Mitt Romney speaks on the situation in Iraq:
“I agree with the President: Our strategy in Iraq must change. Our military mission, for the first time, must include securing the civilian population from violence and terror. It is impossible to defeat the insurgency without first providing security for the Iraqi people. Civilian security is the precondition for any political and economic reconstruction.
“In consultation with Generals, military experts and troops who have served on the ground in Iraq, I believe securing Iraqi civilians requires additional troops. I support adding five brigades in Baghdad and two regiments in Al-Anbar province. Success will require rapid deployment.
“This effort should be combined with clear objectives and milestones for U.S. and Iraqi leaders.
“The road ahead will be difficult but success is still possible in Iraq. I believe it is in America’s national security interest to achieve it.”
In essence, if you like what you got with George Bush, make sure you vote for Mitt Romney in the primaries. You can get the same pandering to the religious nuts at the expense of gays and science, the flip-flopping, and more ‘stay the course’ in Iraq. What a shallow, shallow man (which explains why K-Lo loves him). Hell, I even have a slogan idea for Mitt-
“Four More Years.”
Let’s see how that works out.
AkaDad
My slogan for any Republican nominee.
America can’t afford another Bush Republican…
Zombie Santa Claus
“Aren’t you better off now than you were 8 years ago?”
not the senator
We here in Massachusetts loved the Mittster so much that he didn’t even attempt to run for re-election and his designated successor, Lt. Gov. Kerry Healy was crushed by 21% in November.
Mitt Romney – great hair, no follow through.
Zifnab
You know what I love about Republicans? They’re never the type to drop names. Way to keep it close to the chest Mitt. I almost would have thought you pull the “Generals, military experts and troops who have served on the ground in Iraq” just totally popped right out of your ass.
Tsulagi
LOL. I would love to hear any of the Pube candidates use that one. If that wouldn’t bring out the torches and pitchforks…
Gotta love the Straight Talk Express’ “substantial and sustained” too. Translation: I learned my lesson, so now no damned way you’re going to pin me down on anything. Whatever turns out to fail, that was what I was against.
SeesThroughIt
Yeah, the Bushbots really seem to like the guy. Which is reason enough for normal people of all political stripes to look elsewhere for a good candidate.
Ryan S.
Really, this has been the Presidents opinion since…. whe exacty. And more importantly, What IS the strategy change?
What ever happened to that CNN report that said the military only had an extra 9,000 troops to send.
Also, if I do the math correctly 5 brigades and 2 regiments is 22600 troops( is that right?? don’t know).
Jonathan
Well, at least Bush has learned to say “strategy” instead of “strategery”.
Now if only we could get him to say “nuclear”.
Elvis Elvisberg
Mitt Romney, against it before he was for it:
“I’m certainly not a general or a military planner, and I wouldn’t suggest that we need to raise our level of troops at this stage.”
5/24/06
That was right after he returned from Iraq, meeting with Generals, military experts and troops who have served on the ground. But, at a word from the Decider, that statement is no longer operative.
Dave
Mitt’s a buffoon that has no chance.
Jay C
not the senator:
.
MY nominee for POTD! And judging by the guy’s (Mitt’s, that is) record; the precis of his career to date…
Oh, and Ryan S.: barring some REALLY notable change-of-stategy on the part of our Decider-In-Chief, your estimates are probably pretty accurate: the actual numbers of actual combat forces scheduled to be committed to Baghdad (or anywhere else in Iraq, for that matter) sorta coalesce around 20,000: although the number of front-line combat grunts in the mix seems to be still TBD.
Steve
I used to work with Mitt’s brother. Famous political family. Mitt might be the George W. of the lot, though.
ThymeZone
That’s today’s lame version of “we’ve turned a corner?”
Or “we’re winning in Iraq?”
Wow. Success still possible. That’s …. inspiring.
“We few … we happy few …” Shakespeare couldn’t write a better speech than this, I tell ya.
TenguPhule
Fixed with Truth-o-vision(tm).
Tony J
WTF?
The Other Andrew
As I understand it, the “extra” numbers will come from extending tours yet again.
Here’s what’s going to happen, step-by-step:
1. Bush will read the press release, and the talking points will go from “Don’t judge his plan until you hear it!” to “Why won’t you do what’s best for America and support the President!?” (Translated: “Why can’t you give the President the benefit of the doubt for the millionth time, even though he’s proven he deserves no such thing time and time again?”)
2. Carefully-coordinated optimism will flood the airwaves and certain sections of the blogosphere.
3. If it takes a while for the troops to be deployed, that may not be a problem for Bush, as “conservative” commentators will loudly and repeatedly say that all criticism of the war should be halted/postponed until the plan has had time to take effect. This may very well succeed in eating more clock.
