Congresswoman Sherri Davis, R-CA, Criticizes Iraq Study Group's “Smell Ya Later” Report As Defeatist, Self-Serving -- and Incomplete

Davis defends Democratic Colleague Reyes In "CQ-Gate" Quiz Scandal; Announces Trip to Iraq

New York, NY (PRINSIDE) December 13, 2006 -- Congresswoman Sherri Davis, R-CA, issued a statement today criticizing James Baker’s Iraq Study Group Report as a facile, pack-your-bags, “Smell Ya Later” approach to America's most serious problem, and announced that she herself will be conducting a "fact-finding" trip to Iraq.

“Amongst Hill Republicans, Baker's report has quickly become known as the 'Iraq Smell Ya Later Report,'" says Davis, a California congresswoman known as the "Ann Coulter of Anaheim" for her fierce opposition to flag-burners and illegal immigrants and her unyielding support for the American family. "It reads almost as if the authors' intent is to put up a big banner on our Embassy there saying 'Mission Accomplished: Part Deux," throw on some gasoline and a lit match, and yell, 'Smell Ya Later' as we hotfoot it out of there."

Criticizes Davis: "Although the 'Iraq Smell Ya Later Report' offers 79 recommendations, none of the recommendations actually tells us how to win the war -- but notably, the report does take time to recommend the privatization of Iraqi oil by global corporations. Ka-ching!"

Davis thinks Baker would like to be remembered as a 21st-century Disraeli. "But this report reads more like a failed homework assignment written by the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. If I were grading this, I would give it a big 'I' for 'Incomplete.' It is a defeatist road-map to, well...defeat. Did Disraeli ever recommend negotiating with terrorists? I don’t think so.”

According to Davis, she and House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi have been closeted over the past several weeks in a non-partisan "think-tank-style" discussion of the war in Iraq, and have come up with other solutions that might work much better.

"Nancy and I favor what we call a 'Grand Bargain'-type solution,'" says Davis. "And that's because Nancy and I believe we will never be able to address the very real challenges and threats we face in the global commons if we cannot defuse these senseless powder kegs we keep fueling with our greed and short-sightedness."

And plus, says Davis with her trademark grin: "Everyone loves a bargain."

Most likely, says Davis, such a "Grand Bargain" would involve a partition of the country. "Yes it would be hard to do, but it would be worth trying. People say, 'Well, that would Balkanize the country.' But Nancy and I say, well, things are pretty stable in the Balkans right now. It's looking much, much better than Iraq."

Says Davis: "The situation is far more complicated than one could divine by reading the news media here in the States. It isn't just Shia and Sunni that are fighting each other, but it's Sunni fighting Sunni, Shia fighting Shia, al Qaeda fighting everybody, trying to get everyone to attack everyone, Iranians supporting insurgents, training them, funding them, and sending them in to Iraq, the Kurds sitting back on the sidelines, saying, well we can run our own country, if -- but, if you can get the Shias and the Sunnis to call a truce, we'll be happy to be part of Iraq. Now that`s kind of the scenario that's going on there. And Baghdad is really where almost all the violence is. The rest of the country seems to be very peaceful, take off your flack jacket, put on your suit and go do business."

Davis says she has been "studying up" on the issue as a result of being named a participant in an upcoming House Intelligence Committee fact-finding mission to Iraq.

“House Intelligence Committee Chair Sylvestre Reyes has just sent over our itinerary, and it looks very exciting," says Davis. "According to the itinerary Sylvestre has provided, our first stop will be in the Iraq city of Amtrak – an ancient, ancient city that is a regional capitol. From there, Sylvestre says we will make a quick trip to the rogue province of Quebec to see how our troops are holding up in this key province. Then over to Baghdad, the capital city, and finally a quick visit to the city of Akron, which is on Iraq’s beautiful north shore, kind of a resort region. And then back home, with a few days of shopping time allocated in Vienna -- that's in Austria -- as part of the package. I just love Vienna. I wish we could annex it.”

Also along on the fact-finding trip, according to Davis, will be Democratic Rep. Louise Slaughter of Buffalo. “She is a neat lady and a major, major scrapbooker – and so I wouldn't be surprised if the two of us, with the aid of U.S. military transport, set a land-sea scrapbooking record of some kind,” predicts Davis with her trademark grin. “Scrap-booking and fact-finding, fact-finding and scrapbooking. It’s a very good mix, and I expect to get several complete books out of this trip. Schlesinger recently sold his scrapbooks to Penguin for a cool 1.5, and so it is actually a very good investment of my time, as well as being super fun and super educational."

