CNN

GOP ... "Let’s face it, all the dems have done since they weasled their way into the White House is cause dissention – nothing more, nothing less. I feel sorry that President Bush has to put up with them."

Strike 1: They didn't "weasel" their way into the WHITE HOUSE. Unless you consider the White House a one-vote majority of CONGRESS (with Republican in Dem clothing Lieberman the one vote and Cheney as the tie-breaker)? You're obviously confused and/or remedial. And astonishingly so.

Strike 2: the "weaseling" you refer to was actually the people of this country getting sick of repub scandals and Dubya's lies about all the "progress" in the Iraq war and us "absolutely" winning it (before his Sec of Defense admitted we WEREN'T). Nice try buddy!

Strike 3: You're talking about the Dems obstructing and causing dissention? Here's a partial list of how the repubs in congress and the White House played politics when they controlled both the legislative and executive branches! They: 1) accused anyone who didn’t agree with them of being anti-American and a traitor; 2) changed or removed laws that stopped them from doing things they shouldn’t have been doing in the first place (like increasing deficits and the national debt); 3) redrew congressional districts to help them get seats in congress (orchestrated by former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay in 2003); 4) pushed wedge issues (like gay marriage amendments, flag burning, etc) in blatantly transparent attempts to appeal to their evangelical voting base; 5) tied separate issues to others (a permanent cut in the estate tax to an increase in the minimum wage) to prevent the Democrats from passing their legislation rather than simply allow a vote on a SINGLE issue; 6) buried pork (earmarks) in spending bills (“bridge to nowhere”) before they criticized Dems for doing it; 7) changed definitions to make themselves look better (like “manufacturing” and “murder” in Iraq); chose polarizing candidates instead of collaborative ones and then forcing them on the other party via recess appointments to bypass the confirmation process (John Bolton); 9) had senior administration officials mislead the public by changing scientific reports to inject doubt into the science of global warming in an effort to minimize the potential danger of it; 10) made last minute changes to a bill (via Arlan Specter) in the Patriot Act that made it possible for the Bush Administration to appoint U.S. attorneys WITHOUT senate approval; 11) introduced bills 24 hours before passage with little opportunity for review, discussion or amendment; 12) blocked Democrats from participating in conference committee activities where final versions of bills are hammered out and provisions are snuck in (Specter’s provision into the Patriot Act); 13) hid at LEAST one damaging National Intelligence Estimate from congress (by refusing to declassify it) and then only selectively did so after the press got ahold of it; 14) voted along party lines to block investigations; 15) delayed the result of the investigations until AFTER elections (Foley investigation, Iraq Study Group).

And let's not forget the adminstrations refusal to disclose the politics behind the selective dismissal of U.S Attorneys for “performance related” reasons – after favorable job reviews – while they hide behind the following to save their ass: fuzzy memories of DOJ officials; the (illegal) use of unofficial e-mail accounts and servers for government business to hide e-mails; the "lost" and redacted emails and documents from the official servers; Gonzales blatant lies; Dubya wanting oath-less and transcript-less testimony behind closed doors; Dubya using executive privilege to protect White House aids from testifying; others promising to plead the 5th and then abruptly resigning; Goodling admitting she broke civil service laws by inappropriately taking political considerations into account but not knowing specifically how; Sampson saying Gonzales testimony was “innacurate”; Goodling saying Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty’s testimony was "not fully candid"; etc!

Yep .. it's those damn obstructionist Democrats eh?

Ann Brunwick ME .. maybe we should just "get over it" while you complain about the Dems?

Where was all your complaining about the "pathetic" repubs that were obstructing and causing dissention THEN?

Thanks for posting and thus giving me the opportunity to correct you.

The only blame for the democrats is that they should know this administration is not Straight forward about anything. I am surprised the Pentagon even knew about it.
I also know that a phone call would have been more effective and reliable but again why would the administration suddenly become effective and reliable?

Our Washington establishment plainly has contempt for those who voted them in. And why shouldn't they? When the incumbent runs against a little known contender, the incumbent wins 95% of the time. If you don't like what you see in Washington, stop rewarding these cretins by voting them back in!

Let's face it, all the dems have done since they weasled their way into the White House is cause dissention – nothing more, nothing less. I feel sorry that President Bush has to put up with them. Have of them are 90 years old and out of touch with society! Byrd needs to retire – he's like 150 years old. He's a crackpot!

Maybe Sandy Berger stole the faxes.

I can't stop shaking my head in shame over this Congress (and WH). How about a little personal responsibility? It is your office's fault that you don't have an effective method of reading YOUR CONSTITUENTS FAXES!

There is a normal method for this type notification. Instead of using that it was sent to public fax machines. That's the point here. They do read those faxes but it takes a while. Unlike a lot of you they don't stare at the machine waiting for something pop up. The faxes are usually batched by a worker and the sen/cong reviews them later. GOP get a plan. Your party is in ruins.

LOL the leadership of this Congress is a joke. As voters we have to realize that voting new leaders isn't working. If it walks like a duck & acts like a duck & looks like a duck it is a duck. In this case idiot. Doesn't matter if its a democrate or republican. Dumb is just dumb.

[...] CNN.com – CNN Political Ticker Dems complain about missing briefing on Iraq « [...]

A little w(h)ine with the cheese, Senator Reid? The lesson from this story is that constituents' fax messages to Senators, and possibly Representatives as well, are in all likelihood not read or even noticed. If a fax from the White House or the Pentagon is not recognized, who is to say that the fax from Joe Citizen in whatever State makes an impression.

As you can tell, some of our elected officials care deeply about faxes from constituents. They don't even read them and don't consider it an important communication channel. Way to serve the public.

Ron Paul 2008!

This is just another display of arrogance from this dictatorship.
When will people demand an end to
our new USSR?

Poor Sen Reid, fumbling the ball and blaming others, as usual. Does this guy have a clue about what is going on about anything, let along the complexities in Iraq?

Imagine how their constituents must feel when their faxes go unnoticed. What a joke.

PELOSI did not attend; demanded personal briefing by Gates?
WHAT STUPIDITY IS THIS?

What does this say about our lawmakers that the faxes from the public and their constituents pile up and they don't read them? They have dozens of staffers and no one bothers to read the messages from the public fax machines? What kind of politicians are being elected that no one in their office takes the time to read messages from the public?

REID MISSED MORE THAN MEETING.

REID PULLED BILL FOR PAY RAISES FOR MILITARY.

REID PETTINESS TAKES PAY RAISES FROM MILITARY FAMILIES. REID PULLED THE BILL SO IT CANNOT BE VOTED ON. REID TOOK BILL OFF THE FLOOR OUT OF PETTINESS.

REID SHOULD BE ASHAMED, HE REMOVED MILITARY PAY RAISES AND PROTECTIVE EQUIPMENT FROM THE SENATE FLOOR OUT OF PETTINESS ABOUT PULL OUT VOTES.

MILITARY WILL NOT GET PAY RAISES – REID TOOK IT OFF THE FLOOR.

CHECK IT OUT YOURSELF!

No-one believes that! Dems would have to let go of their stupid agenda if they'd heard the briefing. Lame Duck/Brain Congress!!!

Pathetic Democrats.