Democratic hypocrisy

The latest round of Democratic hypocrisy comes from Rep. Silvestre Reyes. Here's his take on a troop surge before Bush announced his plans, from The Washington Times:

"We have to consider the need for additional troops to be in Iraq, to take out the militias and stabilize Iraq," the Texas Democrat said to the surprise of many, "I would say 20,000 to 30,000."

And after Bush's announcement:

Wouldn't you know, hours after Mr. Bush announced his proposal, Mr. Reyes told the El Paso Times that such a troop buildup was unthinkable.

"We don't have the capability to escalate even to this minimum level," he said.

Earlier rounds of hypocrisy include the reasons for making war on Saddam Hussein. Liberal Dems, including John Kerry, Bill and Hillary Clinton, and many other leaders, knew Saddam had and was pursuing more WMDs, and were very outspoken about stopping the threat Hussein represented to the United States and the world -- that is, until Bush went to war.

The same goes for the editorial pages of The New York Times, which, in the early and mid 1990s, wondered if we might have to fix the Iraq problem without the UN. After the war, The Times took up a position against Bush, in part because he went forward without UN approval.

Another round of hypocrisy was the social security issue. Many Dems are on record as saying the program is in serious trouble, that it is bankrupt (and this is true; social security is a pyramid scheme). The moment Bush announced plans to re-fund, Dems came out in droves (Harry Reid comes to mind) claiming there is no problem.

Politicians of all stripes are mostly devious characters interested in advancing their own power, money, and re-election prospects. However, I see many more problems on the left than on the right.

This is evident with the new power Dems yield in Washington. We were promised that business as usual in Washington is over, that a new era of responsible leadership had arrived. The "first 100 hours", which CNN wet its pants for, is already off to a rocky beginning. The anti-pork bill would only stop a very small percentage of pork. And the minimum wage bill had similar problems.