GOP Candidate Sam Brownback: Congo Is 'Forgotten Tsunami'

CINCINNATI (TDB) -- Cincinnati Republican leaders tried to denigrate Sen. Barack Obama's legislative record -- and perhaps mock his race -- by linking him to a bill aimed at helping the Congo. But a conservative Republican who co-sponsored the measure, Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback, went to the troubled African nation and reported that only heartless Americans could turn their backs on the suffering.

"We listened to one young girl's story as she held a baby on her hip. At the young age of 10 or 11 these girls are abducted into the militias and serve as wives or sex-slaves to the commanders until they become pregnant and are then turned to the streets. Others are given or sold by their own families in hopes that the village would be spared from violence," Brownback wrote in a journal he kept on a fact-finding mission to the Congo in December 2005.

The journal is online HERE where Brownback has it posted on his official U.S. Senate Web site.

The compassionate Republican, who is a GOP presidential candidate, did not ridicule the Congo. He said it needed attention from American leaders.

"It is a place that has seen death and destruction of great proportions. In one of the deadliest conflicts since the end of World War II, an estimated 4 million people lost their lives and many more fled as refugees, or were internally displaced," Brownback wrote. He added, "With as many as 1,000 people dying per day, a tsunami-sized tragedy is happening every few months, without much attention being paid."

Doesn't that make those folks at the Hamilton County Republican Party in Cincinnati look like political geniuses? They issued a press release that dissed Obama, saying his sole legislative achievement was to pass a bill that helped the Congo. Brownback was his co-sponsor.

Inquiring minds want to know: Does the whole sorry episode make one wonder what those GOP wiseacres actually think of Mother Teresa?

Cincinnati GOP Press Release On Obama Brings Up The Congo

CINCINNATI (TDB) -- The Hamilton County GOP fired off a press release after Illinois Sen. Barack Obama stumped successfully through Ohio. It said the presidential candidate had a slim resume in Congress and his only bill to become law involved "the Democratic Republic of Congo." Was that intended as a veiled reference to Obama's ethnic heritage? Some smelled the odor of a political cheap shot that should have been way beneath the party of Lincoln. There were no details offered about what Obama's bill -- which President Bush signed into law -- actually said.

One purpose of the measure was to increase American pressure on the Congo's government to stop mass rapes of women by soldiers -- an effort that conservatives in the Republican-controlled Capitol of 2006 found worthwhile. Another was to try to stop the use of children as combatants.

Obama, who is running second to Sen. Hillary Clinton in early polls of the Democratic presidential primary field, was in Cincinnati and drew an SRO crowd to a downtown hotel Monday. He reportedly raised nearly $500,000, and the local Republican organization issued a media advisory because "it is important that voters know the truth about Senator Barack Obama." The advisory is still available under the news link on the party's Web site. But who knows for how long?

"He has a thin voting record and he failed to champion anything significant in his two years of experience in the United States Senate. In the 109th Congress, only one of Obama's bills passed the Senate to become law which dealt with security in the Democratic Republic of Congo (S. 2125)."

Once the Congo shot was fired, the party's executive director Maggie Nafziger went on to say the country ''will need a President who is prepared to take a stand on controversial matters. Senator Obama's lack of leadership and liberal voting records is concerning. I am not sure he is prepared to function as head of the world's most powerful nation at such a critical time in our nation's history."

Oh yes, about the Congo.

Republican Sens. Sam Brownback of Kansas, an '08 presidential candidate, and Ohioan Mike DeWine were co-sponsors. DeWine was beaten last November. President Bush affixed his signature on Dec. 22, 2006, and the details are HERE.