Super Bowl Special: For African-Americans, This Year's Game Is a Much Bigger Deal Than You Think

Talk About Making History: Not Only Are Both Super Bowl Teams Being Led For the First Time By Black Coaches, But the Game Itself is Being Held During Black History Month -- And On the 30th Anniversary of the 'Roots' TV Miniseries, No Less

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DEAR READERS: In a break from my usual commentary, I've chosen to present the following article to commemorate the special historic significance of this year's Super Bowl in Miami. My next regular commentary will be posted next Monday, February 19. Enjoy the game! -- Skeeter Sanders

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SATURDAY SPECIAL
By Errin Haines and Steven Wine
The Associated Press

With two African American head coaches leading their respective teams in the Super Bowl for the first time, the historic accomplishment presents a welcome dilemma for many black football fans: Which one do you root for?

Many are not picking sides in Sunday's game — they see Indianapolis Colts Coach Tony Dungy and Chicago Bears Coach Lovie Smith's presence in the NFL's biggest game as a win-win situation.

"We can't lose," said New York University history professor Jeffrey Sammons, who studies sports and race.

Black coaches led two of the four teams that reached the NFL's conference title games, so the odds were good that one would make history and become the first black coach in the Super Bowl. Many African American fans without team allegiances prepared to root for either Dungy or Smith over a white rival.

But with Dungy and Smith set to oppose one another in the NFL's championship game -- which is taking place on the first weekend of Black History Month -- many black fans are deciding who to pull for on even more trivial criteria.

In Atlanta, a city often regarded as a bellwether for African American popular culture, the topic has been on the minds of many blacks for days.

Some Are Even Calling This Year's Game the "Soul Bowl"

Music artist Greg Xmaz idolized former Chicago Bears defensive lineman William "The Refrigerator" Perry as a child, so the 25-year-old plans to root for Perry's old team. "He was a black man that was very successful when I was growing up as a kid. And he was fat and I was fat. It was something I could relate to," Xmaz said.

Xmaz showed off a T-shirt that read "Soul Bowl I: The First African American Super Bowl Coaches," with photos of Dungy and Smith.

Andre Wiggins, an accountant, has rooted for Dungy for a couple of years, hoping the black coach would finally get his chance. Wiggins said he had the same feeling of pride when Redskins quarterback Doug Williams led his team to win Super Bowl XXII, becoming the first black quarterback to do so nearly 20 years ago.

Wiggins, 38, said he likes Dungy because he has helped other black coaches break into the field, including Smith, who was an assistant to Dungy when he coached at Tampa Bay. "I like to see black people do well," Wiggins said.

Colleague Mike Holley said he will be looking farther down the sidelines to see which coach has the greatest number of African Americans on his coaching staff. In a league where 70 percent of the players are black, nine of the Colts' 17 coaches are black, as are seven of the Bears' 19 coaches.

Fans Raise Issue of of Blacks In NFL's Management Ranks

Radio personality Ryan Cameron brought up the topic on Atlanta's V-103 FM last week after hearing two black women discussing the issue in an elevator. On the show, Cameron said the callers — predominantly African American women — were very passionate about the subject, whether or not they were football fans.

"For somebody who's not a sports fan, they've got to have a reason to root," said Cameron. "In today's society, race is still an issue, even though we try to say it's not as big a deal anymore." The fact that Sunday's game is also being held on the 30th anniversary of the "Roots" television miniseries about the late author Alex Haley's African American ancestors wasn't lost on Cameron, either.

Reggie Green, an architect who was a newborn baby when "Roots" first aired, said he will cheer for Chicago, but said he's just out for a good name for blacks. "It's always a black thing for me, even if it's ice skating," he said.

Tyrone Buckner, a 37-year-old accountant in Atlanta, said the issue in this year's Super Bowl is one of African American pride. "We know that a black man's gonna win the Super Bowl," he said.

The "Roots" miniseries, which aired on ABC on eight consecutive nights in February 1977, attracted a then-unprecedented 130 million viewers, according to the Nielsen television ratings service. Officials of both the NFL and CBS, which is broadcasting Sunday's game, expect that record to fall, with as many as 150 million viewers -- 50 percent of the nation's population -- expected to watch the game.

