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Monday, February 19, 2007

House Resolutions and Demagoguery

Listening briefly to CNN panel discussion on the house vote on disapproval of the increase in troops in Iraq. Discussion was tolerable, but the interesting part was the Washington Times correspondent, mouthing the conservative party line that the democrats were 'micromanaging' the war effort. She was very clear, and repetitive, and gave absolutely no evidence for her statement.

thefreedictionary.com defines micromanage as " To direct or control in a detailed, often meddlesome manner." I'm sure Republicans in power consider this meddlesome, but I don't see the detail necessary to rise to the level of micromanaging.


The second sentence of the text of House concurrent resolution #63 (if I read the bill source correctly)
"Congress disapproves of the decision of President George W. Bush announced on January 10, 2007, to deploy more than 20,000 additional United States combat troops to Iraq ."

This is not micromanagement. Calling it micromanagement is demagoguery.

Interestingly, when looking up definitions of demagogue, ads for Ann Coulter's columns come up a lot. Coincidence?