Posted on 08/22/2007 4:30:02 AM PDT by IrishMike
As an exercise in counterintuitive reasoning, see if you can identify the authors of these recent quotes:
“More American troops have brought more peace to more parts of Iraq. I think that's a fact.”
“The military aspects of President Bush's new strategy in Iraq ... appear to have produced some credible and positive results.”
“We’ve begun to change tactics in Iraq, and in some areas, particularly in Al Anbar Province, it’s working.”
A White House spokesman? General Petraeus? A Fox News talking head or a FrontPageMag.com columnist?
None of the above. All three quotes come courtesy of top Democratic senators. The first is from Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois; the second is from Michigan’s Carl Levin; and the third is from none other than Hillary Clinton.
That may come as a surprise. Despite his newly discovered appreciation for the armed forces, Sen. Durbin is best known for sliming American troops at Guantanamo Bay as the effective heirs of “Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime — Pol Pot or others — that had no concern for human beings.” Still, Durbin is apparently willing to acknowledge that these savages, coldly indifferent to human suffering, are bringing “peace” to Iraq.
Likewise, his colleague Carl Levin has been one of the loudest anti-war voices in the Senate. It was only last month that Levin drafted a failed bill that would have forced the U.S. to begin withdrawing troops in the next four months, a deliberate attempt to scuttle the same strategy to which Levin now ascribes “credible and positive results.”
As for Clinton, she has worked tirelessly in the past year to distance herself from her initial support of the war effort. In May, she went so far as to vote against funding for the war so long as the United States remained committed to the “surge.” That would be the same surge that she now believes is “working.”
To conclude from this that the senators are willing to support American war policy is to underestimate the depths of cynicism in the Democratic Party. No sooner had Sen. Clinton praised the surge in her Monday speech before the Veterans of Foreign Wars national convention than she insisted that the surge was a failure after all. “We’re just years too late changing our tactics,” Clinton averred.
But the prize for least logical transition should properly go to Clinton’s rival Barack Obama, who used the occasion of his Tuesday appearance at the convention to laud the troops in Iraq for having “performed brilliantly and bravely,” only to conclude that the surge was… a failure undeserving of continued support. “No military surge, no matter how brilliantly performed, can succeed without political reconciliation and a surge of diplomacy in Iraq and the region,” Obama intoned.
Such bracketed indictments of the surge may sound better than Harry Reid’s reckless claim that “this war is lost, and this surge is not accomplishing anything.” Substantively, however, they amount to the same thing.
How to account for the senators’ rhetorical schizophrenia? The most parsimonious answer is that Democrats want to have it both ways. By acknowledging the success of the surge, they are bowing to a hopeful and cresting empirical consensus -- buttressed by a recent op-ed in the New York Times by Michael O’Hanlon and Ken Pollack, of the left-of-center Brookings Institution -- that the added troop strength of the surge has measurably increased security in the country and, more optimistically, that Iraq is a winnable war. By insisting that the surge is nonetheless a failure, they are telling their anti-war supporters precisely what they want to hear. Whether this contradictory position -- call it the “surge straddle” -- is smart politics remains to be seen. That it represents a failure of leadership is undeniable.
It would be no easy task to explain why a successful military strategy should be aborted mid-course -- and, indeed, Democrats have declined to offer a coherent explanation. Instead, they have sought to move the goal posts of debate. Their argument runs something like this. True, the surge is showing signs of progress. But the Iraqi government has heretofore proved a failure. Therefore, the surge is a failure.
Lest you think this a caricature, consider that it is just a paraphrase of Carl Levin’s recent statement. Conceding that the “level of violence has been reduced in a number of areas” as a consequence of the surge, Levin maintained that it must still be considered a failure: “The purpose of the surge, by its own terms, was to…give the opportunity to the Iraqi leaders to reach some political settlements. They have failed to do that. They have totally and utterly failed.” In other words, we’re winning, but we can’t win. That’s the surge straddle in a nutshell.
It suffers from one obvious flaw. A principal reason for the Iraqi government’s (admitted) failure is the persistence of terrorist violence and sectarian strife. It was this violence that the surge was intended to stem and, by Levin’s admission, it is doing so. It follows, then, that prematurely withdrawing troops from Iraq all-but-guarantees that the Iraqi government will never gain control of the country. Thus do the Democrats’ declarations of failure become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
In her remarks before the VFW this week, Sen. Clinton dwelled at length on her desire to restore America’s image overseas. “People have to root for America,” she said. It’s a fine sentiment. But what a pleasant change it would be if, just this once, the senator and her party would lead by example.
Interesting indeed.
Their immediate plan is have the MSM attack the report congress demanded BEFORE the report is reported ...
gives them some wiggle room.
I am certain this news is very disturbing to them. How in the world are they going to “spin” this to claim defeat? I suspected things were getting better in Iraq due to the total lack of coverage in the news. This is truly bad news for the left with elections on everyone’s mind.
It’s a bit tough for the Dems to say the surge is working and then call the report on the surge BS.
I heard Rush report a story of the dramatic drop off of Iraq stories in the past few months. Of course the MSM could have done positive stories on Iraq but who wants to hear about stuff like that? /s
It’s a bit tough for the Dems to say the surge is working and then call the report on the surge BS.
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.
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But is that not exactly what they’re doing, getting rear guard cover from the drive bys ?
Which makes one wonder why they even bother to admit that the surge is working to begin with?
Spin this morning by floorMatt Lauer, commenting on the downed chopper....Another setback for the military and the administration. What-A-POS.
Yeah he’s really concerned about the soldiers. /s
LLS
What? No comment from Harry POS Reid?
Imagine the shock and surprise of all the faithful lib sheep who shrieked and frothed at the mouth when asked by people like Sean Hannity if the surge could succeed. Just a few weeks ago Hannity had some lib on the line who dissolved in smirking, derisive laughter when Sean asked him if he thought the surge could succeed. What is this guy thinking now? He had been told by his lib masters that it was IMPOSSIBLE!!! for the surge to succeed. And now his puppetmasters are telling the world that the surge is succeeding. What must be going on in the minds of all the lib sheep now?
The democrats have no plan for anything, except taking money from others who work and giving it to those (democrat voters) who don’t. And, feathering their own nests, of course. Cynical? You bet.
it is very difficult to choose which of these far left democrats is the most obnoxious, transparent and insufferable.
They will follow the same plan they always use when their whacky ideas blow up in their face--they will simply ignore the past statements, positions, etc as if they never existed, and move on. And the MSM will cover for them by stuffing their previous statements down the memory hole.
Which makes one wonder why they even bother to admit that the surge is working to begin with?
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Interesting article here
‘The New War’
New York Sun Editorial
http://www.nysun.com/article/61042
another huge political opportunity for the GOP. First Reid declared it failed before it was fully implemented, now there are dems saying it has worked, at least to a degree. They people are playing politics with a war and need to be called on it.
Better yet...no comment from Bill O'Reilly who within days of the good news of the surge said,(and I'm paraphrasing)..."America is just sick of the war...enough is enough!"
I don't know, but you sure as dirt may get a clue from the no spin, just blatant lies La Tired zone.
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