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Audacity of Truth
Whiner-in-Chief:
"[W]hether the grumbling is about Republicans on Fox or bloggers in pajamas, there's a word for what the president and his aides are doing. That word is "whining." And nothing [...] does more damage to Obama's credibility or authority than the sense that a popular president is becoming the whiner-in-chief."
- John Nichols, Nation Magazine - 10/12/09
Another Democrat joins the “traitor” ranks
Bad news for defeatist Democrats like House Majority Whip James Clyburn:
U.S. Rep. Brian Baird said Thursday that his recent trip to Iraq convinced him the military needs more time in the region, and that a hasty pullout would cause chaos that helps Iran and harms U.S. security.
“I believe that the decision to invade Iraq and the post-invasion management of that country were among the largest foreign-policy mistakes in the history of our nation. I voted against them, and I still think they were the right votes,” Baird said in a telephone interview from Washington, D.C.
“But we’re on the ground now. We have a responsibility to the Iraqi people and a strategic interest in making this work.”
Baird, a five-term Democrat, voted against President Bush ordering the Iraq invasion — at a time when he was in a minority in Congress and at risk of alienating voters. He returned late Tuesday from a trip that included stops in Israel, Jordan and Iraq, where he met troops, U.S. advisers and Iraqis, whose stories have convinced him that U.S. troops must stay longer.
With Congress poised next month to look at U.S. progress in Iraq and a vote looming on U.S. funding for the war, Baird said he’s inclined to seek a continued U.S. presence in Iraq beyond what many impatient Americans want. He also expects Gen. David Petraeus, who oversees U.S. troops in Iraq, to seek a redeployment of forces. “People may be upset. I wish I didn’t have to say this,” Baird said. He added that the United States needs to continue with its military troops surge “at least into early next year, then engage in a gradual redeployment. … I know it’s going to cost hundreds of American lives and hundreds of billions of dollars.”
What made Baird come to this conclusion?
Baird said he would not say this if he didn’t believe two things:
• “One, I think we’re making real progress.”
• “Secondly, I think the consequences of pulling back precipitously would be potentially catastrophic for the Iraqi people themselves, to whom we have a tremendous responsibility … and in the long run chaotic for the region as a whole and for our own security.”
Gasp! I wonder when we’ll start seeing denialists like the left’s favorite selective fact quoter Glenn Greenwald, among others, digging deeply in order to try and find out that this guy, too, supposedly “never really was a war critic” in an attempt to discredit his opinion?
Jim Geraghty wonders:
What happens if a signficant number of congressional Democrats say, “we’re willing to stay some time longer, to ensure the job is finished properly,” while their presidential candidates are chanting, “Get out now, get out now”?
Now that would be an interesting development, wouldn’t it?
Whether or not Baird’s remarks will start a trend in diehard Democrat wing in the House and Senate remains to be seen, but Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Rep. Bob Casey (D-PA) have both recently conceded that progress is being made in Iraq as a result of the surge. They’re not changing their minds on how they feel about the war in Iraq, of course, but it’s a far cry from comments they’ve made about it in the past.
Jeff Goldstein makes a good point here:
But what strikes me about Baird’s statements is how obviously conflicted he is about making the admissions that he’s making, and how careful he is to lay out his anti-war bona fides as a way to bolster his credibility — not because he hopes it makes a better case for supporting the surge, necessarily (it does, but that seems almost secondary here), but rather because he hopes it will buy him a bit of forgiveness from the New American Center, who is given to purging its apostates in the service of “unifying the narrative” and defending their own peculiar brand of “democracy.”
In other words, it seems to me that Baird is torn between his conscience, and the likelihood that his picture will show up on Jane Hamsher’s blog in blackface.
Heh.
It must really suck to be an anti-war Bush-hater these days. Well, it’s probably always sucked, but especially now, considering the turn-arounds we’re seeing in opinion from Democrat members of Congress, other war critics (more here) and the American public (Jules Crittenden has more on that here).
Expect the far left push to discredit or downplay each and every war critic whose opinions have changed to go full throttle immediately. Even from the get go to that particular crowd, winning was never an option. Losing was and is the only acceptable option to hardcore Democrats who have hated Bush ever since he ’stole’ the election, and who have undermined him every chance they’ve gotten ever since. As I’ve said before, America’s standing and reputation in the world comes second to political revenge to these people. Nothing else but “defeat in Iraq” – at any cost – will do.
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First Keith Ellison and Jerry McNerney, then even Durbin and Casey had to admit that progress was being made, even though they tried to backtrack, their words were out already. Now Baird.
As they go and return, unless they cannot admit they were wrong, they are being forced to admit that success can be had.
I wonder who will be next?
I also give Baird quite a bit of credit for this, he know he is going to get attacked for it and said it anyway.
Wonder how Pelosi and Reid are liking their vacation now?
