Thanks, John Kerry!
So John Kerry's "cut and run" plan for Iraq, specifying that all troops would have to be removed by July 2007, has been overwhelmingly defeated in the Senate -- showing that, even if they have only minimal military sense, the majority of Democrats have at least some political sense left.
By forcing the vote, Kerry decided to further his own presidential ambitions at the expense of his party's well-being. As I wrote here last January 31 (when Kerry was staging his "flopibuster" on the Alito nomination,
John Kerry has long had a reputation in the Senate as a showboat, and this episode only reinforces the impression that his primary (sole?) concern is himself. In order to uphold his standing among the hard left, he's been willing to risk an intra-party fight, and created a situation that has placed fellow senators (some not fortunate enough to hail from a monolithically ilberal state like Massachusetts) in political trouble.
Obviously, my low opinion of Kerry is hardly unique.
But in any case, the Republicans have reason to be grateful for John Kerry -- politically speaking. In terms of policy, though, he's as pernicious for the country as he is for his party.
By forcing the vote, Kerry decided to further his own presidential ambitions at the expense of his party's well-being. As I wrote here last January 31 (when Kerry was staging his "flopibuster" on the Alito nomination,
John Kerry has long had a reputation in the Senate as a showboat, and this episode only reinforces the impression that his primary (sole?) concern is himself. In order to uphold his standing among the hard left, he's been willing to risk an intra-party fight, and created a situation that has placed fellow senators (some not fortunate enough to hail from a monolithically ilberal state like Massachusetts) in political trouble.
Obviously, my low opinion of Kerry is hardly unique.
But in any case, the Republicans have reason to be grateful for John Kerry -- politically speaking. In terms of policy, though, he's as pernicious for the country as he is for his party.
posted by LadybugUSA at 9:49 AM
13 Comments:
Ditto,
Was it you or another of the left-leaning commentors on this blog that did a thorough background analysis of those contributing to a report (and those even loosely associated with those who contributed to the report) that Carol had cited in one of her posts?
I wonder if you or anyone else has done a thorough background analysis on any survey that claims 90% of Iraqis want the Americans gone.
Who was doing the asking?
What were they asking?
Whom were they aking?
Did the survey contain time tables or any other qualifying information?
I just checked out the poll Ditto cited (not any backgrounds, just the poll itself).
Maybe I've overlooked something. But I didn't see a response that said 90% of Iraqis want American troops gone.
I did see a response that, at the time of the survey, a slim majority of those responding thought Iraq was headed in the wrong direction. I also saw that of those who thought Iraq was headed in the wrong direction, only 17% cited foreign troops as the reason.
But the most impressive thing I saw in the survey were four things:
1. Those surveyed overwhelmingly believe in democratically held elections.
2. Those surveyed overwhelmingly believe the future of Iraq will improve significantly over time.
3. Those expressing concern for the situation in Iraq overwhelmingly cite current security issues as their main reason for concern.
4. Those surveyed expressed considerable confidence in the ability of Iraqi security forces to eventually be able to keep them safe.
Again, maybe I missed the section that said something about 90% of Iraqis want American troops to leave. Can anyone enlighten me on this?
And, if the main negative in the minds of Iraqis has to do with security, doesn't it make sense to finish the job of ridding Iraq of the terrorist and insurgent violence and help the Iraqi government and security forces get established?
Perhaps the main flaw in that argument is that it would tend to make George Bush look good. We can't have that, can we?
Kerry's antics showcases the divisiveness of the DNC and will kill the Democrat's changes this fall. I blog about it at http://mymountain.blogspot.com/2006/06/kerrys-hollow-moral-victories-will.html
"Kerry is correct that the way to end the conflicts, is to bring all the parties together and politically resolve the differences."
Maybe the Koffi "superman" Annan can do that...he's done so much good bringing together oil and food.
I must be nice to live in such a utopian dream world.
