Kos kooks are...moderate?

BEVERAGE ALERT! Put down your drink, lest it project from ye nostrils. From NewsBusters:

Sometimes when you see NPR's Juan Williams on Fox News, you are left scratching your head wondering what planet he lives on, and what the color of the sky is there.

Such questions must certainly have been raised in the minds of right-thinking "Fox News Sunday" viewers this morning when Williams suggested that the liberal blog Daily Kos "is now center."

I kid you not.

What precipitated this extraordinary lapse of reason on Williams' part was a rather accurate observation made by the Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol concerning Democrat presidential candidates attending the upcoming YearlyKos convention.

Every Democratic presidential nominee is going to the Daily Kos convention. That's the left-wing blogger who was not respectable three or four years ago. The Howard Dean kind of sponsor. Now the whole party is going to pay court to him and to left wing blogs. Not a single one is going to the Democratic Leadership Council meeting in a couple of weeks. That's the organization that Bill Clinton was head of in the early '90s - that was supposed to be the new, more moderate Democratic Party. The Democratic Party has gone left and it will hurt them in 2008.

Makes sense, right? After all, the DLC was indeed crucial for Clinton's success in the '90s. Yet, the past two Democrat presidential candidates have shied away from this group, and its tenets, moving further to the left, and not winning their respective elections.

With this in mind, it seems quite reasonable to suggest that Democrat presidential candidates who follow Al Gore and John Kerry's leftist playbook rather than the successful, though disingenuous, moderate campaign of Bill Clinton will have a hard time winning in the general election.

Not so surprisingly, Williams saw things differently:

What you described as left is now center. The majority of the American people, 70 percent, want us out of Iraq. In fact, if you asked Iraqis, 60 some percent of Iraqis say we're doing more harm than good in Iraq. There's a center here and I think what you're saying is they're playing somehow to the left.

Even if the only issue on voters' minds was Iraq, Williams' point would be way off base.
...
In fact, CBSNews.com's article on this poll stated that "Sixty-one percent of Americans surveyed think the war should be funded only if there's a timetable for withdrawal...while 8 percent think all funding for the war should be blocked, no matter what."

The Kossacks are part of that 8 percent who want funding blocked now no matter what.

Therefore, even on this one issue, it is specious of Williams to suggest that the folks at Daily Kos are either in the center or representative of the majority view.

Nice try, Juan.

The Kostards...centrists? In other related news, Hell freezes over.

Reid gets Clintonesque with meaning of "compromise"

From the LA Slimes:

Sen. Harry Reid offered his cooperation in December when the Iraq Study Group unveiled its recommendations with a plaintive call for a bipartisan effort to change the course of the war.

"Democrats will work with our Republican colleagues," promised the Nevada Democrat and soon-to-be majority leader, just weeks after an election that swept Democrats into the congressional majority on a wave of public frustration over Iraq.

Eight bitter months and nine major Iraq-related votes later, the meaning of Reid's pledge has come into sharp focus: Democrats will work with any GOP lawmaker willing to vote for a mandatory troop withdrawal; other Republicans need not apply.

This bellicose, uncompromising legislative strategy — on display again this week as Reid refused to allow votes on nonbinding GOP-backed Iraq proposals — has been an obstacle to any real bipartisan compromise on the war all year. And it effectively ended any chance that a significant number of Republican lawmakers critical of the war would join with Democrats this summer on any Iraq-related legislation.

The Democratic strategy has yet to yield many tangible results. Just eight of the 250 Republicans in the House and Senate have joined with Democrats calling for a withdrawal.

Excellent leadership, Harry. For those of you on the left, the prior sentence was sarcasm.

Olbermann's "chickenhawk" slur turned on him

Ace does a wonderful job of ripping the mind-numbed leftist myrmidons' "chickenhawk" reflex, in light of that little-watched MSNBC moonbat's recent rant:

Olbermann's Theatre of the Absurd ends with his calling upon Bush to go to Baghdad and fight "his war" himself.

Again, the chickenhawk charge -- one should be willing to fight wars one advocates, yes?

But the trouble is that part of Olbermann's, and the entire left's, schtick is that they're really super-tough guys after all -- not cheese-eating surrender monkeys -- because, while they don't want to fight Al Qaeda in Iraq, they're just totally gung ho to fight Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and, now, Pakistan. In fact, the subtext very often seems to be that it's just the stubborn President Bush who is preventing them from grabbing a rifle and hopping on the next plane to Waziristan.

Question for Mr. Olbermann:

When, Sir, can we expect word of your enlistment? To fight in what is, by your own admission -- nay, bold proclamation -- what is in fact your war?

Breaking the MSM embargo, Ralph Peters finally makes the point I've been making for years.

The intelligence report in question said, in essence, that, after the devastating blow we struck against al Qaeda in Afghanistan, the terrorists have regained some strength in their safe haven on Pakistan's Northwest Frontier. It doesn't say that al Qaeda is stronger than ever - although that's what the Dems imply.

In 2001, al Qaeda had a country of its own. Today, it survives in isolated compounds. And guess which "veteran warrior" wants to go get them?

Sen. Barack Obama. Far too important to ever serve in the military himself, Obama thinks we should invade Pakistan.

Go for it, Big Guy. Of course, we'll have to reintroduce the draft to find enough troops. And we'll need to kill, at a minimum, a few hundred thousand tribesmen and their families. We'll need to occupy the miserable place indefinitely.

Oh, and Pakistan's a nuclear power already teetering on the edge of chaos.

