more (on the cowards and the REAL heros)

let's hope this is true and the dems have FINALLY taken their skirts off (mine has been off). why kerry didn't fight back when accused by the swift boat veterans is beyond me (well perhaps i DO understand. i have talked to people who were in both viet nam AND iraq and they really don't like to discuss their combat experiences). why we let the bushwhacked bunch get away with what they did and ARE doing, i don't know, i don't know, i don't know. when i run into my friend 'r' who is a marine (been to iraq and most likely going back in january), i back off a bit on my politics. he was there, i was not. i have seen him get in an argument with some idiot. 'r' was so upset at the things being said. i just couldn't do that to him. i respect him even though i do NOT agree with him. things are changing though - the GOOD news is, when he got back from his first tour over a year ago, he was all gung ho and bushwhacked could do NO wrong. i spoke to him a couple of weeks ago and he certainly sees things just a might differently now. he's NOT sure we belong in iraq and he's NOT sure bushwhacked has made the best decisions for our country. if he has to go back, he will, no hesitations but i think there will be many things unspoken on his mind.

Three days that transformed America
By MARTIN SIEFFUPI Senior News Analyst
WASHINGTON, Nov. 17 (UPI) -- On Thursday, a Democratic national politician for the first time managed to do what former Vice President Al Gore, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, their running mates and more than $150 million of Democratic consulting and campaign resources signally failed to do in more than five years and two national elections: He mauled President George W. Bush.
"The war in Iraq is not going as advertised. It's a flawed policy wrapped in illusion. The American public is way ahead of the members of Congress," said Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania as he called for an immediate U.S. withdrawal from that country.
"The United States and coalition troops have done all they can in Iraq. But it's time for a change in direction," Murtha said. "Our military is suffering. The future of our country is at risk. We cannot continue on the present course. It is evident that continued military action in Iraq is not in the best interest of the United States of America, the Iraqi people or the Persian Gulf region. "
Murtha's blistering speech Thursday could have been easily shrugged off if it came from Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, the late Sen. Paul Wellstone of Minnesota, or even Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York. But Murtha had been gung ho for the war and accepted the intelligence evaluations at face value that were presented to Congress arguing the necessity of it.
Now, he has transformed the political dynamics of the Democratic Party. He is the first prominent Democrat since former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean in his meteoric lightning rise and fall in 2003 to early 2004 to attack the president head-on on Iraq. In January 2004 in the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, Democratic voters overwhelmingly repudiated Dean's bold stand against the war and not a single leading Democrat since has dared to oppose it outspokenly and consistently.
But Murtha, who has no presidential ambitions -- at least not so far -- has smashed that consensus and that taboo. And he did so only weeks after the indictment of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice president Dick Cheney's longtime chief of staff in the Valerie Plame leak case, and within weeks of the U.S. military death toll in Iraq finally breaking the 2,000 barrier ..........