I applaud the honesty, nobility, and courage of all Democrats who go to Iraq to view the surge’s progress and call it as they see it – no doubt they will earn the scorn of the nutroots for doing so. If a Democrat, whose party leadership has cast their lot with the defeatists, and whose own political fortunes now rest on our defeat in Iraq, can report progress there and can urge continuing the mission, the signs must be stark.
Unfortunately, though (and I hate to keep repeating myself), the Democrats own defeat. It’s way past time for the Democrats to be on the right side. That time would have been back in January when they in Senate unanimously confirmed Petraeus to the mission. Instead, Reid and Pelosi hitched their wagons to the nutroots; for eight months they rooted against even the possibility of the surge’s success, said the war was “lost” and called the surge “a failure” before the last of the troops were even on the ground, and embarked the Congress on meaningless votes and nonsensical stunts. They trumped up a supposed mandate, and did it solely for political gain. Remember that in the coming weeks as more rats scurry off the sinking ship.
- The title to this topical leed is interesting, showing just how deep the soft Marxist Lefts leaders have managed to distort the common lexicon, and convolute the political narrative, with the help of the rapascious MSM. “Traitor” comes to mean anyone who supports the American Hedgemonic “suppresion” of any identity group “not us”. Its a vicious tapestry of lies, presented as “the new truths”, where passion and feeling replaces “cold uncaring facts”, as a sort of post modern homage to a “higher truth”, and through it, imperious self-appointed correctness. A new twist on the old theme of the “big lie”. Except time is not on their side. You can only keep up the cherade for just so long, and then reality begins to erode the foundations of any such false philosophy.
- That those realities are beginning to cause some of the less indoctrinated to hear the footsteps of political desaster creep up from behind is certainly encouraging. I am hopeful that we may be seeing the start of an eventual avalaunch, and with it a crumbling of the entirety of malicious attacks on the American value system, attacks born from the vestiges of post cold war Euro-Socialistic forces, intent on changing the face of our country and our way of life, but I’m not quite ready to call for gold stars for people that were so partisan in the first place, they were willing to destroy their own birthright for purely political gain, and now may have begun to slowly come to their senses. In the spirit of “I am my brothers keeper” I would, however, say to them “Welcome home”.
- Given time, truth, like oil in water, will always bubble to the surface.
- BBH –
You can only prosper from a pure politics of opposition if that which you oppose is already fervently opposed, for objective reasons, by the people at large. The Democrats are discovering, to their chagrin, that the American public never hated our Iraq engagement; rather, its confidence in an acceptable outcome had wavered. Now that things are looking up again — helped along by excellent New Media reports from Michael Yon and others — the Democrats are hoist by their own shriveled petards. They have nothing to offer but opposition, and thus are pre-relegated to the margins of discourse on this issue.
There is a name for the Democrat Party’s strategy of calling victory in Iraq defeat: Operation Fig Leaf.
Curious, is it not, ST, that you link to a source that uses the word “conceded” in the headline.
Since when is good news a “concession”? To this headline writer, it apparently is.
What I find odd as well Leslie, is that Eli Lake seems worried that a trend will erupt and suddenly democrats discover the on switch for legitimate understanding of factual data. What’s next? Independent thinking? Talk about conflicted interests………
Whether it’s the simple truths of the simpleton Baird finally seeing the light or that trends are how decisions are arrived at or that military progress is taking place and paving the way to a free Iraqi people with new hopes being born, the fragility and terrified concerns of the anti-progressive dhimmicrats continue to prove why they are not fit for important decision making processes at ANY level of government.
Abort is their rally cry and cry is what they do well. Is their treasonous behavior still so hard to see? Does their sabotage of all good efforts remain some kind of ambiguous mystery?
#5 MD, you might have it right there – the less blinded Dems are realizing that not only is victory possible, but that we are going to keep some sort of presence in Iraq for along time. Therefore, they may be trying to insulate themselves against charges of opportunism or worse yet, lying (although most pols are comfortable with actually lying, it’s being identified as liars that bothers them) if Hillary is sworn in in 2009 and they realize they can’t just cut and run. Further, they need to hedge their bets and position themselves to claim a piece of the credit (or rather, as much as they can without triggering massive outrage) if worse comes to worse and we appear to be winning.
Some may call it triangulating, but fig leaf works too.
Seven US Soldiers Speak Out – The Iraq War As We See It
Political reconciliation in Iraq will occur, but not at our insistence or in ways that meet our benchmarks. It will happen on Iraqi terms when the reality on the battlefield is congruent with that in the political sphere. There will be no magnanimous solutions that please every party the way we expect, and there will be winners and losers. The choice we have left is to decide which side we will take. Trying to please every party – as we do now – will only ensure we are hated by all in the long run.
LINK
Buddhika Jayamaha is a U.S. Army specialist. Wesley D. Smith is a sergeant. Jeremy Roebuck is a sergeant. Omar Mora is a sergeant. Edward Sandmeier is a sergeant. Yance T. Gray is a staff sergeant. Jeremy A. Murphy is a staff sergeant.