Posted on 01/11/2007 4:20:18 AM PST by Chi-townChief
President Bush, chastened and admitting his failed strategy in the four-year-old war in Iraq, is asking a skeptical nation to give him another chance to get it right.
"Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me," said Bush, using the passive voice in his speech from the White House library.
Mistakes?
Bush blamed the Iraq government for putting restrictions on U.S. troop movements, al-Qaida and radical Islamists more than the policy choices his administration made that never led to the creation of a democratic Iraq anchoring a peaceful Mideast.
Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) delivered the official Democratic response Bush's plan. "It is time for the Iraqis to stand up and defend their own nation," Durbin said.
With Bush's power as commander-in-chief, Durbin said the notion that even a Democratic Congress can actually stop more troop deployments is a "big mistake."
The other Illinois Democrat, Sen. Barack Obama, also is against a troop buildup.
Democrats are not using the word surge -- a word associated with the Bush plan -- because that word implies some temporary situation.
More is more. Bush wants to gamble on an escalation, a word Democrats deliberately are using because it evokes for some the Vietnam war.
Bush does not need permission to send more than 20,000 soldiers to Iraq.
They are going.
If he asked Congress today for any affirmation for what the White House is billing as "The New Way Forward in Iraq," the Congress would not give it to him.
The opposite is happening. Saddam Hussein is dead. No weapons of mass destruction were ever found. The premise for authorizing the war in the first place expired. Sen. Ted Kennedy is introducing legislation banning any more troops and dollars without congressional approval.
The war never ended the way Bush said it would. It never ended at all.
The U.S. soldiers were supposed to stand down when the Iraqis stood up. But they never did. A civil war erupted, with the root causes preceding U.S. troops by centuries.
Bush wants U.S. soldiers to stand up and Iraqis to stand up, too.
War critics, empowered by the November elections, want Iraqis to stand up. Then the U.S. military will, perhaps, have the public support to stand up, too.
Iraqis "must know that every time they call 911 we are not going to send 20,000 more American soldiers," Durbin said.
Much rests on Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his ability to govern and unite Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds.
"The challenge playing out across the broader Middle East is more than a military conflict. It is the decisive ideological struggle of our time," Bush said.
If that's the case, then Bush's package of military initiatives may be arriving years too late.
Find briefings, statements, transcripts on Iraq at blogs.suntimes.com/sweet
mailto:lsweet3022@aol.com
Note to the left: So much for principle. You've been suckered. Again.
Start calling them Surrendercrats.
Help me out English majors. Is "the responsibility rests with me" passive voice?
As yes, General Sweet, how could we have forgotten to consult your brilliant military strategic and tactical mind!
So what is your and the democrats plan, General? To walk away? If so, while I dread it and ask dear God to forbid it, if the emboldened and resurgent terrorists return the war to our soil again and take down the Sears Tower, perhaps you'll be good enough to be in it.
No, but "mistakes were made" sure is.
No.
These idiots are going to get us all killed...God help us!~
We'll see if she responds to my Email...
Well that's part of the same sentence... is characterization of the entire sentence as the passive voice correct?
Is this in the op-ed section? It surely is an opinion piece. Are they passing this off as reporting?
No an English Major, but the active voice would have been "I am responsible for any mistakes". Turning it around with "mistakes" being the subject and putting himself at the end of the sentence, using the words "rests with", does express it passively. At least I think so. An English Major is welcome to correct me. My response to the media editorializing about this is, SO WHAT??
Page 9 - they kind of try to pass it off as news commentary; not quite reporting and not quite editorializing.
I certainly agree with your "so what". I just wondered about the combination of a passive clause with an active clause like that. It's been years since I've had to diagram a sentence and my skills are rusty.
Nope--this is what the Sun-Times refers to as "hard" news. By the looks of it, Ms. Sweet looks to be politically just to the left of Josef himself.
Face it--call it whatever you want--redeployment, whatever. It still boils down to cut-and-run. How many millions more must die before the Dems figure out that running away only EMBOLDENS enemies? Think Iran is gonna be our bestest buddy cause we're not plopping a democratic form of government in their backyard anymore?
Yeah, me either.
I doubt she will; you're better off with a letter to the editor. I had quite an e-mail debate going with another Sun-Times "journalist", the semi-sane Monroe Anderson, but he abruptly stopped replying. I was surprised at the vulgarity and profanity of his e-mails for a supposed professional.
Exactly.
The Dems are playing both sides....
If it goes south, they can claim to have been against it in the first place.
If it goes well, they can claim credit because they allowed it to happen.
The only one sticking his neck out seems to be Bush. Other than McCain (based on what I read), the President has virtially no congressional backers.
"With me responsibility rests" is active voice?
High crimes! Thanks for pointing out the less than optimal grammar, Lynn.
D is for Defeatocrats. I take my lead on whether we should continue our efforts from our troops. They are still of high morale, and re-enlistment is being sustained. I assume this means that they believe in the mission and in its possibility for victory. Therefore, we should finish the job.
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