A Proud Moment For the Coaches, Too

Posing for photos Friday alongside the Lombardi Trophy, Dungy wore a blue suit and slight smile. Smith wore a gray suit and his game face. Kickoff was only 57 hours away. A new wrinkle in the Super Bowl week routine, added months ago, briefly brought the coaches together during their morning news conferences.

It's believed to be the first time the two Super Bowl head coaches have posed together with the championship trophy before the game. The pictures will commemorate the Super Bowl's first black head coaches — who also happen to be close friends. When the photo session ended, they shook hands and hugged, and Smith departed.

"It's a proud moment for me, an awesome moment," Dungy said, "not only because of what that symbolized for African American people and African American coaches, but more than that because of who I was standing with."

Their relationship dates to 1996, when Dungy hired Smith to coach linebackers for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. They have been the lead story all week, discussing daily the laid-back demeanor and Christian faith they share, as well as their groundbreaking achievement.

Like Dungy, Smith was pleased to pose with his friend — a genial moment before the biggest game of their careers.

"This is a different week," Smith said. "We have two black head coaches leading our teams. We're doing things a little bit differently. You can respect an opponent and have a relationship with them before and after the game. That's how we're doing it."

They've crossed paths at several functions this week, but may not see each other again until Sunday. The Colts playing in their first Super Bowl since they moved to Indianapolis from Baltimore in 1984, while the Bears seek their first NFL title since they smothered the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XX in 1986.

During their final pregame media session, the coaches answered questions posed by reporters from such exotic locales as France, Germany, Hungary and Tyler, Texas. Smith recalled growing up in Big Sandy, Texas, where he led the Wildcats to three consecutive state championships — and envisioned taking part in the Super Bowl.

"At Big Sandy, we won just about every game," Smith said. "It helps you to picture winning wherever you are. You wanted to end up here. This is where the true champion is crowned."

For NFL, A Chance to Exorcise an Ugly Ghost: The Super Bowl Riots of 1989

For the NFL, holding this year's game in Miami is also an opportunity to exorcise a ghost -- and a much uglier chapter of African American history -- that has haunted the league since 1989. It was in the days leading up to Super Bowl XXIII, also in Miami, when the city's African American neighborhoods of Liberty City and Overtown were swept by rioting.

The violence was in response to a white off-duty police officer shooting and killing a fleeing black motorcyclist on Martin Luther King Jr. Day two weeks earlier. His passenger, who was also shot, died in the hospital a day later.

Players preparing to compete in the Super Bowl struggled to cope. The Cincinnati Bengals, who stayed at the Omni International Hotel -- just six blocks from Overtown -- could see fires from their rooms and were cautioned not to leave the hotel.

Cincinnati quarterback Boomer Esiason said, 'What's going on out there is life. It makes you ask yourself, `What does football really matter?' ''

In addition to questions about the game, players were asked about the morality of the NFL shielding its players from the violence rather than using the Super Bowl to try to quell the riots.

Bengals guard Max Montoya preferred players not interject themselves into the uproar. ''It's not the place for the NFL or its players,'' Montoya told reporters. ``It's a deeply rooted problem for the city, a lot deeper than football.''

Five days before the Super Bowl, following a trip to the theater, Cincinnati Bengals defensive back Solomon Wilcots said: "A bunch of us went to see [the movie] 'Mississippi Burning' and came back to see Miami burning.''

Two days before kickoff, vendors began selling T-shirts with the slogan: I survived Miami '89: It was a riot.''

The Bengals didn't survive the game, however. They lost to the San Francisco 49ers, 20-16.

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(Sara Rothschild of The Miami Herald contributed to this report.)

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Volume II, Number 9
Saturday Special Copyright 2007, The Associated Press.
"The 'Skeeter Bites Report" Copyright 2007, Skeeter Sanders. All Rights Reserved.

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Worries Mount of Bush 'Spoiling for a War' With Iran

Senators of Both Parties Warn White House Against Spreading Hostilities Beyond Iraq and Insist on Diplomacy In Dealing With Tehran

WEDNESDAY NEWS EXTRA
By Ann Geran
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- Republican and Democratic senators warned Tuesday against a drift toward war with an emboldened Iran and suggested the Bush administration was missing a chance to engage its longtime adversary in potentially helpful talks over next-door Iraq.

