The junior Senator from New York writes a letter

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In running across this and this I stumbled across this [pdf].

Hillary Clinton sent a letter to dubya today:

September 12, 2007

The Honorable George W. Bush
The White House
Washington, D.C. 20500

Dear Mr. President:

As you prepare to address the nation tomorrow, I write to request that you seize the opportunity and offer the American people a candid assessment of the challenges that we continue to face in Iraq and offer a change in course to your failing strategy….

….What you are planning to tell the American people tommorrow night is that one year from now, there will be the same number of troops in Iraq as there were one year ago. Mr. President, that is simply too little too late, and unacceptable to this Congress, and too the American people who have made clear their strong desire to bring our troops home, and end this war.

As Commander-in-Chief you have the authority and ability to greatly accelerate the redeployment of U.S. forces from Iraq, and to bring so many more troops home so much faster. I strongly urge you to choose this course of action.

Mr. President, it has been nearly four and a half years since you landed on an aircraft carrier and stood before the American people under a banner that read “Mission Accomplished.” Do not repeat that mistake on Thursday night. Do not misrepresent the facts about the situation on the ground. And do not portray an unavoidable reduction in U.S. troops to pre-surge levels that would occur anyway as a marker of success. Be candid with the American people. They deserve it.

Thank you for your consideration

Sincerely,
s/Hillary Rodham Clinton

Well, dubya can’t help himself.

It is nice to know some people will be calling him on it.

5 thoughts on “The junior Senator from New York writes a letter”

Clark said:

September 12, 2007 at 9:38 pm

Right now, she’s claiming that she will end the war when she becomes president, but she will in fact leave upwards of 40,000 troops in Iraq. That’s better than Bush, but being better than Bush is a low bar to hurdle.

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Michael Bersin said:

September 12, 2007 at 11:34 pm

I’m on one of Senator Barbara Boxer’s (D-California) e-mail lists. I just received the following:

Dear Michael,
Yesterday, General David Petraeus and Iraq Ambassador Ryan Crocker appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to deliver their report on the war in Iraq. It was a very somber hearing, and I did my best to convey our strong opposition to the President’s war in Iraq.
To hear General Petraeus tell it, you’d think things were on the right track. But let’s face facts: This has been the bloodiest summer for U.S. forces in Iraq since the war began — and despite the hard work and sacrifices of our brave men and women in uniform, the Iraqi government has met only 3 of the 18 benchmarks that they agreed to over a year ago.
This war is the biggest foreign policy mistake ever. President Bush took our nation’s eye off defeating the terrorists, led by Osama bin Laden, who killed thousands of Americans six years ago. We have lost thousands of American lives, thousands more have been wounded, and our military and our national guard and their families are being strained to the breaking point.
It’s time for President Bush and General Petraeus to take off their rose-colored glasses. Once again, they tell us that everything is going well, but a recent BBC/ABC News poll showed that 79% of Iraqis oppose the presence of American troops in Iraq, and 70% of Iraqis think that President Bush’s “surge” has made them less secure.
As General Petraeus told the Boston Globe in November 2003, “We want to be seen as an army of liberation and not an army of occupation…There is a half-life on our role here, you wear out your welcome at some point. It doesn’t matter how helpful you are. We aren’t here to stay.”
It’s time for President Bush, Congress, and General Petraeus to heed those wise words.
We are sending our troops into a country where they’re not wanted, into the middle of a civil war, into the middle of the mother of all foreign policy mistakes, with no end in sight.
Next week, the Senate will have another chance to begin bringing our troops home. I’m going to continue fighting as hard as I can to end the war — and I’ll be asking for your help to do just that. Stay tuned.
No more rose-colored glasses. We must end this war.
In Friendship,
Barbara Boxer
U.S. Senator

It looks like several Democratic senators are “on message”. I’m sure there are going to be plenty of other examples.

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The junior Senator from New York writes a letter

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