More Deception From Mark Udall

On Sunday, the Denver Post published an article on the relative liberal standings of Mark Udall vis a vis other prominent members of his party. El Presendente did an analysis and we made separate observations.

The article was based on the prolific work of academic Kieth T. Poole. Dr Poole has created a mechanism for rating Congress, congressional leaders, and even presidents against their contemporaries, past and present.

While it appears that Dr. Poole cannot manipulate his statistics, the same cannot be said for active members of Congress. Congressmen need only change their voting pattern to move around on the tables

Sometimes politicians who are running for higher office feel the need to deceive the public as to where they are on the political spectrum. They do this by moderating their positions, their votes and their rhetoric in the hope that no one will look at their past record.

A good example in this election would be Mark Udall's dropping his co-sponsorship of Dennis Kucinich's Deprartment of Peace bill after he decided to run for the Senate.

Ace political analyist David Sirota opined in the Denver Post that no one one in Colorado would know who Dennis Kucinich was or care about this. We lampooned Sirota's argument with our "Nobody Knows About the Loon in the Attic" observations.

While Mark Udall has not moderated his rhetoric, he has tried to make his voting record appear more moderate.

Dr. Poole's statistics show Mark Udall ranked as the 182 d most liberal member of the 110th Congress. Colorado is a conservative leaning state. Ranking 182 of 435 puts him left of center in a left leaning Congress He is near the 40th percentile of liberalism in this Congress.

By voting this way in 2007, he could hope that some, including the Denver Post, would argue that Mark Udall is voting as a moderate in the 110th Congress. The Denver Post has a history of claiming that very liberal politicians are "moderate," and thus helping them over the finish line.

Is Mark Udall really this close to the center of a liberal congress? A very easy way to do a reality check on Mark Udall's voting record is to go back in time. According to Dr. Poole's statistics, Mark Udall's voting records driven standards for the previous congresses are:

109th 68th most liberal
108th 82d most liberal
107th 25th most liberal
106th Not Provided

These statistics make a compelling case that Mark Udall has again attempted to deceive the public. It is a habit, so much so that we have a "Udall as a liar" tag on this blog.

Loon In The Attic Drops Out

David Sirota's Loon in the Attic announced today that he is dropping out of the Presidential Sweepstakes. It seems that his day job is in jeopardy.

See you in Denver this summer, Dennis Kucinich.

Perhaps you and Mark Udall can stand together for a group hug and a photo op. If not, we do own Photoshop. How about a nice composite of the two of you walking down the street in front of the Peace Academy marching band? Were you a pot smoker, too? The photo in the Denver Post article could be easily modified to add a reefer. Carrying a banner really only requires one hand.

We have so many good ideas and so little time.

It Takes One's Breath Away

The level of naivete demonstrated by people who manage to become editors of newspapers is sometimes breathtaking. The editor of the Vail Trail has an amazing editorial promoting the loon in the attic's Department of Peace and regretting that Mark Udall lacked the courage to continue to support it.

How is that people — most of whom grow up with parents admonishing them daily to behave with peace and civility — can embrace messages that snicker at the notion of peace on a wider scale? Most people will live their entire lives without engaging in murder or acts of war and be happy for it. Yet when someone comes along and suggests more vigorous pursuit of this thing called “peace,” they are pilloried for it.

Not by everyone, I should hasten to add. But in this polarized and partisan world we live in, the ones yelling from the fringes are doing a good job of capturing our ear through the mainstream media. So when someone like Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich — who’s on his second go-around running for president — proposes a “Department of Peace” for the U.S., he is subject to the snarky attacks of those who believe the only way to demonstrate patriotism (or, at least, the best way) is to kill people, blow things up.

And when someone like Colorado Rep. Mark Udall — who is running for the U.S. Senate — is attacked (actually, the term now is “Swiftboated”) by a so-called 527 group for once supporting said Department of Peace, he is also ridiculed, painted as a pacifist who’s now willing to hold open the door for terrorists. (Sad to note here that Udall has withdrawn his support of the idea, no doubt a political calculation to fend of wussy-branding from his GOP rival.)

This retired Army Officer can only point to history. 1) Would a "Department of Peace" have kept the WWI Germans from declaring unrestricted Submarine warfare or discouraged the sending of the Zimmerman Note? 2) It seems that Chamberlain pursued peace with Hitler as hard as a politician could, and that worked, right? 3) Stalin thought he could buy peace with Hitler, too. 4) December 7th, the day that will live in infamy just passed, and a Department of Peace would have precluded that? 5) It seems that the North Koreans marched across the border without provocation or notice, supported by both the Russians and the Chinese. 6) The Vietnam war was preventable short of surrender-heck we had a war and still surrendered.

