LEMMING OUT OF HERE!

“Cowardice asks the question, 'Is it safe?' Expediency asks the question, 'Is it politic?' But conscience asks the question, 'Is it right?' And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but because conscience tells one it is right.” - Martin Luther King, Jr.

Below are 25 elected officials who recently said one thing and did another. Yes, it goes on ALL the time in Washington - but in this case it involved a controversial, unpopular, and questionable decision on the part of our President to send tens of thousands MORE troops to Iraq - just in time, it turns out, to relieve all of the other quote/unquote "coalition" forces who announced this week they are pulling out.

This list of members of Congress is actually a list of cowards. Good, smart people who publicly criticized President Bush's escalation strategy prior to voting on it, but when it came time to make a decision decided to support it anyhow because that was the party line - essentially telling the American people that the solidarity of their political party is more important than a policy they don't agree with. They sure put the "I" in "Integrity" don't they?

Here are four fun examples:

Rep. Virginia Brown-Waite (R-FL): "It's too little, too late, and should have been done a year ago. ... I just get a feeling our country is being used."

Rep. Heather Wilson (R-NM): "I am not a supporter of a surge to do for the Iraqis what the Iraqis will not do for themselves."

Rep. Jeff Flake (R-AZ): "I have little confidence that a surge in troop levels will change the situation in Iraq in any substantive fashion. It seems clear that the violence in Iraq is increasingly sectarian, and inserting more troops in this atmosphere is unlikely to improve the situation.

Sen. George Voinovich (R-OH): "I am skeptical that a surge of troops will bring an end to the escalation of violence and the insurgency in Iraq...I'm absolutely against the surge."

But when all of their party members jumped off the cliff of escalation, they jumped off with them.

Party over country.

House

Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD)
Virginia Brown-Waite (R-FL)
Vern Buchanan (R-FL)
Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV)
Charles W. Dent (R-PA)
Jo Ann Emerson (R-MO)
Mike Ferguson (R-NJ)
Jeff Flake (R-AZ)
Rodney P. Frelinghuysen (R-NJ)
Bob Goodlatte (R-VA)
David Hobson (R-OH)
Kenny Hulshof (R-MO)
John McHugh (R-NY)
Candice Miller (R-MI)
Jerry Moran (R-KS)
Deborah Pryce (R-OH)
Mike Rogers (R-MI)
Edward Royce (R-CA)
Mark Souder (R-IN)
Tom Tancredo (R-CO)
Mac Thornberry (R-TX)
Greg Walden (R-OR)
Heather Wilson (R-NM)

Senate

Gordon Smith (R-OR)
Sam Brownback (R-KS)

Confucius say:

“To know what is right and not do it is the worst cowardice.”

Time to show these clowns the door.