Say it loud.
Without a vote for the Democrats in 2006, Gates would probably not be at the Pentagon, and Rice would not have been emboldened to shift course on the peace process, and the CIA might not have had the stomach to fight back against Cheney on Iran intelligence. That was the turning point.
Every action elicits a reaction. As weak as the Democrats have been against Bush, their mere presence and absence of Republican control (beyond the constant use of the filibuster they used to hate so much) has resulted in a number of smaller goods and helped us avoid some big evils. Sullivan correctly identifies the forces that led to the surge and other course corrections in the first place. The Democrats.
As I’ve said elsewhere, if only we had some cooperation in protecting the Republic from our fellow Republicans.
-jb
December 6th, 2007 at 3:16 am
Sullivan?
i knew there was a reason i avoided liberal blogs.
December 6th, 2007 at 10:23 am
Because they cite conservative bloggers?
December 6th, 2007 at 12:47 pm
Keep trying to convince yourself that the Democrats have done anything since they’ve been in “control.” These are the same people who called General Petraeus a liar in September, have whined, “We’ve lost!” for two years, and haven’t found a way yet to bring the troops home. Great job!
December 6th, 2007 at 1:13 pm
Again, any cooperation at all from our fellow Republicans…
BTW, what false claims were made about General Petraeus in September?
December 6th, 2007 at 2:09 pm
You know, anyone would think that Sharon wants the US troops to come home. When she’s consistently argued that Bush is right to do everything up to threatening to defund the troops in Iraq to prevent the Democrats from setting the timetable for withdrawal. But I suppose it’s vewy vewy brave of Sharon to venture into any online discussion where she can’t control it by deleting comments or freezing threads.
First-hand account of the ‘liberation’ of Iraq.
December 7th, 2007 at 7:23 am
BTW, what false claims were made about General Petraeus in September?
Among other things, that the White House wrote General Petraeus’ report. That the White House received a copy before the report was given. That Democrats “didn’t believe him” when he told them the surge was working. Why don’t you do a damn Google search of liberal sites. It’s not hard to find.
And Jes, geez, you need to grow up and move along. I know some people don’t mind you lying about them or their positions. Some people seemingly love watching you lie. But no, I’m not one of them. Especially once you were warned not to do it.
December 7th, 2007 at 8:50 pm
The first item, Sharon, was reported by the Los Angeles Times citing administration officials as their source. It was reported a month before the expected report, giving plenty of time for the White House to let Petraeus take the reins, if indeed he did.
Indeed the metrics of violence have revealed a rather limited picture of the “success” of the surge. For one thing, it has only returned us to previous levels of unacceptable violence, not to an era of non-violence in Iraq. For another, the success of ethnic cleansing has reduced the demand for murder in Iraq, because there’s fewer Shiites or Sunnis left in the wrong territory to lynch. Some reports have cited increases of violence where US troops aren’t, and soldiers have definitely been taking increased deaths.
There were credible reports from the Washington Post among others that Petraeus’ methods of calculating the violence were suspect.
And, of course, the point of the surge was to buy time for political reconciliation and solving problems. That part didn’t happen, so no, the surge hasn’t worked yet. Yes, we can throw more troops and expect to see some decrease of violence, but yes, we can get stuck in that cycle in Iraq for 30-40 years using the same logic. Whoopty doo.
Anyway, the point was to thank the Universe that you nutjob incompetents are out of power. Look at you, in the minority, still fucking everything up by filibustering constantly to protect the agenda of a failed and disgraceful president.
December 8th, 2007 at 4:29 am
Among other things, that the White House wrote General Petraeus’ report.
Those “false claims” were actually made by Bush administration officials, Sharon:
That the White House received a copy before the report was given
They wrote it, Sharon: of course they had a copy before it was delivered to Congress. The White House proposed in August that their report should be delivered to Congress by the secretaries of state and defense: you can’t deliver what you don’t have.
That Democrats “didn’t believe him†when he told them the surge was working.
How can this be a false statement? I mean, even if you want to claim that the surge is “working” (of which there are no signs: Iraqis are still leaving the country rather than stay) if Democratic politicians decided they didn’t believe the “General Petraeus” report, authored by the White House, that the surge that Bush had insisted on was working, it’s not a false statement for them to say so.
Why don’t you do a damn Google search of liberal sites. It’s not hard to find.
No, it wasn’t. Why didn’t you do a damn Google search of news sites – as I just did – and find out that the Bush administration made no secret of the fact that the White House was writing the “General Petraeus” report.
Sharon, baby girl, you need to learn that when there is online evidence that you can’t delete that you deal with arguments you lose by deleting comments and freezing threads, there’s no point whining about people pointing out that this is what you do.
The God of Bloggers shall strike thee down, Sharon!
December 8th, 2007 at 10:22 am
As much as Sharon enjoys voicing her disdain for this site, we regularly get these simpering, barely on-topic links from her blog that invariably have the same theme; “they think they’re smart but they’re not”. Today we’re paranoid bigots because Jeromy dared to write disapprovingly of Mormonism.
Sharon’s just a run-of-the-mill troll with a slightly better vocabulary.