I am getting so tired of politicians.

Rep Pete Stark, D-Fremont, CA, recently said the following on the house floor:

"You don't have money to fund the war or children. But you're going to spend it to blow up innocent people if we can get enough kids to grow old enough for you to send to Iraq to get their heads blown off for the president's amusement."

Here is a short article about it.

This is precisely the kind outrageous statement that makes Washington more polarized than it has ever been. As readers of this rant know, I think Bush has been a huge disappointment as a president and that the Iraq war is creating more terrorists than we are killing; these points can be debated by rational people. But to say that our soldiers are getting their heads blown off for Bush's "amusement" is disgraceful and disgusting, and chills rational debate. Out of the media spotlight, Bush meets with and mourns with families of soldiers who have been killed in Iraq. It's approaching the height of absurdity to accuse Bush of being amused by our soldiers being decapitated.

Every public figure who is against the war should think about their public statements and put each statement to the following test before they utter it: "Will it further my goal of ending the war as soon as possible?" Stark's statement fails that test, miserably.

This is why I am so disappointed in Mr. Stark: All his remark served to do is make him look absurd and fire up the conservative base to rally around President Bush.

My liberal friends can surely respond with all sorts of examples of disgraceful statements by republicans about the war. And I have quoted some of those statements on this thread as well. But not a single one of them, nor all of them collectively, make it okay for Mr. Stark to say what he said. I suspect that many folks in Washington were not listening when their mom told them that two wrongs don't make a right. It's not okay to fight disgraceful statements with a disgraceful statement of your own. It's not civil and it's counter-productive.