'Kick them all out'
Sen. James Webb's tactic of minimum rest periods between deployments is just another congressional ruse to control the troop movements to and from Iraq ("Senate eyes Iraq pullout once again," Page 1, Wednesday). It is an asymmetrical approach to withdrawal rolled up in an iterative delaying tactic.
Rotation of deployments are a controlled cycle involving mission, end strength and logistics. Once Congress has control of the cycle, it is just a matter of increasing the time period to accommodate the withdrawal. Once again, this is a violation of the separation of powers. Congress has control of the funding; it is not the commander in chief.
The Democrats, along with the president, were handed their hats on immigration. To cover their ineptitude, they are once again diverting attention to Iraq. It's time to kick them all out.
Agate, Colo.
Sifting the tea leaves
It is deeply disturbing, but not surprising, to learn from former U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Richard Carmona's testimony before a congressional panel that his efforts to bring accurate, honest and complete reports about health matters to the public's attention were consistently stymied by the administration when what he sought to do did not comport with its political posture ("Top doctor says he was muzzled," Nation, Wednesday).
It is instructive to note that soon after Dr. Carmona issued a scathing indictment of second-hand smoke in a landmark report of June 2006, his period of service to the American people concluded, and he vanished without a trace. He was never publicly thanked for his service nor was the report on second-hand smoke even acknowledged precisely what I would expect from a president who belongs to a party that has traditionally been identified with Big Tobacco and that has accepted millions of dollars of the industry's tainted contributions. Why kill the goose that lays the golden eggs by leveling with the people about the danger of exposure to second-hand smoke? Why should the president be concerned about critical public health matters that impact mortality?
