CvilleDems.Org

Virgil is the Energizer Bunny of bogousity (from TPM):

Of course, the idea that China is drilling off of Cuba and our coast has been fully debunked. See here:
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/40776.html

Even Dick Cheney has admitted as much:
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/06/13/cheney-admits-oil-lie/

The fault lines exposed by Virgil Goode’s mystifying vote in the House last week against the GI Bill, a bill that he co-sponsored, presages a deeper problem for him and other down-ticket Republicans this Fall.

It is the inherent contradictions of the mess that the Conservative movement has become as a result of the failures and corruptions of the Bush presidency.

Despite the cleaves exposed by the Democratic primaries this year, the fault lines of the GOP, bound up in the fundamental failure of the governing philosophy upon which the party’s electoral success have been based, are significantly more vulnerable..

Bush’s instance on fighting a war of choice while simultaneously enacting and maintaining personal income tax rate cuts has left Republicans without resources necessary to govern the country in any meaningful manner. Despite the so-called long-term Conservative strategy of “starving the beast” to reduce the size of government, the demand for all sorts of government services, and in wartime the necessity for them, creates an untenable situation that has reduced Republicans to fumbling for explanations as to why the largest deficits in history are acceptable.

The Republican governing philosophy, as practiced, has always been evident as nothing more than a Ponzi scheme of staggering magnitude, but there was no telling how long it could rhetorically and electorally continue to pass muster with voters able to access seemingly unending credit to finance it. However, the inevitable squeezing of that credit by financial markets, together with the undeniable incompetence of the Bush Administration, particularly in foreign policy, the emergence of the United States as a left-of-center country (sorry, George Will - look at the polls) on social policy, and the public and personal corruption which seems to permeate every nook and cranny of the Republican Party, have hastened the end and left the GOP with a single substantive issue that it believes stands a shot of resonating with the financially hurting, fed-up, independent-minded, decent voters who will decide this election in district after district: Democrats want to increase your taxes.

This is what explains the curious vote of Virgil Goode against a bill he co-sponsored.

The bill upon which the House voted last week differed slightly from Senator Jim Webb’s GI Bill - the bill that Goode co-sponsored after being called to account on the matter by Tom Perriello.  But both bills provided for a 3.9 percent pay increase for military personnel to take effect Jan. 1, as well as full scholarships to any in-state public university and other educational assistance for men and women who serve the military for at least three years.

At the insistence of Blue Dog Democrats, however, the House bill added an increase in taxes on income above $500,000 per year to pay for itself, a so-called “Patriot’s Premium.”

According to statement from Goode’s office, which did not respond directly to reporters’ phone calls on the matter, this was the provision against which he voted.

In fact, so did every Republican member of Virginia’s delegation.

I have been asking myself, why would Virgil Goode risk the adverse publicity of failing to support the troops in defense of this tiny amount of high-income earners?

Was it simply that Goode, with a Congressional salary of $165K plus an income-earning fortune of more than $5 million, might simply have been voting in his own self-interest? I doubt it. Even if he were to earn that much, and for all his faults, Mr. Goode is a honest person who doesn’t strike me as a legislator that would so blatently abuse the trust of the people he represents.

One explanation might be that when your only substantive issues are scaring folks, sometimes about illegal aliens, sometimes about Muslims and sometimes that your opponent will want to raise taxes, then you’re voting options are limited. You are, for example, simply unable to vote for any tax increase whatsoever, no matter how worthwhile the reason, without undercutting a main argument behind your own candidacy.

The media in Southside is beginning to notice. Last week, the Danville Register & Bee took note of Goode’s inconsistent stance in its story headlined, “Rocky Mount’s Goode votes no on soldiers’ education bill”:

While maintaining that he supports increased benefits for veterans, U.S. Rep. Virgil Goode voted against a House bill aimed at ensuring educational costs for soldiers, saying Democrats used it as fodder for promoting partisan politics. … “(The bill) as a stand-alone piece of legislation would have passed overwhelmingly,” Goode, R-5th, said in a written release, after he couldn’t be reached by telephone. “It is a good example of Democratic rhetoric about bipartisanship being untrue. This could have been a bipartisan effort.”

The Washington, D.C., Bureau of Media General News Service reports that conservative “Blue Dog” Democrats got on board only after the GI Bill was funded through what Democrats dubbed a “Patriots’ Premium.” The premium increases an individual’s taxes by a half-percent on all income above $500,000 and would generate an estimated $56 billion over 10 years.

“The Democrats created a package so that they could highlight the VA benefit and not mention the $10 billion in foreign aid and the tax increase on individuals and on individuals who own small businesses,” Goode said. … For his part, Goode said he continues to support any bill that benefits veterans.

“I suspect that the Senate will not adopt the Democrats’ tax increase provision, and we will have another opportunity in the House to vote on the legislation to give expanded educational benefits to our veterans,” Goode said.

This kind of honest press coverage in an area that has been a Goode stronghold in the district - Pittsylvania County, suggests that the first part of a successful campaign for Perriello - convincing the electorate that it can do better in Washington, DC than Virgil Goode, is clearly achievable. The R&B gets the story exactly right - At the end of the day, Goode voted against our soldiers because he politically beholden to a discredited ideology of governance.

Goode’s explanation of his vote is both convoluted and unconvincing. He is trying to square the proverbial circle.

