Tim may understand the political calculus involved below, but it disgusts me:
Unlike Atrios I don’t have much a problem with the political calculus here. Admitting that Howard Dean and the rest of the crazy defeatocrats were one hundred percent right is a pretty stupid thing to do immediately before an election. The headlines would pretty much cut the Republican campaign narrative off at the knees, which sucks when you consider that they have literally nothing else to run on.
I am assuming that while understanding it, however, he is in no way condoning it, because I find dishonestly hiding your real thoughts about Iraq to preseve electoral chances for the party that has NO INTENTION of following through on your recommendations to be beyond cowardice. Assuming the reports are true about these two Senators, their behavior is sickening.
If you think our policy in Iraq is flawed, you should speak out. Not remain silent and enable the behavior which you have diagnosed as wrong. Of course, in the week after the Foley revelations, this is not surprising or unexpected coming from the GOP.
Dave
Hey what’s a few more dead soldiers if they can remain in power….
cd6
The GOP pledged to stop sending pornographic text messages to teenaged boys, after the election.
I didn’t hear the Democrats make any kind of similair pledge. I guess they were too busy worshipping at the altar of George Soros
The Other Steve
That’s ok. I predicted Bush would pull us out of Iraq in 2005, figuring he’d won the election and it wasn’t like the Democrats could complain about him withdrawing.
Look how wrong I was.
Proud Liberal
again John you are 100% correct. I can still remember hearing a young John Kerry testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1971 and saying, “How do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam?” Appropriate then, appropriate now.
Throw them out. Throw them all out.
Richard Bottoms
Here’s a thought exercise. It’s 1982, a Russian journalist who is giving the Kremlin fits is assasinated. Ronald Reagan does:
a) Nothing
b) Orders up some diplomatic response
c) Invites Breshnev over for barbeque so he can look into his soul
The GOP is finished, either at the polls in 30 days or two more years hence. They always for things I thought were pretty rotten, but at least they seemed to stand for them.
Now even the pretense is gone.
Pathetic.
Richard Bottoms
If you mean Republicans, yes.
matt
This is depressing.
Bombadil
Corrected — and yes, even more appropriate now.
Richard Bottoms
Really? I thought 52% were convinced that he was no better than Jane Fonda showing off in North Vietnam. Cause Bush won and we defeatocrats were shown the door.
It can’t possibly be the we were right all along, espcially since we chose a guy who spoke French of all thing to run for the White House. What kind of spineless polical party chooses someone who is smart to run things.
The only thing that counts is certainty.
ThymeZone
The Bush Administration welcomes “clarifying events” like the N. Korean nuclear test.
As Kevin Drum says, basically baiting the world and hoping for bad things to happen is not exactly a policy aimed at making America safer. It seems to be aimed at making the Bush Administration safer.
Is there anything — anything at all — that these turds won’t sell down the river for their own benefit?
Paddy O'Shea
Who evens listens to these people anymore? Last week the White House was whining because Bush’s “Dems are weak on terror” speeches were getting almost no media coverage.
Bush needs to realize that in order to get the accolades given to great war leaders, he’s going to need to win something first. As it stands now he’s lost Iraq, is in the process of losing Afghanistan, which is setting us up for the biggest disaster of all, a loss in the War On Terror.
Bush and his kool-aid guzzling apologists on the loon blogs are pretty much at the “crazy granny in the attic” stage right now. That’s what happens when all you have to counter your failures is the same old tired bullshit That everyone has heard so very many times before.
Craig
I think that the particular genious of the statement is that republicans all over are going to have to defend themselves now as not being one of those two senators.
Tsulagi
Given these guys, any surprise you have would be…?
Sole reason we are now on Stay the Course and dipshit said he plans to hand off to the next president is so the final exclamation point doesn’t occur while he’s still farting in office. Be able to blame someone else. Same has been with lesser Pubs like those senators mentioned. For those exalted reasons we continue to bleed in Iraq.
However, those senators are smart enough to know Stay the Course isn’t going to work for those wishing to remain in office two years from now in the next election. So yeah, their smart play from a political standpoint would be to change course after midterms. Didn’t you hear, they support the troops.
fester
John — you truly are close to the Dark Side of empathizing with all of us Democrats who were screaming at Gephardt and Daschle the same thing — this is fucking dumb idea and it will not preserve your/our electoral viability anyways… take a stand and go for principles here. We crazy lefties are still too uncivil to invite to any serious foreign policy discussion. Welcome to the club :)
I wonder who those two GOP Senators are and if either of them are planning on running for the White House in 2008 or 2012 for if they are, staying silent is a really dumb thing to do. Getting out in front of the tidal wave of “do something different” that is sure to burst for Iraq Policy after the election would be a good way to get name recognition and Sister Soulijah the neo-cons (or is SS only good tactics for DLC Dems?) while allowing maximal time for a mea culpa and explanation of the evolution of views on the issue instead of merely being seen as a desperate electoral move. Disregard this entire paragraph is at least one of the two senators is currently running for re-election.
