* 4:18 pm - Col. Jill Morgenthaler just called to say she will announce tomorrow that she’s running for Congress as a Democrat against freshman Republican Peter Roskam. More in a bit…
* 4:45 pm - Morgenthaler is the governor’s deputy chief of staff for homeland security, and is resigning on November 1. She’s been in the military for 30 years and is now retired.
The “Netroots,” which eventually got behind Tammy Duckworth in her campaign versus Roskam last year has been more than a little standoffish so far with Morgenthaler. The biggest reason is that she was a spokesperson for the Army during the Abu Grhaib torture scandal and she authored a blog while in Iraq (much of 2004) that criticizes the media for focusing way too much on the negatives.
She says that things were far better then than they are now. Saddam Hussein was captured, the Iraqi people were allowed to vote an they had a new constitution, etc.
“It has gone downhill,” Morgenthaler said today. “It’s severely deteriorating.”
Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, whose career was essentially ended by the Abu Grhaib scandal, recently had some super-harsh words for the way the war has been handled. Morgenthaler said that Sanchez is a “very private man,” so his highly public criticisms of the administration’s handling of the war should be taken very seriously.
Her own position on the war is that she wants to find a way to “bring the soldiers home safely while not making our nation vulnerable.”
Morgenthaler slammed Congressman Roskam for his vote against the Democrats’ S-CHIP proposal, which was vetoed by President Bush.
Roskam “doesn’t care about 50,000 of our children in Illinois,” Morgenthaler said. “Who is he representing?”