7) The Cold War ended not because we disarmed, but because we rearmed and rebuilt our armed forces under Reagan and the Soviet Union couldn't keep up. 8) Since Bin Laden's goal is a peaceful world wide caliphate where non Muslims convert or die, what would a Department of Peace promote but the date and time of mass surrender and conversion?

If Alex Miller is unhappy because people are snarky toward politicians like Mark Udall who promote, even temporarily, a Department of Peace, it might be because there are so many times in history where the price of peace would have been surrender and the loss of our freedom, a price many think a bit too high.

Alex Miller, and Mark Udall, we understand that there is a sale on prayer rugs in Vail this weekend. Maybe you can get your names embroidered on either end. Have you thought about how good your wives will look in burkhas? Oh, was that snarky? Maybe there is a reason. Snarky people intend to keep their freedom.

Mark Udall to Co-Sponsor This Too?

Mark Udall, as we have pointed out before, co-sponsored a bill to create a US Department of Peace written by the loon in the attic whose name David Sirota claims no one in Colorado knows.

It turns out that a couple of folks want to put the recommendation to establish a US Department of Peace in the Colorado Constitution.

Make no mistake. We would think for a second or two about signing the petition to get this on the ballot. It wouldn't pass, and even if it did, it would be meaningless. Think of the spotlight it will turn on Udall. It can only help to illuminate Mark Udall's unfitness for office. Maybe the loon in the attic will get some Colorado name recognition, too, just in time for the National Democrats to show up.

The reason we would only think for a second or two is that if this makes the ballot, it will give the folks who want to destroy the initiative process more ammunition.

Not to put a bug in anyone's ear, but the Green Party could attend a Mark Udall Town Hall meeting and publicly ask him to sign this. We would be more than happy to report on the outcome.

Nobody Knows About the Loon in the Attic

Today, David Sirota made the "nobody knows about the loon in the attic" argument when writing about a Mike Saccone blog entry.

Notice, his first reaction is the guilt-by-association move, pointing out that the bill Udall is pushing is supported by - gasp! - Dennis Kucinich. He seems to imply that this is some sort of political taboo - even though most people in Colorado have absolutely no idea who Dennis Kucinich is. And, of course, by Saccone's logic, any bill that Udall and Kucinich both voted for is some proof that Udall's politics are exactly Kucinich's politics. What a silly assertion.

It isn't just that they vote for the same bills. They co-sponsor each other's flaky bills. Take the bill that Kucinich wrote to establish a cabinet level Department of Peace, complete with a Peace Academy. Yes, it is wonderful idealism, but we can't afford idealists in Congress during a time when people are willing to fly airplanes into tall buildings or nuclear reactors. We had a lot of fun making fun of the concept.

Like this latest Mark Udall resolution, that bill didn't have all that many co-sponsors, but one of them was the Congressman from Colorado's second district. Even if a lot of Coloradoans don't know the identity of the loon in the attic, it isn't likely that it will remain a state secret in an environment where both candidates have millions of dollars to work with.

Sirota's next argument shows his contempt for those of us who have lived in Colorado more than the six months he has been here. Recall that he is writing about a Grand Junction blog and says about one of the most prominent politicians in that area, and one of the three or four most prominent Republicans in the state senate:

But what I find even more short-sighted is Saccone's obsessive focus on how Udall's resolution supposedly allows people like Josh Penry - again, a person who most Coloradoans have never heard of - to call Udall a "Boulder liberal.

Readers of this blog know that no Republican need call Udall a Boulder liberal. The msm and left wing blogs are doing it for them. Let them quote the scoreboard we keep. That's why we keep it.

Then Sirota says something astounding:

Any objective look at Rocky Mountain politics over the last few years has shown that these charges - whether they are "Boulder liberal!" or "Missoula liberal!" - are failing miserably. They just aren't sticking any more. That's not to say that Democrats shouldn't be wary of the brand, but the concept that these attacks are powerful vote-shifters is absurd.

If Bill Ritter and Ken Salizar had run as the liberals they have turned out to be, it is unlikely that they would have won. They ran wearing "moderate" burkhas and only dropped them after they were elected. One of the reasons we are keeping our scoreboard is to keep everyone honest.

