Which senator can you count on most to speak the truth?

[TruthIsAll]

Poll question: Which senator can you count on most to speak the truth?

[Lindsey]

1. Boxer for President - '08!!

I love her. Hell, she's the only one I get to vote for who ever wins!

[Imagevision]

53. Barbara Boxer would be a dream!!!

[meg]

2. Senator Harkin (eom)

[jobycom]

4. Oh yeah, he's pretty good. nt.

[Name removed]

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[LittleClarkie]

29. Well, then, how about an "other" box

who DO you trust?

[howmad1]

58. How about.....

"None of the above". C'mon, their all politicians. :P

[LittleClarkie]

62. See the "deleted message" above my post?

That's what he said, and this was my response.

So we're caught in a time loop apparently. He said none of the above, and I said then pick another.

What about Feingold? What about Dennis?

[jobycom]

3. The only one I trusted died in a plane crash.

I guess I'd trust Boxer more than the others, but they all are just telling us what they think we want to hear.

[Inland]

5. I like Durbin. nt

[Pithy Cherub]

6. I *heart* Boxer.

DiFi embarrases Californians...

[Moochy]

10. My favorite DiFi story

When gas prices first shot up a few years ago, there was a sharper rise in markets where local and state governments passed laws specifying gasoline mixtures. These laws it seems were a great way for petroleum manufacturing and distribution companies to game the market, in that they created small boutique gas operations around the servicing of unique regional blends.
This allowed the petroleum industry to make lots of money on shortages and have local fuel mixtures means you've fragmented the market into many different regional brands.

So, Dianne Feinstein says she's going to get to the bottom of whether californians are being gouged by the oil companies, with a nice press release with a real fighting tone.

A week or two later she gave a joint press conference from ChevronTexaco Corporate offices in downtown SF explaining how shortages affect the gas markets, and promoting alternative fuels is the answer.

[Pithy Cherub]

15. What a story! THAT is so DiFi.

That mealy mouthed woman is a menace to Californians and by extension the rest of America. :nuke:

Please let her have a worthy primary opponent, PLEASE!

[Jackpine Radical]

7. What, no Russ Feingold?

I protest.

[caligirl]

8. boxer hands down will tell it like it is. But Kennedy has done

pretty well too as far as the Bushistas.

[still_one]

9. I voted for boxer, by why no Feingold?

In the house it would be Kucinich

[Mass]

11. Dorgan.

Very effective on speaking the truth, particularly when it comes to subjects other senators ignore because there is little personnal glory to get out of it.

[Qanisqineq]

70. I agree

He was the first one I thought of. I can't imagine him lying about anything.

[stray cat]

12. Feingold!

[Langis]

26. That's who I was looking for!

[Cynot]

59. Leaving him off the list was an unfortunate oversight.

[MH1]

13. John Kerry, always.

That blasted honesty gets him in all kinds of trouble.

[Name removed]

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[MH1]

23. Links?

I vaguely recall the 1968 thing but it blew over so fast in my neighborhood (staunchly pro-Bush, btw) that I assumed it was quickly-dispatched right wing b.s. or the other thing I've heard, that it was an honest mistake on a date. (was that in the Brinkley book? Brinkley got a couple things wrong, I've heard.)

And a news flash for you: getting events and dates from 30 years ago out of order is not necessarily dishonesty (especially if it's done by a biographer - poor editing, maybe, that). If you've been on the planet for many more than 30 years yourself, then you've done it too, or you will.

So, I never became deeply acquainted with that allegation. I have not seen any evidence for the dishonesty you claim it shows.

As for "can't go two days without contradicting himself in MAJOR embarassing ways" let's have some links, friend. Or are you just repeating republican talking points?

[LittleClarkie]

24. Thank you, I couldn't talk.

I don't expect to come here and hear the same bullshit I do on Glenn Beck, or Rush Limbaugh et al.

I was talking to an old guy at State Fair who used to be Union and is retired, used to be Democrat but isn't as strong as he used to be. In talking to him about Kerry, he spewed every last single talking point as if he'd swallowed them whole.

I remember the 1968 thing, and I figure that if you have someone who is talking about something in his distant past, and fucked it up alittle, then I thought it was the mist of time. Read one way, you could see what Kerry was trying to say. Read another, it would mean he's a fucking moron. And we know that's not the case.

By the way, handing someone an election is what Bush and Dole did for Clinton, and Mondale did for Reagan, and Dukakis did for Bush, or even what McGovern did for Nixon. That's handing someone an election. Two percentage points is called a close election.

[blm]

34. He doesn't contradict himself...the media, however, does edit deceptively.

Whenever you hear Kerry's whole statements and context of the statement it is rarely how the media reported it.

BTW...do you think YOU could survive investigating the biggest banking scandal in American history for FIVE YEARS with little help from other lawmakers and the entire DC powerstructure working against you trying to take you down?

[Robeson]

14. Russ Feingold.

[UDenver20]

28. I second that...

[Telly Savalas]

50. It's kind of baffling the only Senator who voted against the Patriot Act

was left off the list.

[orleans]

16. boxer and then perhaps durbin. remember he got killed for his

honesty to QUOTE an article on prisoner torture.

