Jan 12 2008
Newsweek Declares Iraq A Lost Cause For Surrendercrats
It seems that not only has al-Qaeda’s efforts to takeover Iraq failed (see post below), but now even the liberal rag Newsweek is declaring Iraq a lost cause to the Democrats (a.k.a. Surrendercrats):
But as Bush rallied U.S. troops at the base here on Saturday with a “Hoo-ah” and conferred with his Iraq dream team, Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker, he indicated that he was setting in motion policies that could dramatically affect the presidential race–and any decisions the next president makes in 2009.
In remarks to the traveling press, delivered from the Third Army operation command center here, Bush said that negotiations were about to begin on a long-term strategic partnership with the Iraqi government modeled on the accords the United States has with Kuwait and many other countries. Crocker, who flew in from Baghdad with Petraeus to meet with the president, elaborated: “We’re putting our team together now, making preparations in Washington,” he told reporters. “The Iraqis are doing the same. And in the few weeks ahead, we would expect to get together to start this negotiating process.” The target date for concluding the agreement is July, says Gen. Doug Lute, Bush’s Iraq coordinator in the White House–in other words, just in time for the Democratic and Republican national conventions.
Most significant of all, the new partnership deal with Iraq, including a status of forces agreement that would then replace the existing Security Council mandate authorizing the presence of the U.S.-led multinational forces in Iraq, will become a sworn obligation for the next president.
The fact is Bush is going to pull a hat out of a rabbit (a favorite quote of LJStrata’s that means a surprise trick ending to a plot line from TV or a Movie) on Iraq before he leaves office. We will have victory and a path to a great future before November. This is also going to nail the Surrendericans like Huckabee and Ron Paul. Only fools would still propose surrendering to those you just defeated – and there are a lot of fools running around politics these days. We need a Giuliani in the WH to leverage this great position Bush will leave the country in (McCain is too liberal on all issues outside the war).
Seriously folks – why is anyone in the GOP considering an ObaCain or a Hillabee in 2008 when you can vote for the real thing on the Dem tickets? If Bush takes the Iraq war off the table McCain’s strengths are gone, but Rudy’s generally more conservative stands (and electability over any Dem in FL, and ability to fight for NY and CA) makes him (or Thompson) the only viable GOP candidates right now.
Read that article earlier and knew there really was a Santa Claus. Newsweek.
I liked McCain in 2000 and our house debated Bush vs McCain until almost the end. We decided on Bush but still liked McCain. Then my hobby as a media watcher kept me watching McCain. Now my list against him is longer than my arm but the only ones important to this discussion has to do with the job.
McCain is a media darling. I always said that Bush put him under his armpit after the 2004 convention, in order to stop the knife. I watched McCain go on show after show that he complimented Kerry as his good friend (with nary a bad word) and say “hmmm, I will have to look into that” every time the media brought up their bad things about Bush. Over and over. He never had a good word. After watching for the first half of the year, I assumed he would be Kerry’s VP. I didn’t need to read it. I watched it happening.
What I just can’t quite accept is his behavior about 2 important issues that was in His control. McCain made it possible for the NYTs and it’s sibblings to run Abu Ghraib …….forever. Is his judgment so flawed that he thought letting that happen was the better choice? As a former prisoner of war, he could have shut that story down. All he had to do was stand up. He did the opposite and I say it was all personal. McCain hurt our service men when he did have the power.
The other issue was the stupid ‘waterboarding’. Once again, McCain had the Power to shut this down but instead he labeled the President and USA as torturers. This is flawed judgment. Once again, all this stuff combined with the Gitmo hurts our servicemen, the USA, and future presidents much more than it will ever hurt Bush.
I will still vote McCain if he is the candidate because a non-vote is still a vote. But Lordy does it do my heart good to see Bush quietly going about doing The Job. I sure hope the Purity crowd is proud because that page they took from the MSM has worked pretty good. Never say the names. Bush. Or as Malkin said during her coverage of the debate “sorry, but Rudy is really a non-entity” or “I am tuning him out” or later “Am I the only one not listening to Rudy anymore”?
Let me think…..hmmmm…..could that have anything to do with immigration? Nawww.
I wish some major news organization would put things in proper perspective. Not a single one has, as far as I can tell, properly shown why we needed to disband the Iraqi army and civil service. If you one understood that, they would gain a better understanding of why former officers and civil servants can be reinstated now that Saddam has been executed. Can you imagine having Saddam in custody with an army and government civil service who had pledged their personal oath of loyalty to him?
I read that article as well. BTW AJ, when did Huckabee talk about surrender? He never said anything of the kind. In fact he supports the surge and he supports Israel as well.