Barack Obama, strategist and military expert. Who knew?

I don't believe any Democrat actually wants to fight wars against Al Qaeda, or anyone else, anywhere at all. But they claim they do, they advocate for huge invasions of 100 million strong nuclear-armed countries, and of course they vote for any stray declaration of war that should reach their desks within 60 days of an election.

So if they are all gung-ho to finally "finish the job Bush wouldn't" in Islamabad and Karachi, I trust they know we need more troops -- and the army does in fact permit liberals to serve openly as such. There is no "don't ask, don't tell" rule about being a leftist jagoff, I can assure them all.

So:

When's the big sign-up day all you super badass warriors have planned? Is it a big surprise you're waiting to spring on the rest of the country?

I trust they're just waiting to receive and read the new Harry Potter book, and then they'll be training to storm the beaches of Southern Pakistan presently.

No thinking required for Olby and his ilk.

"Libertarians and the war"

Excellent column by Randy Barnett in Opinion Journal. Please read the whole thing, an excerpt of which is here:

While the number of Americans who self-identify as "libertarian" remains small, a substantial proportion agree with the core stances of limited constitutional government in both the economic and social spheres--what is sometimes called "economic conservatism" and "social liberalism." But if they watched the Republican presidential debate on May 15, many Americans might resist the libertarian label, because they now identify it with strident opposition to the war in Iraq, and perhaps even to the war against Islamic jihadists.

During that debate, the riveting exchange between Rudy Giuliani and Ron Paul about whether American foreign policy provoked the 9/11 attack raised the visibility of both candidates. When Mr. Paul, a libertarian, said that the 9/11 attack happened "because we've been over there. We've been bombing Iraq for 10 years," Mr. Giuliani's retort--that this was the first time he had heard that "we invited the attack because we were attacking Iraq. . . . and I've heard some pretty absurd explanations for September 11"--sparked a spontaneous ovation from the audience. It was an electrifying moment that allowed one to imagine Mr. Giuliani as a forceful, articulate president.

The exchange also drew attention to Mr. Paul, who until then had been a rather marginal member of the 10-man Republican field. One striking feature of Mr. Paul's debate performance was his insistence on connecting his answer to almost every question put to him--even friendly questions about taxes, spending and personal liberty--to the war.

This raised the question: Does being a libertarian commit one to a particular stance toward the Iraq war? The simple answer is "no."

First and foremost, libertarians believe in robust rights of private property, freedom of contract, and restitution to victims of crime. They hold that these rights define true "liberty" and provide the boundaries within which individuals may pursue happiness by making their own free choices while living in close proximity to each other. Within these boundaries, individuals can actualize their potential while minimizing their interference with the pursuit of happiness by others.
...
But here is the rub. While all libertarians accept the principle of self-defense, and most accept the role of the U.S. government in defending U.S. territory, libertarian first principles of individual rights and the rule of law tell us little about what constitutes appropriate and effective self-defense after an attack. Devising a military defense strategy is a matter of judgment or prudence about which reasonable libertarians may differ greatly.
...

Please, read it. It's great stuff!

Moonbat anti-war nut shoots airman, kills self

Ace reports that the MSM is quieter than Michael Moore at a Sanjay Gupta family reunion when it comes to the anti-war motive of this shooter:

Attempted murder is the highest form of patriotism.

Want to know the kicker? The MSM is covering up the anti-war lunatic's motive, refusing to inform the public why he shot the airman.

this 22 year old guy walked up to him and asked him if he lived in the house. When Jon said yes, the guy said “not any more” and shot him point blank in the chest. He tried to shoot him again, but his gun jammed. Jonathan made it into the house. The guy then shot himself. Turns out the guy left a couple of suicide notes stating how much he hated the military and he wanted to go out making a statement, so he chose to make his statement on Independence Day trying to kill a soldier.

The most the MSM will say is that he was "angry at the government." Angry in what way? They're not telling. They know, but they've decided the public doesn't need to know such trifling details.

The American Thinker on the media's code of leftist omerta:

If Airman Schrieken had been an abortionist or homosexual, this story would be front page news for the New York Times and the lead story on CBS News with Katie Couric for at least the next month. But since Schrieken is serving in the military, even his hometown newspaper, the Columbus Dispatch, has ignored this story.
Predictably, a law enforcement spokesman says that Marren’s suicide notes “were indicative of an individual suffering from mental-health problems”, but that raises the question of how anyone could identify anyone suffering from mental-health problems amidst those devoted to bizarre conspiracy theories and the virulent anti-Americanism of the antiwar movement. If anything, Marren would have fit right in unnoticed.

It is also worth noting that Marren was merely following the logic of the anti-war movement’s standard public rhetoric. Their language is laced with suggestive undertones justifying attacks against our military, calling our armed forces fighting the War on Terror “baby-killers”, constantly invoking the specter of Abu Ghraib, and citing their grossly inflated statistics of civilians accidentally killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Such reckless and unbalanced rhetoric (they’re not quite as adept at keeping statistics on those murdered by terrorists) fuels the hatred that drives someone like Marren to violence against a member of our own military.

...
Racist "Code Words:" The media is ever eager to read the supposed "subtext" of "racist code words" such as "welfare queens" and the like.

Funny that they completely miss not-at-all-subtextual messages like this:

... and apparently don't ever worry that such hate speech might actually impel some of the less reality-based members of the Reality-Based Community to commit acts of violence.

