Pelospolitik
From Pelosi’s website, a must-read ironic masterpiece:
President Bush’s Iraq policies weaken our military’s readiness, dishonor our nation’s promises to our veterans, and fail to hold the Iraqi government accountable for overdue reforms.
Doesn’t make sense that way, I know. Let me see if I can straighten it out:
My Iraq policies seek to undercut American troops in the field and dishonor our nation’s promise to people who face the prospect of murderous anarchy to be followed by Iranian domination. This won’t be a significant problem because the Americans who will die meaningless deaths in rearguard actions are going to be largely Republican-voting NASCAR Americans. As for those other tragic dying people, that genocide thing is more Bushian scaremongering and if we’re wrong about that, we intend to it on him anyway. The idle Army’s readiness will be greatly improved. Readiness really is an academic concept. Ready for what? When you don’t intend to use your military, readiness is what you … well, what I say it is. And I say the United States has no more need of a military than, say, Canada. We will use our words.
By threatening to veto the House’s military funding bill, the President is walking away from his promise to the American people. The President has vowed to veto a bill that contains his own reform benchmarks for performance by the Iraqi government, our Defense Department’s own standards for troop readiness, and America’s promise to our veterans.
You see how deftly I make this about him, and ignore how we are trying to tie his hands? He is also walking away from farm aid, Katrina, bird flu, and anything else we could think of to make him look like a heel.
This is the art of politics, La Politique, if you will, and I consider myself an artiste … though I have to say I’m a little piqued about my minions’ failure to vote in the disturbing, toad-like, loose-cannon majority leader of my choice, and their Nervous Nelly reaction to his brilliant strategic plan to win in Iraq making it impossible for our troops to fight there. Genius! Also a little mystified that our very strongly worded, extremely non-binding, pro-troops by being anti-mission resolution seems to have dropped off the map. We really, really meant that to be taken seriously!
With his veto threat, the President offers only an open-ended commitment to a war without end that dangerously ignores the repeated warnings of military leaders, including the commander in Iraq, General Petraeus, who declared in Baghdad this week that the conflict cannot be resolved militarily.
When General Petraeus said military action is also necessary, I take that to mean the sounding of retreat. That’s a military action. But it is admittedly ambiguous, so we’ll set that aside for the moment.
The House of Representatives will soon have a chance to choose a new direction for the American people. The bill the President dismisses out of hand will measure the Iraqi government’s actions by the standards Mr. Bush himself set, conforms deployment of our troops to existing military standards for readiness, and provides badly needed help to an overburdened military and veterans’ medical system wracked by scandal.
And they say I don’t have a plan for success in Iraq. I’d call this a plan. Use Chimpy’s words against him, and say things that reference the scandal dujour. This creates an unassailable line of talking points, unless you want to look like you hate the troops. Why do you think we shoved all that stuff in there, anyway? Explain to me how this cannot succeed. Success in Iraq will be measured by exit date. Whoever’s bill gets closest to the actual exit date wins the Congressional office pool!
Powerline on a political shift re the war, with vid of Rep. Obey explaining the facts of life to an “idiot liberal” who won’t “quit screwing it up.”
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 7:58 pm on Saturday, March 10, 2007
4 Responses to “Pelospolitik”
Leave a Reply
Trackback URLYou must be logged in to post a comment.
March 10th, 2007 at 9:16 pm
2007.03.10 Surrenderpolitk update
The Party Of Meaningless Gestures Ed Morrissey Do the Democrats really want to end the war, or only look like they want to end the war? Their bills say retreat, but their words say pose, as Kathryn Jean Lopez notes
March 11th, 2007 at 5:45 am
The Iraqis and Bush may not back the Dhim Cong “plan”, but by golly, Iran sure does! Who cares about a Bush veto when you have the backing of the enemy?
I admit that I really don’t understand the continued attack on a lame-duck president. They do realize that he can’t run again, don’t they? I mean, America isn’t Egypt or Saudi Arabia, after all, for all their talk of an imperial presidency. They are probably just scared, ala Hillary, that they might win the White House and actually have to take responsibility for this country’s security. I don’t blame them. It’s scary to be little children in a seriously adult world.
March 11th, 2007 at 10:16 am
Hm, yes, or as Major General Paul Eaton, who actually knows somethng about the military, has it:
“We’ve got this thing that so many military believe that Republican administrations are good for the military. That is rarely the case. And, we have to get a message through to every soldier, every family member, every friend of soldiers that the Republican party, the Republican dominated Congress has absolutely been the worst thing that’s happened to the United States Army and the United States Marine Corps.”
March 11th, 2007 at 1:34 pm
I grew up in the military and served myself. I know enough about the military–and life in general–not to listen to anyone without my critical faculty in the on position.
I especially don’t listen to the upper echelon without it. Does the good general point to Kosovo (where we’ve had troops for years without anyone complaining about it), or the years of low-level war with Iraq, or the occasional lobbing of a missile or two after overt acts of war, as the height of Dem wisdom in using the military? Or perhaps allowing an act of war against a U. S. Navy vessel without consequence is the way to go.