[Name removed]

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[Warren DeMontague]

32. Why don't you read the actual statement, and then IF the new Abu Ghraib

images come out, we'll see if you stand by this post.

I will refresh your memory on Durbin's actual quote: Durbin said that, if you didn't know better, you would think that the behaviors desrcibed in the Gitmo documents and shown in the few Abu Ghraib images we've been allowed to see (allowing dogs to attack naked people, tying people to boards and holding them underwater, that sort of thing) if you didn't know they were activities of the United States, you might think -and rightfully so- that they were the behavior of a totalitarian regime.

And you know what, genius, it wasn't just the "idiot" Durbin who thought the behavior reminded him of the Nazis; this guy did, too:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A0CE5DC143FF934A25756C0A9629C8B63

The Horror, Revisited

Published: May 17, 2004, Monday

To the Editor:

It was with dismay and horror that I viewed the photo of a cowering Iraqi prisoner menaced by vicious military guard dogs at Abu Ghraib prison (front page, May 10).

As an Austrian Jew imprisoned in Dachau and Buchenwald in 1938 and 1939, I was an eyewitness to similar inhumane behavior by sadistic Nazi SS guards.

OTTO PERL
Teaneck, N.J., May 12, 2004

I suppose Mr. Perl, survivor of Dachau and Buchenwald, is an "idiot", too, for thinking the behavior reminded him of Nazis?

And as for "islamic extremeists" (sic) being at Gitmo; well, since they have no recourse to any sort of legal representation, we'll never know if they're really "dangerous turrusts" or innocent taxi drivers and deliveryworkers who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. That's why you have trials. That's why you have a legal system. That's why you have justice.

And as for all this torture, a certain pinko U.S. Senator recently said, when whining like a French Surrender Monkey about some bullshit like the Geneva Convention; "It's not about who THEY are. It's about who WE are."

That was John McCain.

[PurityOfEssence]

33. Simple: when you fight with thugs, you use bluntness

Republicans--even major office-holders--have no problem calling Democrats Socialists, cowards and even traitors. We should call them out for that just as they called Durbin out.

He didn't directly equate them with his statement, he said this was closer to what one would expect from them than from decent pluralists.

How the hell do you know that Gitmo isn't the equivalent of a Gulag? Not all gulags were work camps, some were very similar to what Gitmo is: continual interrogation with no charges filed or end in sight. If you KNOW what Guantanamo's like, you must have been there. What we do know from former captives and certain military personnel is that it's not the least bit pleasant.

As for the certainty that everyone there's guilty, that's absurd; this administration has been WRONG about everything. Taking their word for anything is, at the very least, childish and naive.

We do not have the right to scorn U.S. and International law to do as we please. If you think we do, you have a huge morality problem.

If one of our senior legislators draws comparisons (not an equation) between our tactics and those of other unpleasant totalitarian regimes, we should stand by him. That's what should have been done: use his words and show how the reactionaries twisted them. The concept of Gitmo and some of what we know about its operation ARE closer to the actions of those regimes than what a decent Democracy should be. If anyone has a problem with that, they're not decent pluralists.

Yeah, he stepped a bit too far, and he should have explained rather than retracted it, but your points are silly. Gitmo is NOT a good thing. You don't know how bad the torture or murders there have been. It DOES compare to many of the Stalinist camps; the only difference between it and many is that it's not a work camp. It DOES compare with some of the Nazi Camps; they weren't all work camps or death camps.

Durbin is one of our greatest legislators. To answer the question of this thread, the Senators I'd believe first are him, Feingold, Dorgan, Levin and Boxer.

The big problem is we're scared to call the reactionary assholes out for being what they are, and we're scared to fight back when they call us traitors, spineless, cowardly and communistic. We should attack their ethics and morality and we should defend ourselves better.

Durbin's little dust-up didn't hurt him much in the long run, and anyone who wants to bring it up should be excoriated for misquoting (if they say he called them nazis) or have the topic of Gitmo brought up if they question his dissent. Gitmo may not be Devil's Island, but it's hellish enough from what little we know.

[Hippo_Tron]

38. Durbin wanted a complacent media to pick up on an issue

"Senator criticizes gitmo" doesn't get media attention. "Senator criticizes Gitmo to Gulags and Concentration camps" gets media attention. Was it an over-exaggeration? Yes it was, but it was necessary to get the media to pick up on an important issue. Durbin did this and frankly did so at great risk to any future political ambitions he might have had.

[Warren DeMontague]

39. Durbin has also seen the Abu Ghraib images that the DoD doesn't want us to

Might be worth keeping in mind.

[Name removed]

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[chimpymustgo]

44. Democrat Party? You're tipping your hand.

nt

[terrya]

21. Seriously....I trust both Durbin and Obama.

I think, by and large, both of my Senators speak the truth.

[leesa]

47. Then how come neither one has stated that the war is illegal and was an

unprovoked invasion. In fact, they don't say anything. Have they said anything about outing a CIA agent? Both are very weak.

