"But I wonder why the (Oregonian) failed to report on its front page the 403 to 3 House vote against pulling out of Iraq? Well, after all that is straight news is it not -- and there is no room for THAT kind of stuff mixed in the front page opinions at the (Oregonian), is there?"  -- Ross Smith

November 18, 2005 (almost exactly one year from the next mid-term national elections) -- No Reuters, no AP, no New York Times, no ABC-Washington Post and their paid for pollsters between you and the truth.  This was a publicly held tally of the on-the-record votes of every representative in the U.S. House at the time.  Politicians are not famous for being profiles in courage, particularly the liberal ones.  They will kiss any behind to keep their power.  Guess what kind of American public opinion their votes (instead of their lying mouths) described?  Here's the last tally we saw.  The numbers below do not add up to 435, which is the present population of the House.  They do add up to a conclusion, however.

No pullout from Iraq: 403
Pull our troups out: 3
(The other 29?  Some voted "present," which means they refuse to take a side on the question, and some were simply absent.)

Legions of lefties in the House (one named Murtha, in particular) wail about getting out, then when offered the chance by Republicans to put their money where their mouth is, fade away like fireflies in the dawn?  These frothing anti-war lunatics voted to stay in Iraq? 

Yup.

Once more, the truth shouts from behind a blizzard of leftwing Democrat media. From the Oregonian to the Boston Globe, once more, we see that all the rhetoric is so much crap.  The real polls, the elections and, in this case, actual votes in the U.S. House of Representatives, prove what the 2004 presidential election county map proved.  Liberals are criminally untruthful, not unaware of the truth.  They know whose sons and daughters have volunteered to go to war, and how many of them have served and volunteered to go to war again, and yet again.  And, they know something else, as well.

These volunteers come from Bush Country.

Some members of Oregon's Congressional delegation might be asked to explain themselves, here.  Not that the Oregonian, the Eugene Register-Guard or any of the broadcast journalism suckups who bend knee to the Left in this state will require it. 

We live in what the ancient Chinese called "interesting times."  (A period when the mettle of the people is tested, in usage expressed as an ironic curse.)  Scooter Libby is indicted for lying about a crime that never happened, Tom Delay is indicted for violating a law that didn't exist and Bush is indicted in the minds of the press for saying things previously said by every major political figure on the American Left, including former presidents and once and future presidential candidates. If Bush lied about weapons of mass destruction and Iraq's connections to Islamic terrorism, their identical lies preceeded his.  It is as simple as that. 

The noise, as we have predicted, is heading for deafening rhetorical ranges. Indictments of those trying to protect America fall like winter raindrops, and the old media treats them like convictions.  Each revelation of truth is treated like chemical waste, each false charge is treated like religious epiphany.  Each day, the din increases, the falsehoods pile up.  Each day the clear mind looks with amazed wonder at the attack on decency and reason, and asks how sanity can survive such a barrage.

Well, it will or it won't.  After years of alternative media like this magazine, you should now have the tools to decipher the code.  Even when you cannot locate the flaw in a news report, you can smell that it is there.  Armed with these weapons, you have as much chance of survival as any other soldier.  As much chance as we do here at the magazine.

2006 is the year.  The noise is about that.  About the makeup of the United States Congress. Almost every conservative  we've heard hold forth on the subject says that this is the watershed election for which we've been watching.  Watershed means "the source" of the streams and rivers which on their way to a lake or an ocean determine the productivity and beauty of the land through which they flow. 

2006 is being put forth as a watershed change, a turning point of major significance for America.  Conservatives suspect a further shift to the Right.  Democrats howl to the heavens that this is the year they will regain their traditional and rightful positions of power and control.  The direction we vote in 2006, both parties say, will shape our political future (control of the White House, the houses of Congress, state governors and legislatures, mayorships, courts, etc.)  for decades to come.

Somebody always says something like that about every election.  About the only way you can get some people out to vote is to scare the hell out of them, it seems.  But in this case, I have to admit the thought has crossed my mind.  This coming mid-term election really could change the planet for good or ill.  I can't present facts to defend that feeling.  There is only one thing I can say in support of it -- and it isn't a statement of fact.  It isn't even measurable.  It has to do with the intensity of the Democrats.  They seem on the verge of mania, these days.

How else can you explain the irrationality of their months of anti-war rhetoric followed by this overwhelming, shocking failure to vote for troop removal? 

This was a once-in-a-lifetime chance for some politicians to match their actions to their words.  Republicans mainly did and Democrats mainly did not.  I think the liberals smell danger ahead.   Ten more conservatives in the Senate, next year, and those gains, alone, could defang them for decades.  Hell, five more seats would pound the nail in the lid.

(LL)

© 2005 Oregon Magazine