If a Republican opposes amnesty, he's sending messages that it's okay to beat and kill illegal immigrants. When the left openly calls for murder, the MSM just doesn't seem capable of reading not the subtext but the actual text of their messages. ...

Just so you know: Talk radio (aka "hate radio", to the left) is directly responsible for wingnuts like the Unabomber and Timothy Macveigh, but the anti-war rhetoric of moonbats is in NO WAY responsible for acts of violence like this. Got it?

Left wants withdrawal from Afghanistan

I wonder what took them so long? Anywho, Allahpundit breaks it down:

A.k.a. home of the “real” war on terror, the good fight that the left had been spoilin’ to win before Bush went and distracted them with that “fake” war that’s killed ten times as many troops. “You don’t hear people saying, ‘We need to get out of Afghanistan,’” declares Russ Feingold, followed immediately by a bunch of people saying we need to get out of Afghanistan.

Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii), a senior defense authorizer, wants the U.S. out of Afghanistan immediately, calling operations there “futile” in trying to effect political change in a country with a tangled history…

“There is no useful purpose for our troops there,” Abercrombie stated in a recent interview. “The military should withdraw now,” he said, though he stressed that the U.S. could keep “isolated pockets” of special operators.

Instead of using the military to effect political change, the U.S. should have a complete diplomatic re-engagement in the region, “with an understanding that our role there should change,” Abercrombie added…

Rep. Diane Watson (D-Calif.), a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee and a staunch opponent of the war in Iraq, said that it is time for the U.S. military to start leaving Afghanistan and the Middle East altogether.

“We are not securing America by being there,” she pressed. “The longer we are there, the more plots start growing in our country.”…

Meanwhile, several anti-war members, including Reps. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.), Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), stress that any troop withdrawal from Afghanistan is inextricably linked to the military’s first leaving Iraq.

“I’d like to get out of Iraq first and look at Afghanistan and if it does not work … we should be impatient,” Woolsey said, adding that she is not prepared to give a timeline for withdrawal. “There was a reason [for being] there, but now we really need to reassess what we are accomplishing. It depends on what our mission is in Afghanistan; if our mission is to find Osama bin Laden, that is one thing.”

It’ll be darkly amusing watching the Democratic leadership try to be Afghan hawks and Iraq doves simultaneously, on the one hand demanding a troop presence in Kabul to prop up the fledgling Afghan government while on the other demanding withdrawal from Baghdad so that we don’t have to prop up the fledgling Iraqi government. The difference, you see, is that Iraq’s in a hopeless civil war whereas the suicide bombs and guerrilla raids in Afghanistan by Taliban Afghans and Pakistanis is...a minor rebellion? Let’s call it an insurgency. Actually, the real difference is that Al Qaeda’s leadership is in Afghanistan, not in Iraq … although it’s actually not in Afghanistan at all, but in Pakistan, and of course top AQ leaders have been seen, and even caught, in Iraq. Maybe the difference is that Iraq has become a magnet for jihadis from around the region whereas Afghanistan is still basically a closed theater. Or maybe not.

It seems there’s still quite a lot of nuance to be parsed here. They’ll figure it out.

Murtha says he’s not ready to throw in the towel yet because we still have “a chance” of winning but he’s going to revisit the issue in September when they take up the next war supplemental. A sneak preview from the mind that brought us the Okinawa redeployment plan: “We should have never gone to Iraq, because we would have been out of Afghanistan [by now].” QED.

"The longer we are there, the more plots start growing in our country." Because, you know, no such plots existed before we went in there or anything, right?

"MSM: Major Iraq Offensive Against Al Qaeda Succeeds In Producing 14 Dead US Soldiers, Uncovers 25 Caches of Vietnam Analogies"

Ya gotta love Ace for coming up with this stuff:

What the MSM tells you about the offensive.

What Michael Yon tells you about the offensive.

You make the call.

In entirely unrelated news, reporters donate 9:1 to Democrats and liberal causes over Republicans and conservative causes.

Their political affinities in no way whatsoever color their reportage.

Nope...no liberal media bias.

Night and Day: Al Gore edition

Many of you may have heard about this, but if not, here it is. Al Gore in 1992, when running for VP (via Hot Air):

The year is 1992. Sen. Al Gore had been picked up by Gov. Bill Clinton as his running mate for the White House. The pair of Southern Democrats were up against President George H. W. Bush, who had seen his 90+% approval rating after the Gulf War plummet thanks to a souring economy and a tax increase that Bush had told us –”read my lips”– would never get past his desk. Gore had been picked to offset Clinton’s obvious bimbo weaknesses and relative inexperience in foreign policy. Clinton’s most notable achievements in that field up to that point had been decrying the Vietnam war while on British soil, making a trip to the USSR in 1969 that he never quite explained, and deploying the Arkansas National Guard to help out in local crises.

Gore, by contrast, had served in Vietnam. He was a stable family man. He was regarded as a centrist Democrat, a foreign policy expert and a Blue Dog hawk on national security. And at that time, in that campaign, he delivered the following speech to the Center for National Policy on September 29, 1992. The point of the speech was to dent Bush 41’s unrivalled foreign policy credentials by making him look weak in the face of threats. That was no small task, given that the Gulf War was just about 18 months in the past and the US was still enforcing the no-fly zones over Iraq. Bush 41 had also ordered the 1989 invasion of Panama to deal with dictator Manuel Noreiga, a successful military operation that went off almost without a hitch.

