No matter what happens, we’re screwed

I’m sure ya’all feel like I do – that no matter what Republicans do, the media and the Left are going to complain about it. Just like the other day when Mr. Chertoff said he had a gut feeling the we are going to be attacked by al Qaeda this summer. I’ve had that feeling just about everyday since about 1992.

When the Bush Adminstration announces a foiled terrorist plot, the Left and the media pooh-pooh the attempt and accuse the Administration of creating an atmosphere of fear. But when Chertoff says he “feels” like there’s another imminent attempt, everyone wants details.

The Congressional Democrats claim they want the war to end, but anyone with at least half-a-brain knows the only this war will end is if we remove Iran from the equation. But because the Iraq Study Group said we need to engage those goat-ropers in diplomacy, the Democrats wave the ISG report like a bloody shirt everytime someone discusses the only rational way to deal with Iran – a military solution.

In today’s Washington Post, Peter Baker describes the impasse between the president and the Congressional Democrats;

A weakened president is desperately playing for time while a Democratic opposition mounts its case against him and Republican lawmakers agonize over how long to stick with him. Bush will keep pressing his strategy in Iraq in hopes that it produces more than the meager results his White House reported yesterday while his foes keep scoring political points and not much else.

“The town is gridlocked,” said Kenneth M. Duberstein, who served as chief of staff in the Reagan White House. “There is no give at the White House or on the Hill. The Senate doesn’t have 60 votes to do anything. So, at least for the foreseeable future, which may be September, the only result is stalemate. That may benefit the president, and if you listen to the Democrats, they think it benefits them.”

Both sides have stuck to their familiar positions. Bush has long seen a virtue in refusing to relent to pressure and operating as he sees fit regardless of Congress, while the Democrats, until January, had spent the Bush presidency essentially in the minority, lobbing criticism but with no responsibility for governing. Neither side shows even passing interest in forging a bipartisan consensus, preferring instead to bend the other to its will.

No one wants to confront Iran – the major opposition player in the world. All for political and not strategic reasons. A rational person would admit that removing the current leadership in Iran is the only way to calm the situation in the Middle East – but no one wants to pay the political price for doing the right thing – the correct thing.

The press continues to label the strategy in Iraq a failure, without mentioning that Iraq has met nearly half of the arbitrary benchmarks Congress set to determine success there. Ignoring that Congress agreed to wait until September, Nancy Pelosi pretends that agreement never happened;

“The president stubbornly refuses to develop a redeployment plan or devise a redeployment schedule, preferring to hope, despite the abundance of evidence to the contrary, that his failed policies will somehow make tomorrow better than today,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

Ya hafta start asking yourself why the Democrats don’t want a victory in the Middle East, someone must begin asking the Democrats why they’re in such a rush to concede defeat. If I were a real journalist, and I really wanted to inform the public about what’s really going on in Washington over Iraq, those are the questions I’d ask Democrats in Congress – but those are exactly the questions everyone in the mainstream media avoid asking.

Instead they count how many times the President and the Administration use “precipice” and it’s variations in talking about Iraq. Is this grade school? Is this some kind of playground game of “gotcha”? Or are there real lives and the future of our nation hanging in the balance?

Category: Politics, Society, Terror War