Tim F.
My bet – one of them is running and the other is named Arlen.
Kimmitt
Since the entire purpose of the Iraq War is to spend American lives to get Republicans elected, it’s hardly surprising that any given decision on how to handle it would be political and dishonest.
Steve
The first name that comes to mind is Hagel, although maybe he’s already enough of a dissenter that it wouldn’t even be news if it were him.
Should be working
I agree – I think Hagel would SAY something like that. He would then go ahead and support Bush, just like the “I was against torture before I was for it” approach.
The Other Steve
I doubt it was the Kremlin. I think it was more likely agents of Ramzan Kadyrov., as that is who she’d been writing about recently.
The question will be whether Kadyrov had the approval of the FSB or not, because this hit was in Moscow it is likely that they regard this as playing on the wrong turf and go after Kadyrov to make a point.
Hard to say really, and I have my doubts that any investigation will lead to convictions. Russia is actually more corrupt than the Republican party.
I did find it interesting that Gorbachev had something to say decrying this event, but then he does own the newspaper she worked for.
The Other Steve
It’s actually Joe Lieberman!
:-)
srv
The bad news is that another one of Osama’s video tapes will probably not help the Republican for this election. If AQ has any capability to strike domestically, they are in full tilt mode to make it happen now.
Sherard
Well, at least you recognize the giant flaw in your thought process. The Iraq war is wildly unpopular. Republicans are distancing themselves from Bush, yet somehow they need to hide their true feelings until after the election to 1) not rile up the guy they are already distancing themselves from, and 2) draw on support from war supporters whose numbers are dwindling by the minute.
Oh yeah, I would believe Biden on this.
Hyperion
i watched this two weeks ago on CSPAN but the WaPo version of the event is interesting, too. At the time I thought the whole thing was bizarre. Evidently I’m not alone.
i wonder if the 2 R’s have heard more about the contents of the Iraq Study Group report (headed by Baker and Hamilton). in the press conference that revealed almost nothing, these two guys said over and over that their findings would be striking but that they had to wait until after the elections..otherwise, some folks might cry “politics”. i remember thinking “who will be crying…Bush or his opponents?” It was impossible to deduce the answer based on their words or demeanor. But subsequently I have read that the report is going to be reality based. so two choices: send lots more troops or start figuring out who leaves when.
the fact finding phase is done. Baker and friends must reach conclusions, brief GWB and the congress, then the peons get to hear about it IIRC…in Dec or Jan.
chopper
i just can’t wait to see the logical wrangling R’s are gonna start using to argue that we should pull troops out of iraq, given how fiercely they’ve fought the idea up until now and how much they’ve assigned that idea to the evil democrats.
this is gonna be great.
Chuck Butcher
John,
I got here from a link on an Oregon Lefty Blog a few weeks ago and I was surprised to read something from a Republican that I could actually understand being written. There was a time my lefty self could have rational discussions/arguments with Conservatives. I could work out what they believed, why they believed it, and what means to what ends they proposed to get to. I had an actual respect for their theories of government, if not agreement. Since the back end of RR’s administration that has been nonexistent.
I found that government non-interference in personal life was a selective belief, the “hands-off” approach only involved the interests they represented, not the general citizenry. In almost all approaches to government their approaches only differed in the code words used and the parties favored. As a Lefty (oh hell – Radical) I saw little need for the economic elites to be on the favored end of government, the entire system is built around their interests anyway. That is an entirely different argument than small government vs active government.
It is refreshing to read a Conservative who thinks and writes like a Conservative. There really is much the Left and the Conservative movements agree about. Government of Law not Personality, respect for Individual Rights, respect for the Constitution, the importance of the Separation of Power. I’m quite sure we’d clash on many items of policy and theory, but there’d be a basis for respect. A basis I cannot find with this Administration, Congress, or their supporters. What is called conservative today I find offensive and far from rational, it is essentially a personality cult of theocrats. Sure, it’s more varied, but further exploration of that variety would involve all kinds of verbiage and delving into evil thoughts.
Thanks for the refreshment,
Chuck