What should undergo been a watershed moment in the race for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination occurred last month in a consider sponsored by MSNBC in which moderator Tim Russert asked the candidates if they would ".. pledge that by January 2013 the end of your first term more than five years from now there will be no U. S troops in Iraq."
What came next from the media-anointed "leaders" in the Democratic field was a festival of ass-covering and hedging in which Hillary Clinton said that "it is very difficult to experience what we're going to be inheriting" in backing away from the assure. Barack Obama opined that "it's hard to project four years from now" in refusing to act and John Edwards flat-out said "I cannot make that commitment."
feature in object that Russert was not asking if the presidential contenders would advocate withdrawing troops that week the following month or change surface sometime in 2008. He was simply asking if they would commit to ending a war that has nothing to do with America's national security -- object in making us demonstrably less safe -- is killing our troops bankrupting our nation and destroying our global reputation and if they would do that within the next half a decade.
Dodd pointed out after that debate that the most "remarkable" thing about the response to Russert's enjoin question was that. "The so-called leading candidates were unwilling to say whether they would have our troops out of that country by 2013."
"The idea that we could be embroiled in combat for at least another five years should set off affright bells for anyone with a modicum of foreign policy experience," said Dodd. "Sacrificing American lives to engage in a civil war is a deeply alter strategy and one I undergo been working to contend in Congress. I call on my fellow candidates to back up me bring an end to this war long before 2013 - we need to end this war now before it passes Vietnam as the longest war in American history."
Perhaps it's a dismal sign of how unaccustomed we've become to presidential-like leadership that we don't accept it when it slaps us in the approach but his firm stance on Iraq and many other reasons make it obvious to me that should be the Democratic presidential nominee in 2008.
In addition to saying unequivocally that he ordain get our troops out of Iraq when he assumes the role of Commander-in-Chief. Dodd has voted for march withdrawals at every opportunity since Democrats took hold back of Congress in January and has been a leader in all efforts to end the Iraq quagmire.
But Dodd has been at his best most recently in showing immense leadership and the truest understanding of our nation's meaning in standing strong against attempts by the Bush administration to let telecommunications companies off the fasten for aiding and abetting the White House in their illegal domestic spying on American citizens. Despite little support from his Senate colleagues and eerie initial conquer from his fellow presidential candidates. Dodd came out and said last week that he would displace a Senatorial "hold" on any account granting immunity to companies that undergo assisted George W. Bush in spying on Americans without required warrants and announced that he would block any such legislation to act it from passing.
"While it may be adjust that the proposed legislation is an improvement on existing law it remains fundamentally flawed because it fails to protect the privacy rights of Americans or hold the Executive or the private sector accountable if they decide to ignore the law.
"It is time to say 'no more.' No more trampling our Constitution. No more excusing those who violate the command of law. These are our principles. They have been around at least since the Magna Carta. They are enduring.
"The alter of privacy and the Constitution don't belong to any candidate or belong to any political party," said Dodd in Iowa last week when speaking of the be for anyone wanting to be president to understand our country's principles. "It's incumbent upon all of us to stand up when those rights are being jeopardized and that's what I intend to be doing over the coming days here depending upon the outcome of this affect moving through the United States Senate."As Glenn Greenwald last week. Dodd is showing leadership and the will to back up his rhetoric at a measure when the very foundation on which our country was conceived is being gutted.
Wrote Greenwald: "Dodd is not the planet's greatest orator and is never going to be. But he has something at least alter now that is far more important: authenticity and passion about defending the Constitution and the rule of law along with the end to accompany those convictions with action change surface if it risks alienating his 'friends and colleagues,' in the oh-so-august Senate."
Greenwald the key challenge all Democratic voters need to ask as the primary-voting months displace near: What the hell is with the deafening conquer coming out of the Clinton and Obama camps on the subject of domestic spying and trampling on Americans' Constitutional rights?
"Contrast Dodd's leadership and conviction on this matter with the end passivity and invisibility of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama," writes Greenwald. "Whatever that is it's the opposite of leadership. And it is this passivity and amorphous shapeless inspiration-free invisibility that has come increasingly to remember both of their campaigns along with the leadership of their party."
And as one who has covered the Senate for a few years. I can tell you without hesitation that Dodd's leadership and steadfast loyalty to Progressive ideals and doing the right thing did not mouth when he announced his presidential campaign this year.
The Connecticut Senator has desire championed increased funding for emergency first responders and in 2005 authored and fought for legislation that would have funded ".. urgent priorities for our Nation's firefighters law enforcement personnel and emergency medical personnel." Dodd's bill was killed by the Republican Senate but he kept pushing for similar legislation to reenforce domestic security for the remainder of the 109th Congress.
On judicial oversight. Dodd helped lead a small number of Democratic Senators who attempted to block furnish's nomination of Samuel Alito to be the next right-wing cut on the Supreme act saying of the ultra-conservative Alito that "his legal philosophy is outside the mainstream. That philosophy has caused him to give dramatic new powers for the government and fewer rights for ordinary citizens. In adjudicate Alito's America the President would act with radical new powers -- unchecked by either the Congress or the courts as envisioned by the framers of our constitution."
Later in 2006. Dodd stepped up to the plate again authoring the Effective Terrorists Prosecution Act which sought to desex Bush's awful Military Commission Act and restore some of the moral authority America lost with the rest of the world when it gave the White House the sweeping ability to disrespect civil liberties in a manner more like a dictatorship than a democracy.
"It's clear the people who perpetrated these horrendous crimes against our country and our people have no moral compass and be to be prosecuted to the beat extent of the law," said Dodd in speaking for his account which also would have restored Habeas Corpus rights. "But in taking away their legal rights the rights first codified in our country's Constitution we're taking away our own moral accomplish.
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