The thesis of the Gore speech: Reagan-Bush had looked the other way and let Saddam Hussein become a terroristic menace and a WMD developer. They had ignored Saddam’s many operational ties to terrorists over the years so they could maintain relations with him and offset the threat from the mullahs in Iran. Reagan-Bush and then Bush 41 on his own had shown weakness in the face of the threat from Saddam’s Iraq, a weakness that was not offset even by the 1991 Gulf War victory. Gore’s speech was intended to make an issue of Republican weakness in the face of terrorism, and in the face of Saddam’s hard and verified connections to terrorism in particular.

Al Gore a decade later, when running for Sweetheart of the Nutroots homecoming king:

In a withering critique of the Bush administration, former Vice President Al Gore on Sunday accused the president of betraying the country by using the Sept. 11 attacks as a justification for the invasion of Iraq.

"He betrayed this country!" Mr. Gore shouted into the microphone at a rally of Tennessee Democrats here in a stuffy hotel ballroom. "He played on our fears. He took America on an ill-conceived foreign adventure dangerous to our troops, an adventure preordained and planned before 9/11 ever took place."

You HAVE to see the video to fully appreciate the tone. Hot Air summarizes:

Just so we’re clear on this, the 1992 version of Gore accused Bush 41 of lying by minimizing the threat that Saddam posed to the US and the world. The current version of Gore accuses Bush 43 of lying by overstating the threat that Saddam posed to the US and the world. A competent MSM would ask Gore to explain why he’s such a Goldilocks on such a difficult issue, if naked politics can’t explain it.
...
This is, in short, Al Gore: a craven opportunist who will say whatever he deems to be the most useful thing for the political moment, without regard to truth or principle or consequences, other than one — that the consequences include making Gore relevant. That’s the one principle that he obviously cares about a great deal.

Why I miss John Bolton

Man, this is pure gold! From EU Referendum:

It is not often one whoops with joy listening to the BBC Radio 4 Today programme, but Jon Humphrys interviewing John Bolton, former US ambassador to the UN, this morning was a sheer delight. (You can listen to the piece here.)

From Humphrys we got the usual BBC droning, with forthright responses from Bolton. Eventually though, after a run of sneering negativity over Iraq, Bolton had had enough. What did it was the suggestion that the US was "a busted flush", Humphrys calling in aid George Soros.

"Are you kidding me!", responded Bolton. "This is a man of the extreme left. I am sure you will find a great deal in common with him, as would many others on the continent."

A sniffy Humphrys was not going to take that lying down though. On the attack, he demanded: "Do you make the assumption then that because one asks questions – perfectly valid questions about the conduct of American policy - one is on the extreme left?"

Bolton was unfazed: "I can see it from the content of your questions and the perspective from which you're coming and from the direction that your questions are taking. If you tell me you're a conservative, I would be happy to accept it."

That really got Humphrys going: "I would tell you that I'm neither conservative, nor left wing not right wing, nor middle wing, because..."

A laughing Bolton took that in his stride: "You have no views at all. Your brain is empty, you have no views at all..."

Attempting to muster all his majesty, Humphrys was almost squeaking in indignation: "I have an awful lot of views, Ambassador, a view for every subject under the sun but I don't express them during the course of my interviews. (I needed a beverage alert for THAT statement! Now I have to clean the Diet Dr. Pepper off of my monitor after reading that laughable statement! - Ed.) I ask questions... That's what interviewing is about... You'll have heard of a thing called devil's advocate... Maybe they don't do it like that in the United States, but..."

"I know, you're a superior Brit as well!" rejoins Bolton.

You can see why he really pissed them off at the UN.

Yeah, referring to Moveon bigwig George Freakin' Soros as an objective outsider who has issues with the war in Iraq shouldn't call into question a reporter's objectivity, should it? No liberal media bias!

Why can't any of our "leaders" (and I use that term loosely) be as savage with the bedwetting leftist MSM as Bolton was with this Europinko?

Al Qaeda cites Democrats as allies

Well, at least we know who Al Qaeda likes. But don't think the Dems are soft on security or anything, just because the AQ camelhumpers like them! From Ace:

Above the Fold Update: Al Qaeda knows who its allies are.

Mohamad al-Janabi, a reputed al-Qaeda member in the nearby city of Salman Pak, said in a interview that he was unable to contact his comrades in Mahmudiyah to determine whether they were responsible for the attack.

But he added: "I can assure you that we will start pressuring Bush in a new way at the same time he is facing pressures from the Democrats and the American people. And there will be no problem to sacrifice 10 soldiers in order to abduct a single American soldier and get him on television screens begging for us to release him."

Notice Al Qaeda is not pressuring us to stay, which is odd, because I keep being told that Al Qaeda loves having American troops in Iraq and Bush is "playing right into their hands."

I don't think this is going to have the effect Al Qaeda seeks. It's getting harder and harder for the media to pretend that Al Qaeda isn't the major source of violence and terrorism in Iraq -- and the biggest cause of US troop deaths -- and they're going to have a hard time avoiding using the words "Al Qaeda" when they run these tapes.

Question: Would these tapes be considered a "coordinated" media buy for the Democrats under McCain-Feingold? Will the FEC investigate?

Maybe that's the way to get the media remotely perturbed at Al Qaeda -- we can sell them on the idea that "Al Qaeda is swift-boating Iraq." They really do seem to despise "swift-boating."