Perhaps more revelaing than Goode’s actual vote on the bill, however, is his closing line that Democrats will give him another chance to vote on the bill. Perhaps GI benefits will come around again, and Mr. Goode can support it after he opposed it - that would be fine because it would help our military.

But the sad fact is that, as he implicitly acknowledges, Mr. Goode’s vote and his input is quite irrelevant to the outcome. This is not simply a matter of Democrats controlling the House and the Senate (which they will continue to do for the foreseeable future). Rather, Mr. Goode and other Virginia Republicans have removed themselves from the conversation because they have demonstrated a rigid ideological approach to legislation that is not suceptable to reason.

What good does this do for the people of the Fifth District?

Of course, it will be up to Tom Perriello to close the deal. He is a great candidate whose common sense positions are, like many folks down here in the Fifth, rooted in his religious faith. More importantly, he has lived his life consistent with those beliefs, fighting for ideals in which he believes on behalf of some of the most oppressed people on the planet.

At a practical level, Tom has proven to be an effective fundraiser. And he has put together an enthusiastic and dedicated staff that has creatively developed ideas to reach out to the community, such as by tithing 10% of their volunteer hours this summer.

It’s a long time to November, but it seems with each passing day the Perriello campaign looks stronger, and Virgil Goode looks more and more vulnerable.

Virgil Goode showed off his comic chops at the 5th District Republican convention on Saturday, April 26. There, Goode made the following promise:

 ”I have not been politically correct during my tenure in U.S. House of Representatives. If re-elected, I won’t be either.”

While the convention included other moments of similar hilarity, so too was it tinged with sadness as the GOP faces the chickens coming home to roost.

ShaunKenney.com does a wonderful job of live-blogging the convention. (Liveblogging is a style of blogging in which the blogger writes about an event contemporaneously with observing it.)

Goode touched on a number of other issues, including offering a preview of the Republican’s election strategy for the fall with a robust defense of the Mexican American War.

According to Kenney, the crowd was on its feet, chanting “”Virgil! Virgil! Virgil!”

I looked over the Perriello website, and as far as I can tell, Tom does not have a position on this conflict.

Seriously, I strongly recommend redeading the entire liveblogging session to everyone. It reads quickly. Some of it is just descriptions of party business, but it paints a sowworful portrait of the Republican Party in Virginia today.

Besides Goode, there was a speech from projected Republican Gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell, who cleverly quipped, “I’ve never understood Obama’s “hope and change” message… but now I get it, because you better hope you have change left after he’s done.” HaHaHaHaHaHa.

Jim Gilmore unwittingly argued against his own election as Senator by noting, “I’ve always done what I’ve said I’m going to do.” Unfortunately for the citizens of Virginia, that was the case when Gilmore was elected Governor.

All in all, however, based on Kenney’s account, the GOP seems like a tired and uncertain party bereft of ideas and aware that it lacks the confidence of the people in Virginia. It is trying to hang on by recycling the same old divisive issues and slogans, the same misdirection, that it recalls from its brief, shining moment in the sun a dozen years ago, but there is no energy behind it anymore. It’s as if they don’t even believe themselves anymore.

… on HR 2082 to a small paper in Southside, The Southside Messenger. For those of you who have not memorized the actual legislation behind Congressional bill numbers, HR 2082 was the law that prohibited torture, including waterboarding. The President vetoed it, and the House was trying to override the veto.

Goode, of course, voted against. Here is why, in his own words:

Some people don’t understand how this works. We vote on the entire bill, not on each page. I decide if the package is best for Southside Virginia and vote in the interest of Southside.

I have often suspected Virgil did not care about us up here in the C’ville area or vote in our interests, but it is still surprising to hear him confirm it.

VA-05 Democratic candidate Tom Perriello had the following to say in response to the testimony earlier this week by Gen. David Petraeus:

In light of the testimonies by Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker before Senate and House leaders, VA-05 congressional candidate Tom Perriello asserted that Americans are being offered a false choice in Iraq, and that the only solution there is a political one.

“Our generals have been winning battles but we are not winning the war because our political leaders have provided no plan for victory and ask the wrong questions. Gen. Petraeus is right that immediate withdrawal would be disastrous. But sticking with the Administration’s current policy is just as dangerous. We owe it to our troops to provide a new path to victory, such as the N.E.W. Plan for Iraq I helped launch in 2006. We need to shift the debate from troop levels and timelines to a new political power-sharing arrangement that can anchor a manageable peace without a U.S. troop presence,” said Perriello.

“The question is not whether the surge reduced violence. It is whether the surge moved the ball forward on solving the underlying political standoff that keeps us there. We need a solution, not a stalemate,” said Perriello.

More than 50 house and senate candidates across the country have signed onto the “Responsible Plan to End the War.” Tom was one the first dozen or so to be on board when the plan was revealed least month.

There is no longer any doubt but that the war in Iraq was a mistake that need to be responsibly ended. As Gen. Petraeus’ testimony showed, as as Tom Perriello has recognized, this war has been a failure of policy, not a failure on the part of our military. But it is the brave men and women of our military and their families that have had to bear the consequences of George Bush and Dick Cheney’s mistakes, and will continue to do so for the rest of their lives, long after this controversy has faded from our political debates.

All John McCain, Virgil Goode and the Republicans offer is 100 more years of the same failed policy. It makes no sense.

Alan