"What I think many of us are concerned about is that we stumble into active hostilities with Iran without having aggressively pursued diplomatic approaches, without the American people understanding exactly what's taking place," Senator Barack Obama (D-Illinois) told John Negroponte, who is in line to become the nation's No. 2 diplomat as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's deputy.

Obama, an all-but-declared candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008, warned during the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing that senators of both parties will demand "clarity and transparency in terms of U.S. policy so that we don't repeat some of the mistakes that have been made in the past," a reference to the faulty intelligence underlying the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Negroponte Won't Rule Out Military Action Against Iran

Senator Chuck Hagel (R-Nebraska) -- himself a possible Republican presidential candidate -- asked Negroponte if he thinks the United States is edging toward a military confrontation with Tehran. In response, Negroponte repeated President Bush's oft-stated preference for diplomacy, although he later added, "We don't rule out other possibilities."

Separately, the Navy admiral poised to lead American forces in the Middle East said Iran wants to limit America's influence in the region.

"They have not been helpful in Iraq," Admiral William Fallon told the Senate Armed Services Committee. "It seems to me that in the region, as they grow their military capabilities, we're going to have to pay close attention to what they do and what they may bring to the table."

The Bush administration has increased rhetorical, diplomatic, military and economic pressure on Iran over the past few months, in response to Iran's alleged deadly help for extremists fighting U.S. troops in Iraq and the long-running dispute over Iran's nuclear program.

Bush said Tuesday the United States "will deal with it" if Iran escalates military action inside Iraq and endangers American forces. But, in an interview with ABC News, Bush emphasized this talk signals no intention of invading Iran itself.

Bush Admits Iran Intelligence Under Suspicion After Iraq Fiasco

A day earlier, the president acknowledged skepticism concerning U.S. intelligence about Iran, because Washington was wrong in accusing Iraq of harboring weapons of mass destruction before the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. "I'm like a lot of Americans that say, 'Well, if it wasn't right in Iraq, how do you know it's right in Iran,'" the president said.

Washington accuses Iran of arming and training Shiite Muslim extremists in Iraq. U.S. troops have responded by arresting Iranian diplomats in Iraq, and the White House has said Bush has authorized U.S. troops to kill or capture Iranians inside Iraq.

The United States also accuses Iran of secretly developing atomic weapons — an allegation Tehran denies. Iran's refusal to suspend uranium enrichment lead the U.N. Security Council to impose limited economic sanctions.

Senators Exasperated with Bush's Refusal to Dialog With Iran and Syria

Senators -- including Hagel, George Voinovich (R-Ohio) and Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph Biden (D-Delaware)-- sounded frustrated with the administration's decision not to engage Iran and fellow outcast Syria in efforts to reduce sectarian violence in Iraq.

Negroponte, a career diplomat who is leaving a higher-ranked job as the nation's top intelligence official, gave only a mild endorsement of the administration's diplomatic hands-off policy toward Damascus and Tehran.

Negroponte would lead the department's Iraq policy if confirmed, as expected. He said Syria is letting 40 to 75 foreign fighters cross its border into Iraq each month and repeated the charge that Iran is providing lethal help to insurgents fighting U.S. forces in Iraq. Iran and Syria are not helping promote stability and peace in Iraq and understand what the United States and other nation expect of them.

"I would never want to say never with respect to initiating a high-level dialogue with either of these two countries, but that's the position, as I understand it, at this time," Negroponte said.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is expected to approve Negroponte quickly for a job vacant since July.

Europe Rebuffs U.S. Drive to Islolate Iran Economically

Meanwhile, European governments are resisting Bush administration demands that they curtail support for exports to Iran and that they block transactions and freeze assets of some Iranian companies, The New York Times reported Tuesday, quoting officials on both sides.

The resistance threatens to open a new rift between Europe and the United States over Iran.

The newspaper quoted Bush administration officials as saying that a new American drive to reduce exports to Iran and cut off its financial transactions is intended to further isolate Iran commercially amid the first signs that global pressure has hurt Iran’s oil production and its economy. There are also reports of rising political dissent in Iran.

In December, Iran’s refusal to give up its nuclear program led the United Nations Security Council to impose economic sanctions. Iran’s rebuff is based on its contention that its nuclear program is civilian in nature, while the U.S. and other countries believe Iran plans to make nuclear weapons.

At issue now is how the resolution is to be carried out, with Europeans resisting American appeals for quick action, citing technical and political problems related to the heavy European economic ties to Iran and its oil industry, The Times reported.