KS Dem guv pulls a Blanco, Reid joins in after debunking

"Shame" is a word missing from the Dems' vocabulary. From Hot Air:

When disaster strikes, Democrats increasingly turn to blaming Bush rather than leading their voters through the proverbial–or literal–storm. Blame Bush first and ask questions later. That’s what looks like Kansas Gov Kathleen Sebelius, a Democrat, tried in the wake of last Friday’s deadly tornado in Greensburg.

With President Bush set to travel to now-razed Greensburg, Kan., on Wednesday to view the destruction wrought by Friday’s 205 mph twister, Democratic Gov. Kathleen Sebelius said she planned to talk with him about her contention that National Guard deployments to Iraq hampered the disaster response.

“I don’t think there is any question if you are missing trucks, Humvees and helicopters that the response is going to be slower,” she said Monday. “The real victims here will be the residents of Greensburg, because the recovery will be at a slower pace.”

Sebelius said that with other states facing similar limitations, “stuff that we would have borrowed is gone.”

The problem is, there is a question about all that “missing” stuff. It’s not missing. And Kansas doesn’t need it.
...
Sibelius seems to have wanted to have her own Katrina, but it didn’t quite work out. First, she’s wrong and Brownback and WH Press Secretary Tony Snow rebutted her with the facts. Kansas got what it needed and FEMA even moved supplies in before requests came in. The Iraq war had no impact on equipment or the relief effort. Second, while Katrina worked out great for the DNC it didn’t work out so well for Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco. So Sibelius backtracked.

As Snow pointed out, only 10% of KS National Guard is deployed to Iraq, and only 10% of the remaining 7000 were moved to the disaster area. Also, as Paula Zahn had to painfully point out, "Kansas has not asked for any reinforcements or extra equipment from neighboring states.... The Army says it has enough equipment for both a simulated drill and the real-life disaster, and argues, if the governor of Kansas has an urgent need for more bulldozers, backhoes, or Black Hawk helicopters, she only has to ask."

Having been confronted with those pesky fact thingys, Sebelius backtracked...but Reid did not. Oopsie.

I am reminded of a skit on SNL where Daryl Hammond plays Chris Matthews and Dan Aykroyd plays Andrew Card. Card makes outlandish claims about Bush, such as "he is 10 ft. tall" and other widly insane stuff. Matthews asks: "Does it bother you that none of that is true?", to which Card responds "If it doesn't bother Rove, it doesn't bother me."

This is the same kind of thing. Sebelius spits out some easily verifiable claptrap which is almost immediately debunked, yet Reid parrots the discredited lie anyway. Hey, if it doesn't bother the Dems as a whole that none of that was true, then it doesn't bother Reid or Sebelius.

Consequences of losing in Iraq

OK, so I'm doing back-to-back posts dealing with defeatism and Iraq. So sue me. Besides, this is important. Thanks to Kanaka Girl for alerting me to this. Full column here (please read it), excerpts follow:

If Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is right, nearly 60 percent of Americans agree with him that the war in Iraq is already lost. And if he is correct in saying that losing the war will increase Democrat majorities in future elections, then it may be fair to conclude that Americans now love losers. I'm not buying any of it -- and neither are the troops who are fighting this war.

In the days since Reid announced "this war is lost," I have heard from dozens of the soldiers, sailors, airmen, Guardsmen and Marines that I have covered in eight trips to Iraq and two to Afghanistan for FOX News. Some of those who correspond with me are there now, others are home. Some are preparing to deploy again. None of them agree with Reid's assessment.

Now I did go to Florida State, but if my remedial math class served me well, I infer that the "dozens" who disagreed with Reid's defeatism outnumber the seven that Vince N. purportedly heard from who agree with Reid. To quote my liberal visitor: "I'll take their word over any statistic I see any day."

Continuing:

What would losing the war in Iraq mean? It's a picture so dark and depressing that it makes the collapse in Vietnam, 32 years ago next week, look like a Sunday school picnic. The fall of Saigon was horrific for the people of Vietnam and their neighbors in Cambodia and Laos. More than 5 million became refugees and by the most conservative estimates at least a million others perished.

For most Americans, the consequences were minimal. The vast majority of the 2.8 million of us who had fought and bled there mourned the loss of 58,253 of our comrades, swallowed the bitterness of defeat and got on with our lives. Our nation spent a few hundred million tax dollars on refugee relief and resettlement, and tried to forget what people in Reid's party called "the long nightmare of Vietnam."

But classified U.S. intelligence assessments, military contingency plans and staff studies evaluating the consequences of a precipitous U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, coupled with the lack of funding for political reform measures, as contained in the legislation just passed by Reid's party, paint a far more dismal picture than anything that happened after Vietnam.

(Intel's retreat consequences here...READ IT! - Ed.)

Reid and his cohorts in Congress who believe "this war is lost" have acted to ensure that it will be. No one asked them: "If we lost, who won?" The answer should be obvious.

It's a simple question, folks: If we lose in Iraq, then who wins? Answer: Al Qaeda...and the Democrats. That's a damning testament as to whose best interests the Dems are serving.

Lowry commends Reid's honesty

As I mentioned before, and Rich Lowry echoes, Harry Reid didn't say anything that his party doesn't truly believe. From Lowry:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had a bright, shining moment of honesty when he said that the war in Iraq is lost.
He unburdened himself of what he and many of his colleagues have long believed about the war. Now if only Democrats saw fit to continue with their truthtelling. Then they would acknowledge that their mandate for a U.S. withdrawal beginning in October is a policy predicated on our defeat, and that they don’t think anything can or should be done about Iran and al Qaeda feasting on a prostrate Iraq and the country possibly descending into genocidal bloodletting.