4. When the troops are deployed, and early reports begin to trickle in, the usual suspects will pounce on anything that remotely resembles progress, even/especially if it requires ignoring anything that contradicts it.
5. The illusion of progress will pacify some moderates and some in the media, which, I imagine, is the entire point. Andrew Sullivan will reluctantly point out news items that describe hope for Iraq’s future, someone at Time or Newsweek will mildly criticize Bush’s superficial efforts and strongly criticize the Democrats for not getting more strongly behind those superficial efforts, and so on.
6. Darrell and his merry men will scamper about this very blog, rejoicing and copy/pasting from (insert unreliable conservative news site here), informing us about how we’re finally on the right track, and why can’t we see the truth, and how silly we’re going to feel when Bush re-declares victory under a banner that says “Mission Accomplished II: Electric Boogaloo”.
7. As with all of Bush’s policies, it will age quite badly, and six months after the surge, when it becomes apparent that it had either no serious effect or a negative effect, Bush will cut and run from this latest attempt at portraying victory, just as he’s done from all the previous attempts. After taking some PR damage, he’ll announce a new plan for victory, and we must put aside our criticism until he’s read a press release that explains it. And more clock will have been killed…
ThymeZone
What did we think he meant when he said it would be up to “future presidents” to figure out how to get us the hell out of there?
Buck? What buck?
Jake
Great statergery on Mitt’s part. Right after America delivers “a thumpin'” to signal its distaste for those who follow the Deciderator he decides to…follow the Deciderator. Although I guess he could always say he was following McCain.
ThymeZone
Professor Irwin Corey himself couldn’t write this crap better.
That’s the best textbook example of Doubletalk I’ve seen in a long time.
So much for having his yard man write his speeches …..
Faux News
A related post on Andrew Sullivan today:
Perhaps the 3 stooges (McCain, Romeny, and Rudy) can get down and show us their break dancing routines as wonderfully suggested by The Other Andrew in “Mission Accomplished Electric Boogaloo”.
ThymeZone
Not unless He comes out against gay marriage.
Zifnab
At least, I don’t think he’d be able to swing the Christian vote.
Pennypacker
Gosh, we went in there to save them from that madman, Saddam, and then we forgot to make the military mission to protect them from violence and terror! What were we thinking?!
TenguPhule
You forgot the part where he must demand tax cuts for rich heirs.
Jake
Or something about pretzles. Hard to say.
Downpuppy
Sorry, but Mitt is sticking with his winning slogan:
DAN
I am really looking forward to Mission Accomplished II: Electric Boogaloo. When is it going to air on fox news?
James Gary
“I support adding five brigades in Baghdad and two regiments in Al-Anbar province.”
FYI, I put in a few minutes Googling “brigade” and “regiment.” As currently defined by the US Army, a brigade consists of about 5,000 soldiers. A “regiment” isn’t currently used as an organizational unit by the US (and hasn’t been since 1957), but according to Wikipedia can “range in size from a few hundred to 2,000-3,000 soldiers.”
So what Romney’s proposing is basically the same as the impending Bush plan (20,000 new troops), an additional brigade and two “regiments–” that is, 11,000 more soldiers (if we take the upper end of the Wikipedia definition) than Bush’s proposal.
My question is: has anyone asked this guy to justify this decision? I would love to see Mr. Romney explain in concrete detail why he believes 31,000, (and not 50,000 or 25,000) is the correct number of troops to solve the problem. If there’s anything more insulting than empty sloganeering like “stay the course,” it’s the use of specific but meaningless details to cover a lack of any real thinking.
The Other Steve
That’s funny!
When I do things like that people call me a disengenuous asshat. Although I’m usually less blatant about it.
Barry
Mitt: “Our military mission, for the first time, must include securing the civilian population from violence and terror. It is impossible to defeat the insurgency without first providing security for the Iraqi people. Civilian security is the precondition for any political and economic reconstruction.”
I would say that he’s three and a half years too late, but anybody who knew anything would have figured that out *before* the war.
Davebo
The Heritage Foundation. Think tank or drunk tank?
You make the call.
Jake
A drunk tank isn’t so noisy and smells better.
Let’s see. So far radical moonbats (of all stripes) have blamed gays, corporate America, some guy trying to collect insurance, the military, Clinton and now the “cultural left,” for all or part of September 11th.
No wonder no one is looking for Osama.
Krista
Not serious enough. Remember, Republicans are the serious, sensible ones here, while the Dems are shrill.
My suggestion: Mission Accomplished II: The Quickening.
