G. K. Butterfield: “these attacks against the gentlewoman from California (Leader Pelosi) and Senator Durbin are nothing more than an…”

“these attacks against the gentlewoman from California (Leader Pelosi) and Senator Durbin are nothing more than an attempt by the congressional Republicans to divert attention away from the war in Iraq to comments made by two of our Democratic colleagues. Republicans know that the war in Iraq is not going well right now. They have an administration that is clearly not leveling with the American people. Earlier this month, Vice President Cheney told a national audience that the insurgency in Iraq was in its last throes. Well, we all know that is not the case. I think Washington columnist Richard Cohen got it right this morning when he wrote that these partisan attacks are the latest in a series of attacks by Washington Republicans to silence the opposing views. Cohen wrote, ``The contempt the Bush administration has shown for world opinion and international law, not to mention American traditions of jurisprudence, is costing us plenty. We are not the Soviet Union, and we are not Nazi Germany, and Dick Durbin did not intend to say we are. His detractors have to know that. Their intention, however, is not to answer criticism, but to silence a critic.'' Democrats will not be silenced. ____________________”