During her seven-day trip, Davis will actually create a "video scrapbook" for viewers of the award-winning "Colbert Report" newscast back in the States. "The show's ratings have been falling off a bit, and so they asked me to help out, which I was happy to do," says Davis. "Christopher Dodd -- I don't know him -- John Kerry, and John McCain are also planning trips to Iraq in the near future, and I am hoping I can do 'insidery-type' interviews with them for moderator Stephen Colbert if our paths happen to cross over there. And I would love to have their photos for my scrapbook, of course!"

Congressman Reyes, Davis's host during the trip, was a focus of "The Colbert Report" recently when he failed a "CQ Magazine" quiz of basic questions about al Qaeda and Hezbollah, two key terrorist organizations. When asked by "CQ Magazine" whether al Qaeda is one or the other of the two major branches of Islam -- Sunni or Shiite -- Reyes answered "they are probably both," then ventured "Predominantly -- probably Shiite." But in fact, at least according to "CQ Magazine," they are Sunni.

Says Davis: ”I really have to support Silvestre's approach to this topic even though he is a Democrat. Because here's the thing: We really don't want to be prying into the religious beliefs of these people. They have hair-trigger tempers. I mean, these are people who will kill you just so they can go to Heaven and have some raisins. And you do run the risk that, once you start prying into their very complicated religious beliefs, about which they are incredibly touchy, you may end up drawing the Eye of Mordor in your direction, as Rick Santorum has previously warned us. As our brave Hobbits are going up Mount Doom, it is always preferable that the Eye of Mordor be drawn somewhere else.”

Overall, says Davis of the current so-called "CG-Gate" Scandal, it's all just semantics. "And semantics has never yet won us a war."

Congresswoman Davis, a rising star of the conservative wing of the Republican Party, has gained traction in political popularity polls recently through a series of town hall meetings that she is calling "Sherri's War of Ideas."

Most recently, Davis told a cheering crowd in rural New Hampshire about her proposed "Bible Repatriation Act," (BRA), which she intends to push through in the coming legislative sessions in order to bring control of the Bible back into the hands of Uncle Sam.

"How can America be secure if we are still allowing Bibles to be printed in foreign lands?" said Davis."The issue has been keeping me asleep ever since I saw the fractured English in the owner's manual of my son's Hyundai. And I have heard of foreign-printed Bibles that actually arrive in America with entire pages missing. I am a big fan of globalization, but not when it comes to our American Bibles. Hence my support of BRA. Bring our Bibles home. Bibles should only be printed in the U.S.”

As she presses for swift Congressional passage of BRA, Davis continues her work on the rest of her "signature" legislative packages: the Mandatory Portion Control Act (MPCA), aimed at curbing America's growing obesity problem; "Project SATYR," a program designed to capitalize on the recent "scrapbooking craze" to increase youth reading levels through individual vouchers and major tax-breaks to the American scrapbooking industry; and the Yoga Mat Cleanliness Act (YMCA), which Congresswoman Davis has been promoting this fall through taped appearances with New York-based actress Sarah Jessica Parker, who recently caught a bad case of tinea cruris from using an unclean yoga mat in her home state of Ohio, a swing state.

Prior to responding to the call of democracy, Congresswoman Davis was a star of stage and screen, appearing with show business luminaries such as Helen Hunt, Amy Sedaris, Nathan Lane, Bette Midler, Leslie Kritzer, Woody Allen, Kristin Chenoweth, Paul Dinello, Matthew Broderick, Martin Short and Susan Sarandon. Davis skyrocketed to fame in the 1990's with her lively rock-anthem "Baby Dance," which reached No. 4 on the Billboard pop charts. Davis was appointed to her Congressional seat late last year after the tragic Astor Place Cube death of her husband and was re-elected this November by a "slim but substantial majority." Prior to leaving show business to represent her Congressional district, Davis also played the role of Penny Pingleton in numerous regional performances of "Hairspray."

