I guess we all have our priorities. Per Kevin Drum, these are Loretta Sanchez’s:

Sanchez, Orange County’s only Democratic member of Congress, voted in 2002 against giving President Bush authorization to invade Iraq. More recently she voted to begin pulling troops out within 90 days.

Tuesday night Sanchez said she could not support the protesters because the $145 billion in Iraq war funding was in the same bill that would provide money to build the C-17 aircraft in California.

“I never voted for this war,” she said. But “I’m not going to vote against $2.1 billion for C-17 production, which is in California. That is just not going to happen.”

We dirty fucking hippies always get dismissed or condescended to as paranoids when we suggest that the influence of the military industrial complex in these situations is just a wee bit extreme, then Mike Gravel shows up sweating and hollering about it like some guy pounding bourbon in the corner of a bar that everyone is trying to ignore and seals the deal. But as Big Tent Democrat says:

Rep. Sanchez, you just said you were going to vote for the war, so that a California company will get a defense contract. 395 Californians have died in Iraq. Loretta Sanchez can put a price on their lives – 2 billion dollars. Not to mention the damage to the interests of the nation.

Matt Stoller has a post on OpenLeft today which argues that Congress is effectively in the hands of a working Republican majority, thanks to the efforts of Blue Dogs (of which Loretta Sanchez is one). Matt suggests that they are “essentially threatening a revolt against Pelosi if she tries to impose real discipline.” Ergo we get FISA, we get the Millitary Commissions Act, we get mo’ war.

In the wake of primary threats (largely promoted in the netroots) Al Wynn and Ellen Tauscher had their come-to-Jesus moments and signed the pledge to vote for no more Iraq funding without provisions for the complete withdrawal of combat troops.

Maybe that’s just how it’s going to have to happen, one DINO at a time.

(h/t Steve-AR)