[kevsand]

57. They've both said a lot about the war.

They both opposed it from the beginning. Durbin voted against it. If you ever watched the Senate on cspan, you'd see Durbin speaking out all the time on a broad variety of issues. And Obama is still the very junior Senator from Illinois, but he has been very vocal against Bush the entire time. These guys are hardly "weak." Rather, your arguments are very weak, but I'm assuming you've just been misinformed.

[VADem11]

22. Kennedy

He's been telling the truth for 4 decades in the senate. Boxer is a close second though. She's really good.

[Mairead]

25. .

.

[Independent_Liberal]

27. Boxer all the way baby!

She's #1!

:)

[StudentOfDarrow]

30. Who voted Lieberman?

Saying that Lieberman is more trustworthy than Boxer, Kennedy, Kerry, or even Biden and Clinton, is simply ridiculous.

[bearfan454]

40. HolyJoe is a f%cking DINO !

He votes with the pukes all the time.

[snowbear]

63. The paid to post freepnoids voted for Joe

You know that! :eyes:

Pathetic little asswipes, aren't they? :puke:

[Jamison]

41. I voted Boxer. Yeah who the hell voted for Lieberman?

I believe Lieberman is no more trustworthy than *.

[AntiCoup2K4]

52. Joe is very trustworthy

You can always trust him to vote with the neocons ;)

[Cynot]

60. Someone was trying to be funny.

But this is serious stuff. Holy Joe cannot be trusted.

[Warren DeMontague]

31. Boxer! Woo-Hoo. Leaving Durbin off was a glaring omission, however.

Despite the fact that he was forced to apologize when he shouldn't have, he does have a pleasant knack for intelligently and forcefully calling it like it is.

[ProudDad]

35. Kennedy

but even more Senator Sanders when he gets there in Jan. '07!!!

Go Bernie!!!!

[kevsand]

36. Durbin, Durbin, and Durbin.

This poll is invalid without him.

[zann725]

54. How 'bout a Durbin/Boxer "ticket" in '08?

[kevsand]

56. They'd be tough to beat,

that's for sure. Durbin won't run, though. He has said repeatedly that he thinks he can get more done in the Senate, and he really enjoys mixing it up against the Repubs on the floor.

[Hippo_Tron]

37. Russ Feingold, so why isn't he on this poll?

[Telly Savalas]

51. To make room for Rockafeller, I guess.

:shrug:

[Hippo_Tron]

66. Rockafeller isn't a bad guy, he's a pretty solid dem...

Especially considering that he's from the increasingly wingnut state of WV. That being said, he's kind of random to be on this poll. And seriously, who the fuck trusts Feinstein and Lieberman?

[wli]

42. they're all terrified of being Wellstoned anyway n/t

[radio4progressives]

43. Unfortunately "None of the Above" - even Boxer evades the truth.

but that's politics in Amerika.

[LittleClarkie]

49. You don't have an "other"?

Nobody? Not even Dennis?

[radio4progressives]

65. Cynthia McKinney and Dennis Kucinich are my choices for a near 100%

truth telling rep..

Look Boxer is a hero by fighting the good fight, this is true. I respect her and have lavished praises on her for all that she has done - which has been a great in this current term.

But that's quite different than calling something exactly what it is. It's a distinction with an important difference. It's fine great that Boxer has worked in this past term harder than her entire tenure as a Senator (or formerly in the House) but damn it, she gave Negroponte a pass last year in the confirmation hearing for ambassador to Iraq - and there's a long list of other players in this administration that go back to Iran Contra AND the Nixon administration - and she never made it a point to speak out about these matters. even if only for the record and to bring the public's attention to these things.

so, again. 'Truth Telling', and 'Fighting the Good Fight' do not necessarily go hand in hand unfortunately.

[Zapatero]

45. It Gets No Better than Boxer

A Jewish Mama born in Brooklyn, living in California with a NY Attitude

[Seabiscuit]

55. I just love Barbara Boxer - I campaigned for her in 2004 and would do it

again in a heartbeat.

This winter she showed she was the gutsiest Senator by far - starting with the way she sliced and diced Sleaza Rice during the confirmation hearings.

She's getting older and wanted to retire in 2004, but after the Repuke pricks started telling Dem Senators that criticizing Shrub during his "war on terra" was "treasonous" she was so appalled she put aside her personal wishes and ran for office yet again... and WON in a landslide.

[leesa]

46. Senator Dayton from Minnesota is a really good guy, but he can't afford to

run again especially since he knows they plan to smear him because he stood up to them.

[Stinky The Clown]

48. George McGovern

[sakabatou]

61. Long live the Fighter from CA

Boxer!

[Lindacooks]

64. Sigh. I miss Senator Wellstone.

eom

[tritsofme]

67. Obama has been speaking the truth to me

Since he came to Washington 98.9875% of the time.

Despite what some have complained about here.

I am very proud to have him as my senator.

[FreedomAngel82]

68. Tough choices

The first four for sure. Reid I'm starting to trust but still am weary since his bankruptcy bill vote.

[Montauk6]

69. I voted Ted but I'd also nominate Levin of MI

[KitchenWitch]

71. I voted for Boxer, but I give Mark Dayton an honorable mention.