I really am not a Huckabee supporter, but I have to admit when I see the obvious untrue statements some people have made about his record, I really kind of feel sorry for the man.
For instance, he has never said anything as critical of Bush as the kind of stuff we see out of Powerline when they talk about Bush’s efforts at a peace process. They are downright vicious, but I am supposed to believe that Huckabee is the guy giving Bush crap. Please. In fact on the last debate Huckabee was one of the only guys up there who actually bothered to really take Ron Paul down a peg. Everyone else just kind of ignored his big fat mouth. So please, do not say Huckabee and Ron Paul are alike in anything.. Huckabee may not be my first choice, but he does not deserve to be lumped in with Paul. That is for sure.
The point to this article was that Bush was going to create a policy that the next president would be bound by to a great extent. It is a smart thing to do.
The thing is Rudy screwed around and lost the lead. That is not McCain’s fault or Huckabee’s fault. It was his strategy that messed him up.
I thought this was too good to pass up!
** There are some people who talk hope and there are others who make the tough decisions to bring hope to this world.
Terrye,
I’m prepared to back the nominee of the party, even if I am relatively uncomfortable with that individual on the merits. However, when it mattered (last winter, spring, and summer), Huckabee was playing the same rhetorical games as a number of other republicans, with nary a good word to say about the Iraq war, the surge, or anything else. Only four candidates at the time really backed the president- McCain, Romney, Rudy, and Duncan Hunter. Everyone else started talking up other alternatives, including Huckabee. His only statements on Iraq attacked the administration for “listening to politicians instead of Generals with blood on their boots and medals on their chests”. He still uses this formulation in debates as a swipe against the Bush Administration, and it almost drives me crazy when I hear it, because it’s an insult to General Abazaid, General Casey, and a number of other senior military officials, who, despite any mistakes the may have made, most certainly do have “blood on their boots and medals on their chests”.
Huckabee did say the we couldn’t leave Iraq, and deserves credit for that. However, his formulation at the time was the “pottery barn defense” of “you broke it you bought it”, and he specifically stated that “we broke it”. This is all of a type with Huckabee, and is the reason I wasn’t surprised by his “arrogant bunker mentality” quip in the Foreign Affairs piece. His entire campaign has been predicated on that kind of thinking.
Again, I would still vote for him if he got the nomination. He said he won’t leave Iraq, and I’ll believe him. It’s a lot more than we’ll get from any Democrat. It’s just that he worries me the most out of all the GOP candidates (mainstream candidates, not racist lunatic near-anarchists like Paul) on foreign policy. However, I’m open to being pleasantly surprised. Last time I voted for a southern Governor who I thought unequipped to handle the job, in 2000, I became one of his most loyal supporters in less than a year.
One more thing- it doesn’t matter what the Powerline guys (in this case, mostly Scott Johnson) have to say about Bush and his mideast peace trip. They can spew all the venom at him that they wish (and I agree that is has been quite egregious over the past several months or so), but that doesn’t take away from the fact that Huckabee has been just as unfair in many of his public comments about Bush and his foreign policy. After all, bad behavior shouldn’t be used as an excuse for other bad behavior. Also, Huckabee is a candidate for President, and a major candidate for the GOP’s nomination. That position requires a little more responsibility in public remarks than being a blogger.
Colin:
I pretty much agree. I think Huckabee was just trying to set himself apart. After all Thompson was even giving Huckabee crap because he was not supposed to be sufficiently loyal to Reagan. As if Reagan has not become more myth than man at this point. Let’s face it if Reagan were around today half these guys would be calling him Ronaldo and swearing he sold us out to Mexico.
And besides, considering the fact that second guessing Bush is a national past time why should Huckabee be any different? I just think that Huckabee was trying to give people some hope for a more optimistic future while at the same time trying to be sufficiently tough. Not easy to do.
I am not saying I agree with Huckabee, but in light of some of the things that have been said about Bush, both by people in his party and outside of it, arrogant is pretty damn mild. If Huckabee had just called him Jorge, you would be amazed how many of these people would have agreed with the characterization and egged him on.
OT: The kind of stuff I was talking about the other day in a different thread about Mexican corruption seeping across the border and us not making any real changes.
In other words, all the candidates have criticized Bush about something. All of them.
