CBS and the Left Wing News Media AP want Iraqi to Fail
I don't think you can overstate the problems the left (and the Democratic Party) are facing right now. Republicans have gained ground in Congress under four of the last five Presidents. The 2004 election was especially interesting. You would _think_ that a fairly "left" Senator would have been able to lay out serious domestic policy differences with President Bush. Offer serious alternatives. Instead the whole thing just seemed to be "I'm not Bush and Iraq is a disaster." The election turned into far more of a referendum on Bush than an actual election. How many Kerry supporters did you hear say, "I'm not really voting for Kerry. I'm voting _against_ Bush."
I told Democratic friends last year that their strategy had a very big problem. I thought they were spending far too much time complaining about Iraq. Especially since their candidate voted to give the President authority to conduct the war! The really big problem with a campaign strategy like that though is that it creates a situation where a major US party is actually expecting/hoping that US foreign policy is going to fail. They would then turn around and say "they support the troops" but that doesn't go very far with me. How can you be "supporting the troops" if your political actions are going to create a situation where success in Iraq is less likely? If you give the terrorists in Iraq daily news reports about major political opposition to the Iraqi war in the US, aren't they MORE likely to kill even more people? (Including more American soldiers.) Resting a major campaign on such ideas is basically immoral IMO.
And what's the really big downside of the policy? (Assuming you don't mind the fact that your actions are causing more conflict and death.) If the major reason people should "vote against Bush" is Iraq, what happens if Bush turns out to be right and Iraq becomes a functioning country? I don't like Hillary any more than the rest of you but I give her credit for her trip to Iraq shortly after it fell. She gave a news conference and reminded everybody that she had been against going into Iraq BUT she was now 100% sure that we HAD to prevail over there. We were committed. It would be a tremendous problem if we did a quick pullout for domestic reasons and the whole area dissolved into chaos. Hillary understood that. Many in her party decided they would rather use Iraq as a club against Bush.
I watched the national news last night and the news was very, very good. It is the first time I've been really happy about developments over there in months. It wasn't just the numbers of people who voted; it was actually seeing them and hearing them. They looked happy. They looked like people who were finally feeling like this was their July 4th. And they just kept saying positive things about Bush, the American people, and American soldiers. All efforts to portray us as some sort of evil occupation force fell away. I think a whole bunch of Democrats just saw the abyss. They better change their rhetoric _really_ fast or they risk getting marginalized even more! (Probably the same thing the Europeans are thinking.)
One last thing. Some days I like Bush and some days I don't. But it is only fair to point out he is doing something which almost never happens in politics today. He looked at the facts and made a decision. He put the US on a certain path. That path was NOT the one that political opinion polls suggested was the best choice. It was NOT the path that many of our allies wanted us to take. But it was the path that Bush honestly thought was in the best long term interests of the USA. So we did what we had to do. And we have stayed there continuing that policy despite many, many problems. It would have been far easier for Bush to start to seek some "middle road." He could have ignored the fact that doing so would have diminished US credibility down the road. Usually a politician picks the road that maximizes their voting potential. The Iraq policy pursued by Bush did not. It was a MAJOR risk for him and for the country. But sometimes you have to take big risks when you feel like you have no other choices. And big risks CAN lead to big rewards if you pull it off. It would be SO good for our long term efforts against terrorism if we could pull off this effort in Iraq. It would change the whole face of the Middle East. Bush deserves credit for having the political gumption to pursue such a policy in the face of lots of obstacles. And he never forgets the real sacrifice comes from the US military themselves. And they appreciate having a CIC like that.
Gregg
