No more free ride for Ros-Lehtinen at election time

We’ve been demonstrating in the streets against them -- the three Republican members of Congress from Miami-Dade County. The Democrats up in Washington must have heard us: The Democratic Party is starting to run radio ads against the three for their support of President Bush’s veto of the SCHIP bill on children’s health insurance.

And true to their ghastly form, they trotted out all the tired adjectives and adverbs in response: “extreme left,” “pathetic partisan,” “distorting the truth,” “massively raising taxes.”

Don’t you wonder what they’d say if something really were wrong? Why don’t they say that about the disastrous war? The humongous deficit?

Hey, folks -- we’re talking about health insurance for children here. A ton of your Republican colleagues in the House voted for the bill that Bush vetoed. Are they all pathetic left-wingers too?

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee announced Tuesday it was buying ad time on Spanish-language radio to target Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (FL-18), Lincoln Diaz-Balart (FL-21) and Mario Diaz-Balart (FL-25).

"In their districts, Republicans are feeling the heat for supporting President Bush instead of the health care for Florida's kids," DCCC Chairman Chris Van Hollen said. "We will continue to go district by district to hold Republicans who continue to vote in lockstep with President Bush and against children accountable."

The name of the campaign is “Putting Children First." The initial ad buy is for one week.

The ad running against Lincoln Diaz-Balart says: "El Presidente Bush en contra de los niños estadounidenses. El Congresista Diaz-Balart tiene que tomar una decisión entre el seguro médico para 10 millones de niños o en continuar su apoyo a Presidente Bush, quien esta dispuesto a quitárselos. Dígale a Lincoln Diaz-Balart que escoja a nuestros niños."

English Translation: "President Bush versus America's kids. Congressman Diaz-Balart has a choice: health care for 10 million children or continue to stand with Bush to block it. Tell Lincoln Diaz-Balart to choose our kids."

Mario Diaz-Balart and Ros-Lehtinen have similar ads targeting them.

And of course, they’re running with a disclaimer: “The DCCC is responsible for the content of this advertising, not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.”

Which brings up the fact that there are no Democratic announced candidates for the three seats. Former Hialeah Mayor Raul Martinez has been in the news as a possible candidate against Lincoln Diaz-Balart, but hasn’t announced.

The election is still 13 months away. But the campaigns have started. Look out, you anti-kid Republicans! There’s a landslide coming!

The Miami Herald hopped on the story quickly -- a link to the Herald story.

Facebook group grows like topsy against Republican congressmen

They called it "South Floridians for New Leadership" and got it started on Facebook last week, Oct. 4. Its targets are the three Republican members of Congress in Miami-Dade County, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (FL-18), Lincoln Diaz-Balart (FL-21) and Mario Diaz-Balart (FL-25). Within a few hours it had more Facebook signups than its targets did, and now it's around 150. If you're on FaceBook, sign up and join. Otherwise, sign up for Facebook, and then join. Here's the link to the site.

Thanks to the students at Florida International University for starting the group.

Ileana Loves Bush

Pushing Rope notes the percentage of the time Florida Republicans vote in line with President Bush, one of the worst presidents in American history. Not surprisingly, Ileana loves Bush:

2007 - 65%
2006 - 85%

Our rep misses another chance to talk about the war

Here is what Ileana Ros-Lehtinen wants us to think about her, and it's up on YouTube where her smile and bobbing head make the viewer sleepy.

It's possible to comment on YouTube postings with another video. So, dear friends out there with video cameras, do you have anything to say?

We could start out by noting that she didn't say anything about the war.

For the record, Ros-Lehtinen is mentioned herein

This will take you over to the Miami-Dade Dems blog where our congresswoman from District 18 gets a brief mention. This blog is wondering why she apparently did not take the August trip to Budapest etc., where her Cuba policy gets more backing than at home. Has she lost her taste for joint politics with the Diaz-Balart brothers?

This blog also wonders when Ms. Ros-Lehtinen last held a town hall meeting to hear her constituents' concerns.

More on GAO vs. Ros-Lehtinen

Thanks to the Herald's Naked Politics blog for posting this link to the Think Progress website where you can watch video of the congresswoman's rambling and the tidy riposte by Comptroller General David Walker, who declares Ros-Lehtinen guilty of a "false claim" and also notes the lack of military experience of our current president, vice president and secretary of defense.

Delicious.

Gotta read Army Times for coverage of Ros-Lehtinen

The Miami Herald sees the polls that say the public doesn’t respect Congress, and apparently they stop covering our members of Congress. So thanks to a Yahoo! Alert, I got news of the Army Times story today reporting how South Florida’s own Ileana Ros-Lehtinen follows the military-industrial-complex script in questioning a witness.

“Lawmaker criticizes GAO over war expertise” was the headline on the story, and you can read the whole thing at this link.

At one point she said, “I’m not saying you’re bean counters.” Translation: You are bean counters. This is called a cheap rhetorical trick.

Problem for her was, the Government Accountability Office is supposed to look into student loan programs, not the war in Iraq.

So when witness David Walker, the U.S. Comptroller General, reported that the Army is “stressed, stretched, strained,” our representative in Congress said, “What in the world qualifies you to say that?”

Well, hasn’t everyone in the Pentagon been saying that? Where has she been? I guess our representative in Congress was over at the Leadership Institute learning the script, because soon she brought out one of the biggest neo-con talking points: The Good War.

“I just can’t imagine at one point during World War II, if we would have gotten a report from the General Accountability Office about whether we’re meeting the benchmarks on D-Day,” she was quoted as saying, and here she must have wandered off in her mind because the Army Times report says she then wondered about the effect on public morale.

She attacks the credibility of the GAO rather than the war it was tasked (by Congress) to examine, and a Democrat from Texas, Gene Green, reminded her of that and added, “You’re attacking the messenger instead of the message.”

Yes, she was over there learning the neo-con script, which of course features attacking the messenger right up with cheap rhetorical tricks and mentioning The Good War in the chapter about pulling the wool over the public’s eye.

Maybe it’s too hard for the Miami Herald to write about this stuff without laughing. Problem is, though, it’s too serious. Thank you, Army Times.

UPDATE: Was I too quick to nag the Herald on this topic? One hour and 17 minutes after I put up this post on Miami-Dade-Dems.blogspot.com the Herald's Naked Politics blog posted something, too -- noting that Ros-Lehtinen is catching heck from the blogs for her treatment of the GAO.

UPDATE II: My friend Dave Patlak invites all to assemble near Ros-Lehtinen's office next Tuesday, Sept. 11, and urge her to do the right thing when it comes time to vote on bringing the troops home. The time is 4-7 p.m. at 8660 W. Flagler St. (at 87th Avenue), Miami.