This position would be unimpeachably logical. It would accept, in the words Reid has repeated a lot lately, “facts and reality,” as Democrats see them. One could strenuously disagree with this position but still see a certain honor in its frankness and internal consistency.

Democrats, of course, are doing nothing of the kind. Instead, after Reid’s “lost” comment, they retreated back into their fog of evasion, contradictions, and groan-inducing implausibilities. The party of defeat has a deep identity crisis because it can’t admit what it is, and thus lives a life of dishonesty and unconvincing denial. (Such dishonesty and deception isn't unique to Iraq, since Dems are dishonest about their true feelings on a lot of issues they know are rejected by normal America. - Ed.)

Reid didn’t disavow his remark, but his spokesman said that in the future he will “couch it more.” Sen. Dianne Feinstein said that Reid had “more a problem of tone rather than of substance.” Democrats therefore have resolved themselves to find euphemisms for the word “lost.” Their current favorite is “there is no military solution in Iraq.”

Asked about his “lost” comment on CNN, Reid said, “I agree with Gen. Petraeus,” because Petraeus has said only part of the war is military. Saying that the war is multifaceted, however, bears no relation to the proposition that it is lost. Pressed on as to what message it sends to the troops to tell them the war is unwinnable, Reid said, “Gen. Petraeus has told them that.” Really? Reid apparently inhabits an alternate reality created by his need to weasel his way out of his own convictions on the war.

Reid doesn’t want to hear it if Petraeus has anything positive to say about the war. “I don’t believe him,” Reid said of Petraeus’s reports of progress. This is not surprising. Like many Democrats, Reid has a faith in defeat that is impervious to all contrary evidence. Acknowledging any fluidity in conditions in Iraq — say, how our position has improved in Anbar province in recent months — is to tacitly admit the folly of making final statements about defeat or victory. So Reid fixates on exactly the indicator that al Qaeda in Iraq wants him to — the spectacular suicide bombings meant to undermine our will.

To compensate for giving up on this war, Democrats conjure an imaginary Iraq War to which they will be utterly committed and which we will fight until glorious victory. That is the war we supposedly will fight against al Qaeda in Iraq — after, of course, we withdraw our troops and hand over the Anbar and Diyala provinces to it. Sen. Chuck Schumer, in Reid cleanup mode, says then we’ll be wondrously positioned to go “after an al-Qaida camp that might arise in Iraq.” Might? We already are engaged in a fight with al Qaeda in Iraq now — to keep it from stoking a full-scale sectarian war and from taking over swathes of Iraq — but the Democrats think that we’ve lost it.

“No one wants us to succeed in Iraq more than the Democrats,” Reid maintains. What a pathetic canard. As if believing a war is lost has no effect on your will to succeed in it. Reid might have been right if he had said the past tense, “wanted.”

Democrats are under no obligation to think the war can be won. But they should feel obliged to their consciences and voters to be forthright about what they believe. Waiting for them to do that seems the real lost cause.

Notice that when Reid thinks he hears Gen. Petraeus say the war is lost, he believes him...but when the same Gen. Petraeus says there is progress in Iraq, Reid doesn't believe him. Why, if I didn't know any better, I'd swear that Reid is believing only what he wants to hear! I know, I know...that's just crazy talk.

The left is just too heavily invested in defeat to concede progress or acknowledge victories that occur along the way. They're like compulsive gamblers who keep pumping their coins into the same slot machine because they just know it's going to pay off any minute now.

Moonbat Murtha: Failure to compromise is an impeachable offense

Failure to compromise is a "high crime and misdemeanor"? I learn something new everyday, and from a moonbat no less! From Hot Air:

Video clip here

Rep. John Murtha suggested the possibility of impeachment to “influence” the President to “compromise” over funding for Iraq. Is it just me or does John Murtha sound like Vito Corleone? Does Murtha not know he is talking about impeaching the President of the United States because he is not compromising with the will of the far-left of Congress? That’s neither a high crime nor even a misdemeanor, which are the behaviors that are supposed to trigger impeachment. Murtha’s suggestion is outside the bounds of what Congress is supposed to do to influence the behavior of a sitting president, to say the least.

But then again, Jack “Abscam” Murtha has never been one to hold the law in high regard.

Earlier this month, Bryan wrote about Murtha receiving calls from his constituents telling him to impeach President Bush.

Transcript:

BOB SCHIEFFER: Are you seriously talking about contemplating an impeachment of this President?

MURTHA: What I’m saying is there are four ways to influence a President.

SCHIEFFER: — and that’s one of them?

MURTHA: [unintelligible] and the fourth one is –

SCHIEFFER: — that’s an option that’s on the table?

MURTHA: I’m just saying that’s one way to influence the President.

Sure, that will influence the prez: "Sir, go along with us or we'll impeach you!" That would go over like a fart in church, I imagine.

Depends on the meaning of "anti-war"

The nutroots don't have as much clout as they'd like to think, at least with normal America. From NRO:

Some interesting polling results in recent days. For example:

According to a recent USA Today/Gallup poll, 61% of Americans oppose “denying the funding needed to send any additional U.S. troops to Iraq,” and opposition is up from 58% in February. (3/23-25, 2007).

A Bloomberg poll reveals 61% of Americans believe withholding funding for the war is a bad idea, while only 28% believe it is a good idea (3/3-11, 2007). (28% hardly seems like a mandate, Kostards. And by "mandate", I don't mean Barney Frank's plans for the weekend. - Ed.)