Congresswoman Sherri Davis, R-CA, Criticizes Iraq Study Group's “Smell Ya Later” Report As Defeatist, Self-Serving -- and Incomplete

Davis defends Democratic Colleague Reyes In "CQ-Gate" Quiz Scandal; Announces Trip to Iraq

New York, NY (PRINSIDE) December 13, 2006 -- Congresswoman Sherri Davis, R-CA, issued a statement today criticizing James Baker’s Iraq Study Group Report as a facile, pack-your-bags, “Smell Ya Later” approach to America's most serious problem, and announced that she herself will be conducting a "fact-finding" trip to Iraq.

“Amongst Hill Republicans, Baker's report has quickly become known as the 'Iraq Smell Ya Later Report,'" says Davis, a California congresswoman known as the "Ann Coulter of Anaheim" for her fierce opposition to flag-burners and illegal immigrants and her unyielding support for the American family. "It reads almost as if the authors' intent is to put up a big banner on our Embassy there saying 'Mission Accomplished: Part Deux," throw on some gasoline and a lit match, and yell, 'Smell Ya Later' as we hotfoot it out of there."

Criticizes Davis: "Although the 'Iraq Smell Ya Later Report' offers 79 recommendations, none of the recommendations actually tells us how to win the war -- but notably, the report does take time to recommend the privatization of Iraqi oil by global corporations. Ka-ching!"

Davis thinks Baker would like to be remembered as a 21st-century Disraeli. "But this report reads more like a failed homework assignment written by the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. If I were grading this, I would give it a big 'I' for 'Incomplete.' It is a defeatist road-map to, well...defeat. Did Disraeli ever recommend negotiating with terrorists? I don’t think so.”

According to Davis, she and House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi have been closeted over the past several weeks in a non-partisan "think-tank-style" discussion of the war in Iraq, and have come up with other solutions that might work much better.

"Nancy and I favor what we call a 'Grand Bargain'-type solution,'" says Davis. "And that's because Nancy and I believe we will never be able to address the very real challenges and threats we face in the global commons if we cannot defuse these senseless powder kegs we keep fueling with our greed and short-sightedness."

And plus, says Davis with her trademark grin: "Everyone loves a bargain."

Most likely, says Davis, such a "Grand Bargain" would involve a partition of the country. "Yes it would be hard to do, but it would be worth trying. People say, 'Well, that would Balkanize the country.' But Nancy and I say, well, things are pretty stable in the Balkans right now. It's looking much, much better than Iraq."

Says Davis: "The situation is far more complicated than one could divine by reading the news media here in the States. It isn't just Shia and Sunni that are fighting each other, but it's Sunni fighting Sunni, Shia fighting Shia, al Qaeda fighting everybody, trying to get everyone to attack everyone, Iranians supporting insurgents, training them, funding them, and sending them in to Iraq, the Kurds sitting back on the sidelines, saying, well we can run our own country, if -- but, if you can get the Shias and the Sunnis to call a truce, we'll be happy to be part of Iraq. Now that`s kind of the scenario that's going on there. And Baghdad is really where almost all the violence is. The rest of the country seems to be very peaceful, take off your flack jacket, put on your suit and go do business."

Davis says she has been "studying up" on the issue as a result of being named a participant in an upcoming House Intelligence Committee fact-finding mission to Iraq.

“House Intelligence Committee Chair Sylvestre Reyes has just sent over our itinerary, and it looks very exciting," says Davis. "According to the itinerary Sylvestre has provided, our first stop will be in the Iraq city of Amtrak – an ancient, ancient city that is a regional capitol. From there, Sylvestre says we will make a quick trip to the rogue province of Quebec to see how our troops are holding up in this key province. Then over to Baghdad, the capital city, and finally a quick visit to the city of Akron, which is on Iraq’s beautiful north shore, kind of a resort region. And then back home, with a few days of shopping time allocated in Vienna -- that's in Austria -- as part of the package. I just love Vienna. I wish we could annex it.”

Also along on the fact-finding trip, according to Davis, will be Democratic Rep. Louise Slaughter of Buffalo. “She is a neat lady and a major, major scrapbooker – and so I wouldn't be surprised if the two of us, with the aid of U.S. military transport, set a land-sea scrapbooking record of some kind,” predicts Davis with her trademark grin. “Scrap-booking and fact-finding, fact-finding and scrapbooking. It’s a very good mix, and I expect to get several complete books out of this trip. Schlesinger recently sold his scrapbooks to Penguin for a cool 1.5, and so it is actually a very good investment of my time, as well as being super fun and super educational."