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Volume II, Number 9
Wednesday News Extra Copyright 2007, The Associated Press
"The 'Skeeter Bites Report" Copyright 2007, Skeeter Sanders. All rights reserved.

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Congress Must Tell Bush: 'How Are You Going to Pay for Iraq Troop Buildup?'

Bush Stubbornly Sticking With Iraq War Escalation, Despite the Overwhelming Opposition of the American People, So Congress Can Stop the Buildup Only By Refusing to Fund It

By Skeeter Sanders

After delivering his State of the Union address last Tuesday, it should by now be obvious to all Americans that President Bush is determined to escalate the war in Iraq -- and possibly expand it to Iran -- no matter what the overwhelming majority of the American people and their newly-elected representatives in Congress say.

So it should become equally obvious that, short of removing Bush from office by the impeachment process, the only way to stop the president from defying the American people's will is for Congress to exercise its constitutional authority to control the federal pursestrings and deny funding for the buildup.

And the Republicans need to be sent an unmistakable message that their stubborn support for Bush and his troop buildup will doom them to remain a minority in Congress and in the broader American political landscape for a generation or longer if they don't wake up and stop ignoring the American people's clear message that our troops should not be in the crossfire of a sectarian war pitting Sunni Muslims against Shia Muslims and that now is the time to begin the process of bringing them home.

Congress is due to vote in early February on a non-binding motion condemning the war, with Democrats and Republicans busy preparing other draft resolutions even as the violence in Iraq claimed more lives with at least 61 killed across the country on Sunday.

These non-binding resolutions are, in this blogger's opinion, chicken manure. It's time for this Congress, elected by the American people on November 7 of last year with a clear mandate to change this country's course on Iraq, to do what the people elected them to do. Since the White House refuses to listen to the American people and change course, Congress must do so.

No $$$ For Iraq Troop Buildup!

And the first thing Congress must do to change course in Iraq is to stop the president's troop buildup by refusing to fund it. The White House has submitted a request for another $100 billion to finance the war. Congress must impose discipline on this administration by barring any funds to escalate the war by sending in more troops.

This blogger has argued that Bush didn't send in enough troops in the first place. But now, nearly four years after the invasion, a sectarian civil war is engulfing Iraq -- despite the White House's stubborn refusal to recognize it as such -- and sending in more American troops now will only guarantee Iraq turning into another Vietnam. To a great degree, it already has.

Senator Joseph Biden (D-Delaware), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee -- which passed a resolution Wednesday declaring the president's Iraq troop buildup "not in the national interest" -- warned that tougher measures were likely to follow. "Unless the president demonstrates very quickly that he is unlikely to continue down the road he's on, this will be only the first step," he said. "I will be introducing . . . constitutionally legitimate, binding pieces of legislation. We will bring them up."

War of Words Between Cheney, Biden

In an interview published this week in Newsweek, Vice President Dick Cheney insisted that it's too early to pass judgement on the troop buildup and that it must be allowed time to work. "People are trying to make a judgment on whether or not this plan is going to work I think far too early," he said. "And I think in fairness to the Iraqis, they need to be given an opportunity to follow through on their commitments."

Cheney flatly rejected calls for a U.S. troop withdrawal, insisting that "Iraq would collapse into chaos and the United States would lose stature in the world."

Biden challenged Cheney's doomsday predictions."It's not the American people or the United States Congress who are emboldening the enemy," he told Fox News."It's the failed policy of this president, going to war without a strategy, going to war prematurely, going to war without enough troops, going to war without enough equipment, and lastly, now sending 17,500 people in the middle of a city of 6.5 million people with bulls-eyes on their back with no plan!"

Where's Cheney Been? What He Fears Already Is Reality

Just where the hell has Cheney been? On Mars? Iraq already has collapsed into chaos and the U.S. already has lost stature in the world. Only yesterday (Sunday), mortar shells rained down on a girls' secondary school in a mostly Sunni Muslim area of western Baghdad, killing five pupils and wounding 20. Witnesses and police said at least seven other people died in a series of bombings and shootings across the capital, mostly in Shia Muslim areas.