A recent Public Opinion Strategies (POS) poll found that 56% of registered voters favor fully funding the war in Iraq, with more voters strongly favoring funding (40%) than totally opposing it (38%); (3/25-27, 2007).

POS found also that a majority of voters (54%) oppose the Democrats imposing a reduction in troops below the level military commanders requested (3/25-27, 2007).

A separate POS poll finds 57% of voters support staying in Iraq until the job is finished and “the Iraqi government can maintain control and provide security for its people.” And 59% of voters say pulling out of Iraq immediately would do more to harm America’s reputation in the world than staying until order is restored (35%); (2/5-7, 2007).

A Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll show 69% of American voters trust military commanders more than members of Congress (18%) to decide when United States troops should leave Iraq. This includes 52% of Democrats, 69% of Independents and 88% of Republicans (3/27-28, 2007).

According to a recent Pew Research survey, only 17% of Americans want an immediate withdrawal of troops (4/18-22, 2007). That same poll found a plurality of adults (45%) believe a terrorist attack against the United States is more likely if we withdraw our troops from Iraq while the “country remains unstable”

Should a date for withdrawal be set, 70% of American believe it is likely that “insurgents will increase their attacks in Iraq” starting on that day. This is supported by 85% of Republicans, 71% of Independents and 60% of Democrats. (FOX News/Opinion Dynamics, 4/17-18, 2007).

An LA Times/Bloomberg polls reveals that 50% of Americans say setting a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq “hurts” the troops, while only 27% believe it “helps” the troops (4/5-9, 2007). (But hey, Vince N. knows seven guys who want out now, so this stat MUST be wrong! - Ed.)

Americans want a change in strategy in Iraq, but they don't want to cut-and-run before the military (and NOT Congress) says that job is done...and that includes surrender, er "withdrawal", deadlines.

Lieberman blasts Senate's Iraqi Surrender Bill

Joe wastes his time by using facts. Excerpt from NRO:

My colleague from Nevada (Reid - Ed.), in other words, is suggesting that the insurgency is being provoked by the very presence of American troops. By diminishing that presence, then, he believes the insurgency will diminish.

But I ask my colleagues—where is the evidence to support this theory? Since 2003, and before General Petraeus took command, U.S. forces were ordered on several occasions to pull back from Iraqi cities and regions, including Mosul and Fallujah and Tel’Afar and Baghdad. And what happened in these places? Did they stabilize when American troops left? Did the insurgency go away?

On the contrary—in each of these places where U.S. forces pulled back, Al Qaeda rushed in. Rather than becoming islands of peace, they became safe havens for terrorists, islands of fear and violence.

So I ask advocates of withdrawal: on what evidence, on what data, have you concluded that pulling U.S. troops out will weaken the insurgency, when every single experience we have had since 2003 suggests that this legislation will strengthen it?

Joe, you've been a Democrat long enough to know that your guys don't ever need evidence to support anything. Evidence gets in the way of feelings.

Another anti-war nut gets violent

From Gateway Pundit:

"He pulled the rifle from the trunk of his Mercedes, removed the Bush & Cheney pictures from the office, and promised to be back if Bush vetoed the emergency war spending bill!" -Nevada Republican Party Executive Director Zachary Moyle.
...
A large cache of weapons were discovered inside of his vehicle -- including three swords, a flare gun with .12-gauge shotgun shells and a .12 gauge shotgun. Las Vegas police did not reveal the particular bill that outraged Kramer, but said he told his victim he would kill everyone at the Republican offices when he returned... He originally asked an official there how he could join the party.
...
Matthew Hunter Kramer, 31, did not resist officers who arrested him on a warrant issued after the April 3 confrontation at state Republican Party offices in Las Vegas.

Zachary Moyle, executive director of the state GOP, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that Kramer invited him to look at something in the trunk of his Mercedes before pulling out a rifle, pointing it at his face and warning that he would be back if President Bush vetoed an emergency war spending bill being considered by Congress.

...Kramer also removed photos of Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney from the wall of the office and threatened to harm staff members, Moyle said. Kramer left his cell phone number with office staff before leaving, police said.

He is charged with criminal syndicalism, assault with a deadly weapon and aiming a firearm at a person, police Officer Martin Wright said.

Criminal syndicalism makes it a crime to advocate sabotage, violence or terrorism to accomplish industrial or political reform, said Ron Bloxham, a Clark County prosecutor. It carries a maximum sentence of six years in prison.

Man, someone please protect us normal Americans from the "peace" nuts! They're so freakin' violent!

According to these moonbats, confronting terrorists while brandishing weapons is horrible, but confronting Republicans while brandishing weapons is cool. Got it. Thanks for the clarification.

Dems backing off from Reid's "war is lost" sentiment

Sure, they believe the war is lost. But they're not completely stupid. They don't want to be portrayed (accurately, I might add) as being anti-troop, and Marines like Pat Dollard calling out Reid certainly doesn't bolster the left's facade of "supporting the troops". From Politico:

Several leading Democrats said this week that they did not agree with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's recent statement that "the war is lost" in Iraq, even while they support his broader message.

But they did agree that Reid's wording was clumsy and potentially damaging. Even the Nevada Democrat himself appeared to be backing away from his remark.

Jim Manley, Reid's spokesman, said earlier that the "war is lost" comment was not in Reid's prepared text for the news conference last Thursday. But from now on, Manley said, the senator will "couch it more": The mission in Iraq is not working and must be changed.

