted for most violent deaths.
Read the full article and editorial comments (free registration required):
http://www.thelancet.com/journal/vol364/iss9445/full/llan.364.9445.early_online_publication.31137.1
Of course it is too late to put Saddam back in power and putting him back in power now would not solve anything. On the other hand, had we left him in power, fewer Iraqis and fewer Americans would be dead now and terrorists would have less access to deadly weapons than they do today.
There's reason to believe that the Lancet article mentioned above has some serious flaws. A detailed examination can be seen at this location:
http://www.chicagoboyz.net/archives/002543.html
Posted by: chunkstyle on October 29, 2004 06:56 PMHere's another source for Iraqi civilian deaths done by the Associated Press:
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/attack/2003/0610aptallies.htm
"At least 3,240 civilians died across Iraq during a month of war, including 1,896 in Baghdad, according to a five-week Associated Press investigation. The count is still fragmentary, and the complete toll - if it is ever tallied - is sure to be significantly higher."
100,000 is grossly ridiculous.
Posted by: penny on October 30, 2004 11:54 AMAh, it would almost be worth moving to the big city to vote against this loon.
Posted by: MamaGeph on October 30, 2004 03:57 PMThe real question should not whether Saddam should be put back in power but whether the Baathist should be put back in power. If people like Howard Dean or Ralph Nader had their way, the Baathist would be back in power within a couple of months, they would immeidately massacre anyone who helped the coalistion, they would massacre the Kurds who are close to having their own country, and the shia and sunnis would start a civil war that would kill a lot more than the 100K that the Lancet has fabricated.
Posted by: superdestroyer on October 30, 2004 05:45 PM