I headed over to
Project Vote Smart this morning to get some information on Senator Byrd (D-WV). I have used Project Vote Smart to determine who is my representative (especially useful when I moved a couple of years ago) and to get non-biased information on both candidates and elected officials. While the information is generally, well,
general, I find it good to figure out which Senator or Congressperson supports whatever issue I'm looking into. For example, wanna know what The Conservative Index - The John Birch Society thinks of Max Baucus? Go to Project Vote Smart and click on the
Interest Group Ratings link on his bio and find out (he votes for their interests 60% of the time!) (no wonder I've got no love for Max. Note to Max: Beware of 2008...)....and came upon its National Politial Awareness Test (NPAT). I read through
Senator Byrd's responses Senator Byrd's responses - not many surprises there - but then became confused....after all, wasn't Project Vote Smart supposed to be unbiased?
It appears that Project Vote Smart thinks that the American military is in Afghanistan as a matter of military and financial
support, whereas the Amerian military activity in Iraq is framed as
'troop' activity. To the uneducate reader, it appears we've got one war (Iraq), and one military goodwill mission (Afghanistan). I was shocked. Unbiased?! Certainly didn't seem so to me. I mean, isn't the great political debate that has been going on since at least 2003 been the war on Weapons of Mass Destruction (not!) and the war on Terrorism? And the failure of the media(s) to make the distinction between the two? Plus a whole bunch of other stuff here, lest I digress.
Afghanistan = Terrorism, Iraq = FUBAR? Right?
And here I'm reading about Senator Byrd. A Senator on the Armed Services Committee. Been a Senator forever. Gotta take that test, right? Gotta let the people know my position, and it's good to do it with an organization so recognized as being a source of unbiased, uninfluenced-by-bit-money political information site? Certainly Byrd has an opinion on both - and maybe they are two different opinions. Maybe the Senator thinks that we should withdraw troops from Iraq, but thinks that the war in Afghanistan is worth the fight and should continue? But I sure couldn't figure that out. No question there on Afghanistan regarding an exit strategy - yet one for Iraq. How does any official possibly draw a distinction between Iraq and Afghanistan when the questions are framed that way?
So then I went to look for soon-to-be Senator Tester's NPAT answers and found that they don't give that test to Senate candidates until they've been identified as eligible for the general election. I assume that soon Sen. Tester (he is a Montana State Senator) will be getting his NPAT in the mail. And he will be unable to make a distinction been the war in Iraq and the war in Afghanistan.
I think he should be able to make that distinction. Hell - I think all of the candidates, whether incumbent or newbees should be able to make that distinction.
I fired off a letter, very specific, and very unbiased, asking Project Vote Smart why they failed to make a distinction between the war in Iraq and the war in Afghanistan; why the framing of the questions seemed to imply that there were two different levels of military activity in each nation; and how they could fail to make a distinction between the two that, apparently, the rest of the nation has done since at least 2004 (although not quite in that tone. It was a pretty nice letter, if I must say so myself).
I ask you all who have time today to check out Project Vote Smart NPAT answers to your favorite (or unfavorite) Senator(s) - and see whether you think it is worthwhile to have such a widely-used website provide better clarity to the issues of the war in Iraq and the war in Afghanistan.
You can email Project Vote Smart at comments at vote-smart.org