Meanwhile, two car bombs exploded within a half-hour of each other in the northern oil city of Kirkuk, killing a total of 11 people and wounding 34. Brigadier General Sarhad Qader of the Iraqi National Police told The Associated Press that the first blast, which killed six and wounded 19, occurred at a popular car market and the second went off near a restaurant.

And as for America's stature in the world, I've got a newsflash for the vice president: We lost that many months ago. Indeed, we lost it four years ago. Remember all those demonstrations around the planet opposing our invasion of Iraq before Bush launched it in March 2003?

Cheney has clearly forgotten that, in sharp contrast to Operation Desert Storm in 1991, which saw 28 nations, including several Arab ones, join in the drive to oust Saddam Hussein's army from Kuwait, Operation Iraqi Freedom saw only one other country -- Britain -- join in the invasion to topple Saddam Hussein's regime.

And whereas the 1991 Gulf War was authorized by a unanimous vote of the United Nations Security Council, the 2003-present Iraq War was carried out without the support -- even with the open opposition -- of the international community. If that doesn't constitute a loss of stature for the U.S., then I don't know what does.

So this blogger wonders just what the hell is the vice president talking about.

Biggest Anti-War Protest in D.C. Since Vietnam

Emboldened by the November 7 election which saw the Democrats take back control of Congress after 12 years -- primarily because of mounting public opposition to the war -- tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets of Washington Saturday to denounce the president's plan to send 21,500 more troops to Iraq and demand an end to the war.

It was the largest anti-war demonstration in the nation's capital since Vietnam -- and it drew a veteran of the anti-Vietnam War protests: actress Jane Fonda.

"I haven't spoken at an anti-war rally in 34 years," said Fonda, whose 1972 visit to the then-North Vietnamese capital of Hanoi outraged many conservative Americans and damaged her acting career. "But silence is no longer an option," she told cheering protesters.

The crowds rallied at the foot of the Capitol, chanting, "Bring the troops home now!" and waving banners reading: "Escalation in Iraq? Wrong Way."

Bush's Approval Rating Now Worse Than His Father's in '92 -- And Nearing Nixon's All-Time Low in '74

The protest comes as the president's approval rating hits it lowest level ever in a Newsweek poll published Sunday, in which only 30 percent of Americans said they approved of Bush's job performance -- two points lower than his father's vote percentage in his 1992 loss to Bill Clinton and only one point higher than Richard Nixon's all-time record-low approval rating of 29 percent at the height of the Watergate scandal in 1974.

The new ratings also mark the worst collapse of public approval of a president's job performance -- down from a high of 83 percent at the beginning of 2002 -- since the elder Bush fell from an all-time record high of 91 percent in 1991, in the immediate aftermath of the Gulf War, to 32 percent the following year, when the U.S. economy was mired in a recession.

A hefty 71 percent of those surveyed said Bush would not have enough support over the next two years to "make a difference" in carrying out his decisions, compared with just 21 percent who said he did.

Cheney Must Go -- He's Clearly Out of Touch With Reality on Iraq

Cheney's approval ratings are even worse -- a record-low 24 percent. It's a good thing for the Republican Party that Cheney isn't going to mount a run for the White House next year. His age (at 70, Cheney would be two years older than Ronald Reagan when he won the presidency in 1980) and his health (four heart attacks and two bypass surgeries) effectively bar him from running anyway. But at this point, Cheney couldn't get elected dogcatcher.

Indeed, this blogger, for one, has had it with the vice president's open defiance of of Congress and the American people, not only on Iraq, but also on the administration's clearly unconstitutional means of fighting against terrorism by spying on Americans without court warrants.

That Cheney chooses to remain steadfast in his belief that the United States must stay and fight in Iraq, despite his party's shellacking in last November's election -- as well as his obscene exercise of power far beyond what the Constitution calls for in a vice president -- makes it clear that he is unfit to remain in his post and that he must either resign or be impeached.

Much of Administration's Policies Were Cheney's Ideas

This blogger firmly believes that the impetus to invade Iraq was Cheney's idea in the first place, even though Bush had a personal motive to avenge Saddam's attempt to assassinate his father during a visit to U.S. troops in Kuwait in 1993 -- and it is this blogger's firm belief that it is the vice president who is behind the Bush administration's insistence on escalating the war -- to the continued distraction away from the broader fight against terrorism.

This blogger also firmly believes that it is Cheney who was the mastermind of the administration's controversial warrantless electronic eavesdropping program on Americans' telephone and Internet communications, in clear violation of the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution.

With Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld gone, Cheney is now the undisputed
"godfather" of the neoconservatives in the Bush administration. Driven by what he saw as a weakening of the executive branch following the Watergate scandal that brought down President Richard Nixon in 1974, Cheney has been on a relentless crusade ever since to amass greater and greater powers for the executive branch -- even as he realized that, at age 69 and in less-than-ideal health, he would likely never become president himself.

Cheney is exercising power far beyond what the Constitution calls for in a vice president. Indeed, a vice president's only real duties under Article II of the Constitution is to preside over the Senate, casting the deciding 51st vote in event of a 50-50 tie among the 100 senators.

The Puppetmaster: Cheney Pulling Bush's Strings?

It is time to take a much closer look at Cheney. This blogger has believed from Day One of this administration that Cheney is the real power behind the throne -- the Darth Vader to Emperor Dubyah. Why else would Cheney, when tapped to head the search for a vice-presidential running mate for then-Texas Governor Bush in 2000, choose himself?

It was Cheney, more than anyone else in the administration, who opposed the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, which the administration agreed to only after a huge hue and cry by the public -- and even then, the administration rejected 20 percent of the commission's recommendations (It took the newly-elected, Democratic-controlled Congress to pass legislation implementing the commission's remaining recommendations).

It was Cheney, more than anyone else in the administration, who kept hammering away at the Pentagon and the U.S. intelligence community to "juice up" intelligence reports on Saddam Hussein's alleged stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction to justify the invasion of Iraq.

It was Cheney, more than anyone else in the administration, who put together the now-infamous "evidence" of Iraq's alleged WMD stockpile -- evidence proved false -- by former Secretary of State Colin Powell before the United Nations Security Council, a presentation that Powell now regrets as the "darkest moment of my career" that he has since vowed to reverse.

And it was Cheney, more than anyone else in the administration, who opposed the recommendations of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, led by former Secretary of State James Baker and former Representative Lee Hamilton -- especially its recommendation that the U.S. open talks with Iran and Syria.

Congressional GOP Risks Staying in Minority for a Generation By Sticking With Bush on Iraq

Meanwhile, Congressional Republicans dug in their heels in support of Bush's Iraq troop buildup, despite having lost control of Congress last November precisely because of the war.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) told CBS' "Face the Nation" on Sunday that Senate Republicans were "not going to talk about failure" in Iraq."We're going to talk about success," he said.

"You know, one thing that a lot of people have forgotten is going on the offense after 9/11 has been a huge success ... Who would have thought that after five years we'd not be attacked again here at home?" McConnell said. "But we don't want to allow these places, to become once again where these elements like al-Qaida can operate with impunity and then be prepared to launch attacks on us again here in America."

McConnell clearly hasn't gotten the voters' message. The GOP lost control of Congress precisely because the American people are fed up with the administration's insistence on "victory" or "success" in Iraq when the evidence is there for all the world to see that Iraq is a failure. The administration went in with no plan -- no plan whatsoever -- to deal with the aftermath of Saddam's ouster from power.

And because of that -- combined with other tactical blunders by the White House -- the war in Iraq has become a quagmire for the U.S. -- precisely what the elder Bush warned us about when he was criticized by conservatives for not going to Baghdad and toppling Saddam Hussein when he had the chance to do so in the Gulf War. A World War II veteran, the elder Bush has something that his son clearly lacks: foresight.

To make matters even worse, the administration's obsession with Iraq is threatening to undo our one real success story in the war on terror: Afghanistan, where the Taliban is waging a full-scale guerrilla war to regain power.

In this blogger's opinion, the Republicans in Congress are making a huge political mistake by sticking with Dubyah on Iraq -- a mistake that will doom them to remain in the minority in Congress -- and in the broader American political landscape -- for a generation or longer.

Take heed, Republicans: A solid 70 percent majority of the American people are clearly tired of seeing their sons and daughters die in a war that appears to have no end in sight, let alone any real hope for victory. They're fed up with the war and they want our troops brought home as soon as humanly possible.

The American people made their position on Iraq loud and clear last November 7 -- and are prepared to reaffirm their position even more emphatically on November 4, 2008, if necessary.

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Volume II, Number 8
Copyright 2007, Skeeter Sanders. All rights reserved.

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