A must read from FREEREPUBLIC
Middle East Indebted to Bush
Posted by foreshadowed at waco
On News/Activism 01/12/2008 4:27:27 PM PST · 2 replies
Lucianne.com link | Salim Mansur
January 12, 2008 Middle East indebted to Bush By SALIM MANSUR This week’s journey of U.S. President George W. Bush to the Middle East — the itinerary beginning with Israel includes visits to the Palestinian territories, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt — is greatly significant and yet, in keeping with his temper, a low-keyed affair as the last remaining months of his presidency unfold. We likely can surmise there is one more visit to the region still to be made by Bush. This will be a visit to Baghdad with an address to Iraq’s democratically…
I believe Mr. Bush will go down in the history of the Middle East as a man who sacrificed himself politically for what was right. He has done a very hard thing and I don’t believe that many Americans fully appreciate what he has done. I honestly believe he is one of our greatest presidents ever and that much of what he has done, our people don’t know and possibly wouldn’t even understand if they did know.
Thank you, Mr. Bush.
I’m afraid his stand in Iraq will be overshadowed by the three major failures of Condi-led 2nd Term foreign policy.
1 – Appeasing Iran (Iraq will never be stable as long as Iran is run by the mullahs)
2 – Appeasing North Korea
3 – Appeasing the Jihad by rewarding the Jihad by moving forward with the Piece Process in Israel
Nuclear War with Iran is pretty much guaranted. And it could have been avoided.
Not one surivior in the united states is going to give two shts about iraq.
I agree with crosspatch.
I do not agree with Vince. Condi has not appeased anyone, she has simply faced certain realities. That is all.
And to say that Bush has appeased Iran or Jihad or anyone else is just absurd.
In fact for a good example of what I am talking about in terms of everyone bitching and moaning about Bush and thinking they somehow know better how to do his job than he does, one need look no further than vince’s comment.
What do you want him to do Vince, nuke em? I mean really, what in the real world do you want? Don’t give me some crap about being rough and tough and putting your foot down and all that nonsense.
Terrye:
Complain to John Bolton … or let me guess. you know better than him?
SPIEGEL: Mr. Ambassador, you worked closely with the president and you shared his hawkish views on Iraq. But your new book is fiercely critical of George W. Bush. Why?
Bolton: His foreign policy is in free fall. The president is turning against his own best judgment and instincts under the influence of Secretary (of State Condoleeza) Rice. She is the dominant voice, indeed, almost the only voice on foreign policy in this administration.
SPIEGEL: The popular reading of her looks a bit different. She is presumed to be weak and not particularly efficient.
Bolton: No. Rice is channeling the views of the liberal career bureaucrats in the State Department. The president is focusing all his attention on Iraq and, by doing so, has allowed the secretary to become captured by the State Department. He is not adequately supervising her. It is a mistake.
SPIEGEL: Could it be that your pique really comes from the fact that the president doesn’t seem to be listening to neoconservatives like you anymore?
Bolton: The vice president (Vice President Dick Cheney) is still there. But the idea that somehow the neocons were so powerful is a myth — I mean, it was five or six people, for God sakes. I am not a neoconservative. I am pro-American.
SPIEGEL: You have said that the new moderate foreign policy currently being followed by Bush compromises the security of the United States.
Bolton: Well, I think so. North Korea is going to get away with keeping its nuclear weapons. I think the (National Intelligence Estimate) sends Iran a signal they can do whatever they want…
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,523991,00.html
Vince:
Well I tell you what, why doesn’t Bolton run for office and do the job himself. Bush went out on a limb for Bolton when it was politically costly for him to do so. Bolton did what a lot of other people did. Once they were out the door, they start bitching.
Bolton did not get us a tough deal with NK when he was actually in a position to do so. He waited until he was out of there to complain about what the next guy did.
I am just sick of listening to it, especially when it comes from people who could not win an election if their lives literally depended on it.
BTW it was Bolton who worked side by side with Rice to come up with the UN deal to stop the fighting between Lebanon/Hezbellah and Israel not so long ago. If I remember correctly the guys at powerline and their ilk thought that deal sucked.
Terrye
I have intended to apologize to you for going over the top by offending you about Huckabee. I actually understand what you are saying but I lost it because I simply could not stomach the words he said. I wanted to slap him, just as I wanted to deliver the same punch to the Pug Congress when they had power. I KNEW they were going to lose because of it. Yes, I long ago got my belly full of reading the hits at Powerline (issue: Israel) and the constant hair shirt at the good Capt, the political elites at Patterico and the Corner, and don’t even get me started about Malkin.
I also understand they certainly have the right to say whatever they wish on their own blogs. I think it destroyed our unity and therefore our ability to win the elections. Those all important Supremes are coming. We have such damage that I even have my doubts about a Hill vs Rudy (our dream match). We needed to build him because he has so much personal baggage.
I have never thought that Huck could joke nor feel the pain into the WH. He is not another Bush (darn shame). That does not excuse my over the top rant. Sorry.