12.11.06
That Liberal Media - Out Of Iraq Rant
Keep in mind that most polls of the American people are running in the mid to high 60’s if not 70’s on whether we should leave Iraq now, and that the President’s plan in Iraq is a disaster or not working and the “so-called liberal” WaPo has the gumption, I’m being nice, to write this article, Hawks Bolster Skeptical President:
Steady condemnation from conservatives for the Iraq Study Group report may be providing some cover to the Bush administration as it completes its own review of strategy in Iraq, apparently with little enthusiasm for the panel’s prescription of U.S. troop withdrawal and dialogue with Syria and Iran.
The criticism of the panel, co-chaired by former secretary of state James A. Baker III and former representative Lee H. Hamilton (D-Ind.), has burst forth from the leading institutions of the right: the National Review, the Wall Street Journal editorial page and the Weekly Standard; conservative talk radio; and scholars at some of Washington’s top think tanks.
The first thing to note is that it’s not news to tell us that the warmongers are still on board with a war. These people are not, have never been, and never will be part of any group of people that want to leave Iraq. If the poll numbers get into the 90 precentile these people will still be for staying. Who are they you ask? Richrard Perle, Frank Gaffney, Jr., Kenneth R. Weinstein. And the “top” think tanks they’re form? The Hudson Institiute, The American Enterprise Institute and the Center for Security Policy - who the hell ever heard of that one - these are all right-wing think tanks that were pro-war from the beginning. The point is these wing-nuts and their think tanks are not offering the President cover, they’re just reinforcing the bubble the President lives in. And it’s definitely not news that they’re still on board with the president’s failed policy in Iraq. They’re the ones who came up with it, after all.
The President doesn’t and never did need cover or bolstering from these people. This article is somehow trying to show that because the wing-nuts and crazies who were for this war in the beginning and are still for it now, that everything is really OK. This is shotty journalism at best.
The American people are way ahead of just about every politician on this issue. My wife and I had a discussion about leaving Iraq yesterday. She’s knows we have to go but thinks we can’t go right away. I say now, and the sooner the better. Now means, at the earliest, if we said we we’re leaving tomorrow, it would still take at least a Friedman, aka 6 months. The point being whether we leave now, or we leave in 2 years, 6 years, or whenever, the Iraqis are eventually going to have to figure it our for themselves and that could lead to chaos, or like Vietnam, it could lead to peace.
Leon Panetta tells us why this report has been seen by many as a farce to begin with:
Iraq Study Group member Leon E. Panetta, a Democratic former congressman and White House chief of staff under Bill Clinton, said the criticism from hawks and conservatives is “the price of statesmanship” for Baker. “He’s been through it,” he added. “He understands it.
“I think the feeling was, how do you rescue this administration from the grip of ideology and force it to face the real world?” Panetta said. “That’s where he was coming from: ‘How can I help the president in a way protect his legacy and do the right thing?’ “
As Mr. Panetta tells us that this group was put together to save President Bush from ideologues and to save his legacy. Not to do what’s best for our country and the soldiers and Marines in harm’s way.
The argument the Iraq Study Group (ISG) has started in the media has been between two factions of the Republican Party, the Neo-conservatives and the Corporatists (ISG) - which often times bleeds into the “center” of the Democratic Party (Panetta) - with the left and most Democrats left out of the debate. It’s not hard to notice that the voices that were right about Iraq from the beginning are getting very little media in the debate about what to do in Iraq now, see this post. This article in the WaPo today is a bad one. It leaves out the fact that having the wing-nuts still on his side does nothing to bolster the President with the American people.