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11/25/2005:

"Three Who See Clearly"

Only three Democrats voted on the issue of the Iraq war, last Friday. The rest followed Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s directives, a continuation of her "strategy" of insulating the pro-war wing of the party, centered in the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), from the wrath of the party’s base, which is now overwhelmingly anti-war. For the DLC’s sake, Pelosi smothers the party’s progressive wing - of which she was once a proud member. Thus, the San Francisco congresswoman maintains the fiction of a united House Democratic front, to disguise the flaccid reality: the pro-war faction has veto power over Democratic Iraq policy - a veto exercised by Pelosi, herself.

Of the 42 Black Caucus members in the House, only one dared buck Pelosi’s discipline: Cynthia McKinney (GA), joined by New York’s Jose Serrano and Florida’s Robert Wexler.

The three faced the choice of defying Pelosi (and, in McKinney’s case, the CBC leadership’s similar attempts to put forward a face of unity without purpose) or to take advantage of the only chance available since October, 2002 to express an unqualified NO to the Iraq war.
blackcommentator.com