Posted by
on Thursday, February 22, 2007 3:07:59 PM
This is postively reprehensible, even for a piece of garbage like Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas:
(Hat-Tip: Bryan @ Hot Air)
A U.S. congresswoman called on the Bush administration Wednesday to reconsider its ban on selling parts for U.S.-made F-16 fighter jets to Venezuela, urging improved ties between the two nations.
U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, a Texas Democrat, told reporters that she was making the first U.S. congressional visit to Venezuela since President Hugo Chavez's December re-election with the message: "I want an immediate repairing of the relations between the United States and Venezuela."
Jackson Lee described Venezuela as a friendly nation that the U.S. should cooperate with and said that the F-16 jets, which are built in Texas, was an issue of concern to her constituents in Houston.
Pledging to "personally go back and raise" the issue, she called for the U.S. Congress "to reconsider sanctions on the F-16s."
The U.S. State Department has banned arms sales to Venezuela, including parts necessary to maintain its fleet of F-16s, citing a lack of support by Chavez's government for counterterrorism efforts and its close relations with Iran and Cuba.
Venezuela has since begun receiving the first of 24 Russian-made Sukhoi fighter jets as part of approximately $3 billion in military deals that Chavez has signed with Moscow.
She said her fact-finding mission to Venezuela was part of an effort by a new Democrat-controlled Congress to show that "Venezuela has many friends in this new Congress."
"We're here to re-establish friendship," she said.
Ahem. Let me get this straight. Rep. Lee wants the United States to reconsider it's position on NOT selling weapons to a thug and dictator that is openly hostile to this nation? And because the planes are made in Houston? Oh, yes. That is thinking for you.
"Please Mr. President, sell this nut his weapons. Let us be friends with him as we rebuild his military so he can kill and threaten more people, including us, because the voters in Texas want us to make those parts."
I can imagine the rather loud "click" she would hear at the end of that phone call. But she is serious, ladies and gentlemen, and she reminds me a lot of Jack Murtha. Here we have Rep. Murtha trying to kill the funding for the surge, trying to hamstring the president, and force a defeat on the US in this war, and on the other hand we have Rep. Lee wishing to "repair" relations with a nation that is hostile to us. It sort of reminds me of trying to make nice with a rabid tiger. It is simply not feasible.
Hugo Chavez is as anti-American as dictators can get. Did Rep. Lee miss his tirade against the nation and Pres. Bush before the UN's General Assembly? Even Charlie Rangel denounced the clown from South America. But not Rep. Lee. She wants to hop into bed with the guy, just like the rest of the political "heauxs" in the Democrat party.
Marcie