During her seven-day trip, Davis will actually create a "video scrapbook" for viewers of the award-winning "Colbert Report" newscast back in the States. "The show's ratings have been falling off a bit, and so they asked me to help out, which I was happy to do," says Davis. "Christopher Dodd -- I don't know him -- John Kerry, and John McCain are also planning trips to Iraq in the near future, and I am hoping I can do 'insidery-type' interviews with them for moderator Stephen Colbert if our paths happen to cross over there. And I would love to have their photos for my scrapbook, of course!"

Congressman Reyes, Davis's host during the trip, was a focus of "The Colbert Report" recently when he failed a "CQ Magazine" quiz of basic questions about al Qaeda and Hezbollah, two key terrorist organizations. When asked by "CQ Magazine" whether al Qaeda is one or the other of the two major branches of Islam -- Sunni or Shiite -- Reyes answered "they are probably both," then ventured "Predominantly -- probably Shiite." But in fact, at least according to "CQ Magazine," they are Sunni.

Says Davis: ”I really have to support Silvestre's approach to this topic even though he is a Democrat. Because here's the thing: We really don't want to be prying into the religious beliefs of these people. They have hair-trigger tempers. I mean, these are people who will kill you just so they can go to Heaven and have some raisins. And you do run the risk that, once you start prying into their very complicated religious beliefs, about which they are incredibly touchy, you may end up drawing the Eye of Mordor in your direction, as Rick Santorum has previously warned us. As our brave Hobbits are going up Mount Doom, it is always preferable that the Eye of Mordor be drawn somewhere else.”

Overall, says Davis of the current so-called "CG-Gate" Scandal, it's all just semantics. "And semantics has never yet won us a war."

Congresswoman Davis, a rising star of the conservative wing of the Republican Party, has gained traction in political popularity polls recently through a series of town hall meetings that she is calling "Sherri's War of Ideas."

Most recently, Davis told a cheering crowd in rural New Hampshire about her proposed "Bible Repatriation Act," (BRA), which she intends to push through in the coming legislative sessions in order to bring control of the Bible back into the hands of Uncle Sam.

"How can America be secure if we are still allowing Bibles to be printed in foreign lands?" said Davis."The issue has been keeping me asleep ever since I saw the fractured English in the owner's manual of my son's Hyundai. And I have heard of foreign-printed Bibles that actually arrive in America with entire pages missing. I am a big fan of globalization, but not when it comes to our American Bibles. Hence my support of BRA. Bring our Bibles home. Bibles should only be printed in the U.S.”

As she presses for swift Congressional passage of BRA, Davis continues her work on the rest of her "signature" legislative packages: the Mandatory Portion Control Act (MPCA), aimed at curbing America's growing obesity problem; "Project SATYR," a program designed to capitalize on the recent "scrapbooking craze" to increase youth reading levels through individual vouchers and major tax-breaks to the American scrapbooking industry; and the Yoga Mat Cleanliness Act (YMCA), which Congresswoman Davis has been promoting this fall through taped appearances with New York-based actress Sarah Jessica Parker, who recently caught a bad case of tinea cruris from using an unclean yoga mat in her home state of Ohio, a swing state.

Prior to responding to the call of democracy, Congresswoman Davis was a star of stage and screen, appearing with show business luminaries such as Helen Hunt, Amy Sedaris, Nathan Lane, Bette Midler, Leslie Kritzer, Woody Allen, Kristin Chenoweth, Paul Dinello, Matthew Broderick, Martin Short and Susan Sarandon. Davis skyrocketed to fame in the 1990's with her lively rock-anthem "Baby Dance," which reached No. 4 on the Billboard pop charts. Davis was appointed to her Congressional seat late last year after the tragic Astor Place Cube death of her husband and was re-elected this November by a "slim but substantial majority." Prior to leaving show business to represent her Congressional district, Davis also played the role of Penny Pingleton in numerous regional performances of "Hairspray."

I lived in Africa, in the country of Togo (Ghana's neighbor to the east) in the mid-90's. One of the sad, unreported things about that area of West Africa is that, if someone is found out to be gay, most of the time he simply disappears. There is no doubt that the people of the village dispense their own concept of "justice," and the authorities simply look the other way.