Must have been a Kerryesque "botched joke" (which, coincidentally, also maligned the troops), right? Continuing:

Democrats have long tried to shed their image of being soft on national defense. Recent polls suggest they are making strides, showing that more voters trust congressional Democrats than they do the president to handle the situation in Iraq.

But statements such as Reid's -- while delighting those who have turned against the war -- provided Republicans an opportunity to shift focus from the merits of President Bush's Iraq war strategy to the level of support from Democrats for the troops.

If the Democrats would spend a fraction of the time coming up with a non-defeatist strategy of their own, instead of poormouthing our fine soldiers, then such efforts by the GOP to portray them (accurately, I might add) as being soft on defense would fail worse than Ted Kennedy at sobriety. Continuing:

None of almost a dozen Democrats contacted by The Politico said they agreed with Reid's statement. Instead, they support what they believed was his overall theme: The war cannot be won militarily, and the president must adjust his strategy. They just wouldn't have said it as Reid did.
...
Some launched into Clintonesque explanations.

"I think it depends entirely on what your definition of 'lost' means. That sounded familiar, didn't it?" former senator John Edwards, a Democratic presidential candidate, said to laughter on Ed Schultz's radio talk show Monday. "What I mean is, I don't think there is winning or losing in Iraq. There is certainly no military victory if it's used in that regard. The only way there can be security and peace on the ground in Iraq is for there to be a political solution."

We can always rely on the left to complicate simple terms like "sex", "is", and "lost", can't we? Nicely done, Silky Pony.

Finally, this nugget:

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) deflected the question, saying that the war was never defined and that his 2002 vote should not have been construed as a green light to invade Iraq.

Right. You voted to authorize the president to go to war, then you have the nerve to tell us that your vote shouldn't have been construed as a vote to go to war. Bubba and Silky Pony might be able to get away with such creative word-mangling, but you can't, Harkin.

Marine not feeling the Dems' love

If the left purports to "support the troops", they aren't very good at showing it. This Marine seems to, shall we say, vehemently disagree with "douche" Harry Reid's assessment that the war in Iraq is "lost". From Pat Dollard:

yeah and i got a qoute for that douche harry reid. these families need us here. obviously he has never been in iraq. or atleast the area worth seeing. the parts where insurgency is rampant and the buildings are blown to pieces. we need to stay here and help rebuild. if iraq didnt want us here then why do we have IP’s voluntering everyday to rebuild their cities. and working directly with us too. same with the IA’s. it sucks that iraqi’s have more patriotism for a country that has turned to complete shit more than the people in america who drink starbucks everyday. we could leave this place and say we are sorry to the terrorists. and then we could wait for 3,000 more american civilians to die before we say “hey thats not nice” again. and the sad thing is after we WIN this war. people like him will say he was there for us the whole time.

Semper Fi, sir. Please be aware that most of us do not share Senator Douche's anti-soldier defeatist sentiments.

"Democrats skipping briefings on Iraq"

But...but...they "support the troops"! From Bryan at Hot Air:

Sen. Harry Reid says that the war is lost, then backtracks.
Rep. Nancy Pelosi declares that the road to peace is through Damascus, and offers to meet with Iran’s apocalyptic pirate president but declines to meet with the President of the United States.

Together, these two and their allies are doing all that they can to de-fund the war in Iraq through the Jack Murtha “slow bleed” strategy.

Call all of that what you want, but it doesn’t amount to supporting the troops. It amounts to supporting the enemy.

Ignoring briefings on the war by Gen. David Petraeus, the commander whom Congress recently approved and whose strategy is now governing ground action in Iraq, doesn’t amount to supporting the troops either. But that’s just what the Democrats are doing:

The commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, returns to Washington this week, but last week Pelosi’s office said “scheduling conflicts” prevented him from briefing House members. Two days later, the members-only meeting was scheduled, but the episode brings to mind the fact that Pelosi and other top House Democrats skipped a Pentagon videoconference with Petraeus on March 8.

The Democrats did the same thing on April 9: Only one Democrat Senator attended a video conference with Gen. Petraeus which was an update and progress report on the war.

What can be a higher priority than hearing from Gen. Petraeus? Can’t they make Petraeus’ briefings a priority, just for show? Apparently they would rather meet with Code Pink than Gen. Petraeus.

The Democrats wanted power but didn’t want any responsibility (when do liberals EVER want responsibility for anything? - Ed.), but in winning power they have also earned responsibility. This war is being fought on their watch now, too. If they support the troops as they always say that they do, the least that they could do is treat the war as a priority worth studying and understanding, and worth hearing about from the man most responsible for its execution. They shouldn’t rely on media reports or groups like Iraq Body Count, but that’s apparently just what they’re doing.

AJ Strata calls the Democrat’s lack of attention to Petraeus’ briefings “criminal.” He’s right but it’s even worse than that. We’re seeing a complete abdication by the party in power on the seminal issue of our time. They’re running toward defeat now and running on defeat for 2008. We’re seeing a gradual abandonment of the Iraqi people, of American troops in the field, and ultimately of America’s place in the world. The Democrats are making a monumental error that will change the world for the worse. Defeat in Iraq, which is how the Democrats are casting the effort even while they dodge reports from the architect of the American strategy there, will echo for decades to come.

Why bother attending the briefings when you already have locked yourself into the defeatist mentality? If you have not yet done so, please afford yourself the opportunity now to officially question their patriotism.