OK. So the fact is when it comes to saving lives and trying to make an impact, now, all of it can’t be just get the troops home, but make sure they have the equipment if you’re going to ask them to do that, that our guard and the reserves have the same thing that regular enlistees have.
That was something that Democrats brought and shamed this administration and the Defense Department was moving on and moving faster. Those have actually protected lives. Ultimate protection, get the kids out of there and get us redeployed as an—redeployed as an entire country and get us focused on squashing al Qaeda.
We want them brought HOME, Rahm, not properly armored and sent off to die for oil in a different country.
MATTHEWS: Congressman, during the Vietnam debate that went right through the ‘60’s and actually to the beginning of the ‘70’s, the Democratic Congress was very effective in educating the country to the cost of the war. The Fulbright hearings were very effective. Ironically, Robert McNamara, the secretary of defense in 1967 commissioned the Pentagon Papers and when they were published, they really did trace the causes of the war in a way that we can understand. It began the winding down of the war in terms of people’s commitment to that continued fighting.
Now, it seems to me the Democrats don’t do that. I don’t see a Pentagon Paper as being commissioned. I don’t see Fulbright hearing, I don’t see Newt Gingrich style special orders at night going against this war. What about the educational role?
EMANUEL: Well, first of all, just I think tomorrow is in fact—tomorrow is a hearing by John Spratt in the Budget Committee on an exhaustive take on the full cost of the war and the implications for America from here going forward. What the administration has set in play. That’s happening just tomorrow. OK? So I would recommend—I don’t know what you’re doing, HARDBALL is doing or what MSNBC is doing, but John Spratt and the Budget Committee is doing exactly that.
The full cost of the war cannot be laid out in dollars, you pin head.
Second is—I don’t want to go through all the names of everybody who has done special orders on the cost of war, that has done, and the entire point we have brought home, constantly, specifically on children’s healthcare, and the cost of the war is look at the priorities and choices that the administration has made, $200 billion more for Iraq, cutting $35 billion for kid’s healthcare, saying it’s excessive spending.
The last thing is one of the first bills I introduced, in this Congress when I got elected, six years ago, when I first got elected, called the American Parity Act. In fact, I have been on the show with you on it when I first introduced it and I introduced it again this Congress. Which is every dollar you invest in Iraq, reconstruction, hospitals, roads, schools, electricity, you have to do the same here at home so Americans do not feel like they were getting the back-end treatment and we were putting all our resources to Iraq.
Oh, great. So every dollar we give to Halliburton to not rebuild Iraq we have to give to Halliburton to not rebuild America? How the hell does this not encoruage a LONGER occupation?
And I thought that—not only did I think it was right, but it would show the choices that the administration was making to Americans to do. Which is part of the fight we’re having with the administration, which is why they want to veto veterans healthcare, they want to veto inspecting all the cargo, the hundred thousand community policing that the president is putting in a position where Americans are taking the back end of the short stick here as it relates to what he’s investing in Iraq.
MATTHEWS: I’ve been trying to defend the Congress, the Democrat-run Congress on air - no, I have—by trying to point out the fact that even though you have single or double-digit support right now is because Republicans don’t like Democrats and Democrats want this war over with. That’s why the combination of those negative votes hurt you in job approval.
Now, you’re saying that’s not the reason. You’re saying that the low number is because of something else? I think it’s because of the war. Why do we have the low job approval of Congress?
EMANUEL: Chris, you made a statement and I’m sorry if I corrected you on your own show, but you made a statement that’s why the people voted Democrats in. There were a lot of reasons. I would suggest to you come to the Midwest and you see economic hardship, that has as much to play—people sense a loss of health care, there’s a sense of retirement insecurity, there is job insecurity and income insecurity. If you’re saying that economic insecurity did not play a role in the election, I would recommend you .
MATTHEWS: Well, why are people mad at you, then? Why are the people mad at the Democratic Congress?
EMANUEL: Because they haven’t seen—Because they want—they want the type of change we’re bringing and they want it faster and more effective. And I’m as frustrated as them, but the fact is from minimal wage, to more assistance on veterans’ health care to college assistance, to what we’re doing on kid’s health care and the energy independence, they want to see it yesterday. And I don’t blame them for that sense of impatience.
