If at first you don't succeed...

Then you resort to strongarm tactics to get your way. Apparently forgetting that the first job as a politician is that of a public servant, and thus should yield to what the public wants, Republican Congressmen and Senators have attached the ANWR drilling proposal to a defense budget plan for next year, according to the San Jose Mercury News. This is the same ANWR plan that the President and Right Conservatives have been trying to get passed for as long as we can remember, but have suffered setbacks in the form of Democrats, Moderates, environmentalists, and the majority of American People who don't want drilling in a National Reserve.

So, to get around the Congress problem (because who really cares what the public wants, it's not like they're going to remember this little bit of history come election time), we tie it to a defense spending budget that must pass in order to fund the Iraq war - the same Iraq war that the President urged us to have patience on last night. Now, the Republicans have ammunition (so to speak) to use against those who oppose the ANWR. They can suggest that those who vote against the military budget to which the ANWR was attached are unpatriotic, don't support the war effort, want us to lose, are defeatists, are playing partisan games and undermining the country.

Dirty tricks are expected in politics. They shouldn't be used to line executive pockets for short term community benefits at the expense of the environment.