(Try adding that suffix to any movie…it somehow works, in a twisted sort of way.)
Davebo
Pearls of wisdom from Simone’s Dad….
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZTYxZDcxMzkzNzhiMzFkNTAwMzkxNjE0Y2FkNmM0MTE=
Myrtle Parker
Check out this newly released video of Romney talking like a liberal in his debate with Senator Ted Kennedy:
Explosive new video of Romney declaring his allegiance to abortion and gay rights in 1994!
Romney is dead. NO WAY he makes it through Republican primary now. Not when all the wingnuts are in a twitter about Kennedy and then this video surfaces…
HyperIon
way-back machine alert!
i have not thought of this fellow for years but you’re right.
Myrtle Parker
Can you imagine when some reporter finds the dead relative that died of an abortion that was, “Very, very close” to Mitt Romney? What was her name? What was her background and what exactly happened to her?
And I think we should get Mitt’s mom to comment. She apparently is pro Roe v. Wade because of this incident. Romney is backtracking on the official family position on abortion apparently.
Mike S
McCain is actually worse. I think this qualifies as a lie from the “straight talk express” guy.
salvage
blink blink
So… every Iraqi family is going to get their own Marine and Humvee?
Lucky ducks.
demkat620
John,
I see you got that dirty hippie decoder ring I sent you and have put it to good use.
Hilarious!
Pb
Odds are, he’d end up in Gitmo instead, with all the other brown hippies, at least until someone figures out that he’s speaking Aramaic, not Arabic. In the meantime, though, he’ll get to catch up on his reading–reading the Koran, that is…
Mike
I just loved Dick Morris’ latest comments about Mitt and the other Rethug candidates for ’08.
“The only one of these guys who hasn’t had multiple wives is the Mormon.”
— Dick Morris, writing in the New York Post about the field of Republican Presidential candidates
Sam Hutcheson
I believe securing Iraqi civilians requires additional troops. I support adding five brigades in Baghdad and two regiments in Al-Anbar province. Success will require rapid deployment.
1. These troops don’t exist.
2. Romney knows these troops don’t exist.
3. There is no chance of his “plan” being implemented.
4. He will always be able to say “if they’d just done it my way.”
The Other Steve
I say Paul Hackett for President
Faux News
Thanks for fixing my post John. I’ll do better next time I promise!
Faux News
The Other Steve
Anybody found a good Bush Drinking game?
What do you all think the big buzzword is going to be?
Ryan S.
Success!!
TenguPhule
The buzzword will be “Sacrifice”: Take a drink after every time he says it.
For the rest of the game.
9/11: Two drinks
Al Queda: One drink
Islamofacism: One drink
If Bush mangles the pronounciation: Finish the bottle.
Going up before going down: One drink, but don’t swallow.
Surge: One drink, extend middle finger to the TV.
Come together: Two drinks.
Disappointed: One Drink
Victory: Finish the bottle.
ImJohnGalt
Liberal pantywaists. At least the Decider is recommending sending 20-30K more US Troops. He could just add a line item to the supplemental budget hiring 20-30k more mercenaries (er…contractors) to go with the 100K or so that are already there, and nobody would be the wiser.
They wouldn’t even have to follow the Geneva Conventions or be beholden to the UCMJ. Think how much more effective they could be than regular troops!
Ryan S.
Stay the Course: Shoot yourself.
I realize he prolly won’t say that but if he does I wouldn’t be surprised to see the rate of self inflicted gunshot wounds to skyrocket.
les
Sadly No! has a fine checklist up; just drink as each predicted non-statement goes by.
Faux News
Tengu: I like your game, but you forgot the most obvious word:
TenguPhule
Personally, I’m betting he doesn’t say ‘freedom’ once in his speech. Doesn’t fit with the ‘danger, more troops, terrorists in your beds’ theme he’s setting up.
TenguPhule
Alternatively, if I’m wrong, he’ll say freedom so often that we’ll all be dead drunk before he’s halfway through.
Krista
Cripes. I’m going to be utterly shitfaced, particularly considering the fact that I need a good buzz on before I can even look at his smirking, fucktard face.
TenguPhule
What happens in Balloonjuice, *stays* in Balloonjuice.
Just remember to respect me in the morning. :P
demimondian
What about those of us who can’t drink? What are we -chopped liver- designated drivers?
ThymeZone
Laura Bush.
Oh wait, this wasn’t a round of “Who Said It?”
My bad.
Andrew
I don’t think my credit limit is high enough to play. I can’t afford 800 cases of booze.
jake
Just like the Prezidont!
ConservativelyLiberal
Ouch. Say no more…
Krista
I could do that, but then again, disrespecting you has really been working out well for me.