Friday, October 08, 2004

The Credibility Gap

Nick Confessore at Tapped links to a video clip of an outstanding two-minute speech by Ohio Representative Tim Ryan. (Alternate link here in mp3 format, courtesy of a MyDD reader.)

Ryan is debating the infamous HR 163, Chuck Rangel's draft reinstatement bill of January 2003. Apparently, it finally came to the attention of House Republicans that Americans find rumors of an upcoming draft to be both credible and frightening. Now, Republicans and their supporters are falling all over themselves to dismiss the foolishness of the "draft hoax." Hasn't Bush promised never, ever to reinstitute the draft? Don't we trust him?

Tim Ryan doesn't.
The same people that told us that Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9/11; the same people that told us Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction; the same people that told us we were going to be able to use the oil for reconstruction; the same people that told us we were going to be greeted as liberators, not occupiers; the same people, the same president that told us the Taliban is gone; the same president that told us Poland is our ally two days before they pulled out; the same president that told us Iraq is going just great; the same president that told us the economy is going just great; the same people that told us the tax cut was going to create millions of jobs; the same people that told us the Medicare program was going to cost $400 billion when it really cost $540 billion.

SO PLEASE FORGIVE US for not believing what you're saying. Please forgive the students of this country for not believing what you're saying. Not one thing, not one thing about this war that's been told to the American people, that's been told to these college students, has been true. Not one thing.
But my transcript doesn't do him justice. Watch or listen to the speech.

Update: BlogPAC is raising money to run the Ryan clip as an online ad. Please consider contributing.