Sen. Chuck Hagel
Chuck, for the good of the Republican party, please, cross the aisle and take a seat. Any seat.
We’ll even trade you for Lieberman.
Surrender Strategery; Democrats Stick With Cut and Run
Twelve House Democrats signed a letter and sent it to President Bush urging a troop withdrawal in Iraq. The WaPo calls this unity. I call it weak minded political posturing.
After months of struggling to forge a unified stance on the Iraq war, top congressional Democrats joined voices yesterday to call on President Bush to begin withdrawing U.S. troops by the end of the year and to “transition to a more limited mission” in the war-torn nation.
With the midterm elections three months away, and Democrats seeing public discontent over Iraq as their best chance for retaking the House or Senate, a dozen key lawmakers told Bush in a letter: “In the interests of American national security, our troops and our taxpayers, the open-ended commitment in Iraq that you have embraced cannot and should not be sustained. . . . We need to take a new direction.”
The Washington Post, in an attempt to add legitimacy to this show of timidity, mentions that “a number of GOP lawmakers are joining Democrats in criticizing the war’s progress.”
All they can pull out are quotes from two of the biggest Rhino’s in D.C. Hardly a landslide of discontent.
Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) last week called Iraq “an absolute replay of Vietnam.” Rep. Gil Gutknecht (R-Minn.) recently returned from Iraq with a call for U.S. troops to pull out.
Zzzzzzz…
This issue is dead on arrival. It simply doesn’t resonate with a majority of Americans. Sure, when asked politically biased strategically worded questions, a pollster can manufacture a majority of adults who admit that the U.S. led effort in Iraq could have gone better and that we should leave the country as soon as necessary, but that hardly means quitting. It doesn’t mean time table. It doesn’t mean cut and run. It means we should leave Iraq the day the job is complete and not another day longer. The reality is, Americans want to win, not lose. We like to finish what we started, not leave in the middle of the game. We take pride in not being cowards.
The Dems have given up on Iraq and they’ve given up on our troops. To most Americans, that sounds a lot like surrender.
Ribbit Ribbit
When deranged, white flag waving frogs are paraded in front of the media, anything can happen.
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, whose country is a main backer of Hezbollah, met his French counterpart in Beirut on Monday for talks on resolving the crisis in Lebanon.
French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said earlier on Monday in Beirut it was important to maintain contacts with Tehran as part of efforts to resolve the crisis in Lebanon, where Hezbollah and Israel have been at war for nearly three weeks.
Iran is a significant, respected player in the Middle East which is playing a stabilizing role, French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said earlier Monday in Beirut.
“It was clear that we could never accept a destabilization of Lebanon, which could lead to a destabilization of the region,” Douste-Blazy said in Beirut.
“In the region there is of course a country such as Iran – a great country, a great people and a great civilization which is respected and which plays a stabilizing role in the region,” he told a news conference.
Douste-Blazy wasn’t the only guy talkin’ psychobabble to reporters. French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin joined in.
de Villepin welcomed Monday a pledge by Israel to suspend air strikes in Lebanon for 48 hours but said it was not enough.
“It is, for France, a first step, but an insufficient step given the current stakes,” he told reporters.
“We must all together redouble our efforts to achieve the immediate cessation of hostilities requested by the president,” de Villepin added.
What he means to say is…Israel should stop defending itself against the hundreds of Hezbollah fired (Iranian built) rockets that fall daily on it’s northern cities. Then, everything would be good.
How brilliant.
Propaganda Pushing Posers
Have you seen these pictures yet? What about this guy? Have you seen him before? If you have, and you (like most people) were emotionally wracked by the severity of the scenes depicted, then congratulations are in order. You now belong to a large club of people who have been sucked in by one of the most egregious examples of a modern day war propaganda machine, courtesy of Hezbollah.
Are you outraged? You should be.
Welcome to Hezbollywood, where every member of the MSM receives an “E” class ticket.
Clap On
I’ve returned. Taking some time off proved to be a good thing. I highly recommend it.
Back to work tomorrow. Until then…
Clap Off
I’m taking time away from the day job this week so I’ve decided to reciprocate by taking time off from the blog. You know…for the good of mankind.
I’ll be back next week. Or sooner. I dunno.
Later.
So, Tell Me How You Really Feel
Laurence Simon, on Richard Allen Davis’ drug O.D.
If a guy on Death Row wants to die, I say let him. Hang nooses from the ceiling. Spigots dispensing every drug and chemical combination, just push a button and put your mouth over the hose. Make every edge on the bolted-down furniture sharp as a razor with easily-removed padding. Make the toilets deep enough to drown it.
Exactly.
Serious Campaigning
I think things might be a little more difficult for Hillary this time around.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s challenger for the Democratic Senate nomination, anti-Iraq war activist Jonathan Tasini, called Tuesday for the former first lady to debate him, something her 2000 Democratic primary challenger never got her to agree to.
And, one of Clinton’s potential Republican challengers, Kathleen Troia “KT” McFarland, sent out a fundraising e-mail in which she denounced the Democratic incumbent as “an ultra-liberal, carpetbagger senator” and decried the notion Clinton could become president and install “her disgraced husband back in the White House.”
McFarland said a second Clinton presidency would lead to “the destruction of our great country.”
Exactly.
The Architect’s Reach is Far and Wide
Quick, put your tin foil hat on.
The founder of Air America claims that Karl Rove is behind the Left’s Anti-Semitism.
Unannounced, to the Media
I just love all these ‘unexpected, unannounced, surprising’ stops made by Bush (think Turkey in Iraq) and now Condi Rice.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made an unannounced stop in Beirut Monday in an effort to shore up Lebanon’s fragile government, beleaguered by nearly two weeks of relentless bombing raids that have wrecked much of the country’s infrastructure and sent thousands of Lebanese citizens fleeing for their lives.
It’s fun to watch the media, who continue to react with utter shock when a president or members of his cabinet stray from the pre-published travel itinerary. Then there is the Left, who scoff at these secret trips, claiming what they see is nothing more than manufactured ‘wanna be seen as doing something important’ ploys for popularity.
These seemingly impromptu stop overs in unexpected places aren’t so much a photo-op tactic to gain a bump in the polls as they are a foreign policy reality in this post 9/11 world. Get used to it.