Dennis Kucinich isn't the only loon in the attic, it would seem.

More Wisdom From The West

Mike Saccone of the Grand Junction Sentinel is having a war of words with the lefties. He comments:

So why is criticizing conservative talking head Rush Limbaugh a bad tactic ahead of the 2008 election? … In a nutshell: it does nothing to burnish Udall’s moderate credentials. Indeed, allying oneself with Congressman Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, on a resolution that will have no binding effect is, well, kind of a nonstarter. Sure it’s a principled stance, but it’s nothing more than that.

More importantly, it lets politicos, from Schaffer to state Sen. Josh Penry, R-Grand Junction, stand back and lob the “Boulder liberal” label * at Udall...

Nonetheless, it’s a political stance and an electoral risk [Mark ] Udall did not have to take.

This is the second Saccone essay on the subject. He got beat up by the local liberals and David Sirota on the first one. We like short essays, so we will take on Sirota (the commentator, who according to a gang of four colleague, grabs attention by standing on one foot and spinning. Picture him in a pink tutu with fuzzy yellow bedroom slippers.) in another post.

*Note that we normally kill links embedded in quotes, but the Saccone link was so full of wisdom that we left it in. (Yes, we are laughing as this is being written.)

Official Text of Udall's Resolution

The official text of the Mark Udall, (D) MoveOn.org, resolution against Rush Limbaugh appears on the Library of Congress site.

The list of original co-sponsors is also at that site. He couldn't even get Diana DeGette to sign on, which shows just how far out this resolution is ("where the buses don't run" as Brit Hume said about MoveOn.org on Sunday).

Not surprisingly, Mark Udall's ally in trying to establish a department of peace in the President's cabinet (no kidding), Dennis Kucinich, is on the list.

How Do You Spell Flake?

Gimmie an "M"...

I came home from the El Paso County Lincoln Day Dinner and told my wife, who didn't attend, that Dick Wadhams had told the crowd that Mark Udall had been a co-sponsor of a bill with Dennis Kucinich to establish a Cabinet level "Department of Peace!"

She told me that the story was so wild that I had best do some research before I wrote about it.

Research done!

These folks have thought this thing out thoroughly, what with a "Peace" academy located in San Francisco and all. The school song will be "Puff, the Magic Dragon. The school flower will be the marijuana leaf. The mascot will be the Prebles Jumping Mouse.

It will have its own versions of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, one based on the see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil monkeys, and another regarding student possession and use of bongs. The recent Supreme Court ruling notwithstanding, students will get higher grades if they wear "Bong 4 Peace" armbands.

The first academy superintendant will be Admiral Ward Churchill.

Football is far too violent for a peace academy, so when it "plays" the other academies for the Commander in Chief's trophy, it will simply forfeit.

Fatigue uniforms will be pink camouflage. Dress uniforms will be two toned similar to the Army's Dress Blue Uniform except that it will have light yellow trousers with a slightly darker yellow jacket. Where the Army Dress Blues has a cavalry yellow band sewn on the outside of each leg, the Peace service will have a florescent yellow stripe sewn up the back of its jacket, inside and out. Because of its emphasis on recycling, the expectation is that officers, upon resignation or retirement, can wear their uniforms and act as flagmen during road construction. Cynics have already observed that their education will best qualify them for that occupation.

Where other services call out "Bou yaah" and "Garry Owen" when saluting, Peace officers will simply say "chirrrp," answered by "tweet-tweet."

Of course we are having fun with this parody at Mark Udall's expense, but he is serious:

The secretary of the Department of Peace also would develop a peace education curriculum to include the civil rights movement in the United States, how peace agreements have worked to stop conflict and to work with teachers to help students work on peace through reflection and conflict resolutions.

A highlight of that would be a Peace Academy, which would provide a four-year course of instruction in peace education, after which graduates would be required to serve five years in public service in domestic or international nonviolent conflict resolution programs...

The department would be responsible for developing policies that address domestic violence, child abuse and mistreatment of the elderly, create new policies to reduce drug and alcohol abuse, protect animals from violence, develop new approaches to deal with gun-related violence and develop programs that address school violence, gangs and racial violence and violence against gays and lesbians...

Methods would include mediation, nonviolent intervention and encouraging communities, religious groups and nongovernmental organizations to develop initiatives.

There aren't ten honorably discharged veterans in the state who will vote for Mark Udall when they learn of this flight of fantasy. He can take as many photos with soldiers as he likes, but it won't help.