Since I know that the young lads at the various offices of Congressman Peter Welch are regular readers of this blog, let me take this opportunity to provide you and your boss with some free snarky advice: Please, stop talking about that silly little trip to Iraq and Afghanistan! It’s getting embarrassing. Because Peter’s just skating on the surface and trying to say one and one thing only: I was right and I’ve got power! Whatever. There is no one – repeat: no one – who didn’t know that he'd come back from that trip and say the exact same kinds of things he's saying. In fact, as you’ll recall, I predicted the words Peter would utter upon his return a week before he started the trip.
But Peter keeps making the rounds to every Vermont media outlet that will have him. Worse, he’s saying the exact same things at every stop – not realizing, apparently, that there’s lots and lots of overlap in the audiences.
My favorite standard Peter line is that he’s come back from the trip with a realization that “the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are different.” Yes, Peter, one’s in Afghanistan and one’s in Iraq. Wow. Smart fella. But the only real difference for those of us who look further than the superficial spin provided by the State Department is that both are a disaster. Sure, when – at this moment – you compare Afghanistan and Iraq, it may appear that the Afghan situation is all hunky-dory, especially when you get your information from the man being propped up by the U.S. military in Afghanistan, President Hamid Karzai.
Yo Peter, if you were to ask President Bush how things are going in this country, he’d say “super!” And would you believe it? Of course not, you dope. That’s why it’s important for you to put your thinking cap on before you go on these cloistered trips.
Peter’s latest stop on his Vermont media tour to say “look, I traveled!” landed him on WDEV’s Mark Johnson Show this morning. Lucky for Peter, he didn’t have much more than about 25 minutes to say the same kinds of bullshit he’d already said to every other member of the Vermont media. Because good old Mark was ready for some real questions. You know, things like, “But how could you make that determination after only two days in the country?” Bingo.
And each time Mark tried to poke holes in Peter’s “I’m so fucking important and smart” balloon, Peter declared that he was almost out of time. Yeah, doesn’t that suck when members of the media actually ask you to defend your nonsense?
The last question from Mark was the clincher for Peter, leading him to hang up and definitely get the hell off the phone. It came after he declared that the trip made him even more sure that the Iraq war is a disaster.
“Well,” asked Mark, “how could you be even more sure when before the trip you called it an ‘unmitigated disaster?’”
Gotta go, declared Peter… and – vrooooom – away he went.
But let’s step back and pretend Peter’s still available for some follow-up questions. Oh hell, let’s just make it ONE question:
If, as you say, it’s an “unmitigated disaster,” why did you vote to throw $124 billion toward funding it?
Worse, earlier in the interview, Peter declared that the “military strategy was a complete failure.” Okay, so throw them some more money! I guess Peter still thinks he’s a lawyer representing one of those poor schmucks who responded to one of his ambulance-chasing ads on television. Nope, he never wanted to tell them that it was hopeless either – not when these “complete failures” are so good for your career and – ahem – bottom line.
Please, Peter, stop the bullshit. You were in Iraq for two days – two days! You don’t “feel the pain” of the soldiers – unless you really want to stay and fight. You saw nothing but what was staged for you. And you’re embarrassingly just using the trip the way all your colleagues use such ridiculous trips: To promote yourself.
Just stop. Or, better yet, get real and do what common sense would dictate to someone who declared a situation an “unmitigated disaster” and “complete failure”: Stop funding it!
It’s really not that hard.
[Reminder: Email me with your tips, quips and comments at VtSnarkyBoy@yahoo.com]