I'm trying to picture those pollers calling varying Iraqi citizens. Where do you suppose the calling lists come from? Or maybe it's a man on the street sort of poll... Maybe an internet sign on poll? Do you suppose they ask first if the person is an Insurgent or a Democratic Government favoritist? Shiaa, Sunni or Kurd?
The mind boggles...!
Ditto:
Help me out here. I've asked a couple of times for you or anyone to show me where in the study you are citing it says that more than 90% of Iraqis want American forces out of Iraq.
I've looked the report over several times.
I do see the page you may be referring to where a vast majority of Iraqis have confidence in their own Iraqi forces to keep them safe. That particular chart also shows very little confidence (1%) in foreign troops to keep Iraqis safe.
Is THAT what you're talking about?
Isn't it a HUGE leap to go from "little confidence in keeping them safe" to "wanting the US to leave"?
Besides, if that's the chart you're referring to, why didn't you claim that 99% of Iraqis want the US to leave? Would that be because even you know that would be too much of an obvious obfuscation?
Now really, who's spinnig here?
Suek,
I'll have to admit I went into that report with a pretty heavy dose of skepticism. But I saw some results that were VERY encouraging.
These people are smack in the middle of a brutal war zone. So you would expect security issues to be on the top of their list of priorities and issues. And that shows up clearly in the report.
But these same people expressed overwhelming support for democratic reform, a unified government, and their own defense and police forces.
Man, those are good signs!
The report shows demographic information on those surveyed. But I don't how to interpret that kind of information. So I won't comment on it.
90% of statistics are made up on the spot. Including this one. And one above, apparently.
I had asked under another post, what the definition of victory is for those on the left. Perhaps the vociferous "dittohead" will offer up his own opinion.
dhead won't offer it up, because it is cut, run, and then only declare victory if we are defeated, which *could* result in more democrats winning seats in congress. That's victory for the left.
How many Iraqis had clean water, "enough" electricity, and saftey before the war? How many Iraqi women could vote?
"Turning into Vietnam"
Oh my. So your strongly held belief is that there is no winning? No matter what?
Does that bother you? It sure would bother me, because if you dislike the Religious Right in this country, I can't imagine you'll feel good about kowtowing to Islamic Fundamentalists for the rest of time in an attempt to not get blown up.
"Blah blah blah Viet Nam! Blah Blah Blah Blah..."
... but you won't back it up or talk about it? What are you here for, then, other than to dump steaming piles of crap all over each post?
Ditto:
"I'm not that interested in searching Pew Polling for this. If you want google them. Otherwise forget it."
That's EXACTLY what I thought. You're not at all interested in what the poll acutally says.
I DID read the results of the poll. And I DID NOT find the information you claimed was in it.
What I did find was very encouraging for those who believe we can do and are doing something good and worth while in Iraq.
Having called you out on your spin, suddenly you're not interested in this poll anymore.
What's up with that?!?!?
From Iraqi scholar - and DEMOCRAT - Kanan Makiya on the outlook for Iraq, writing for the Foreign Policy Research Institute before the death of Zarqawi (Emphasis added):
"The battle of ideas has only just begun. We have a long way to go. But one can feel, among young Arabs in particular, that finally the region is on the move. Of course, we can't predict the outcome. The Iraqi elections have produced a National Assembly that is, after much procrastination, in the end creating a government. And they produced a document, the new, albeit incomplete and faulty, permanent constitution of Iraq, that wrestles with the question of what it means to be an Iraqi. . . .
"THE INSURGENCY HAS NO CHANCE OF WINNING; it has no program with which to win people over. IT WILL IN THE END BE DEFEATED, not by the U.S. Army alone but by the people of Iraq. Increasingly the Iraqis are fighting back; the United States is needed, but its presence is less and less the reason for the bloodshed. The only question that has a bearing on whether or not this war was worth fighting is what kind of an Iraq will the defeat of the insurgency leave behind.
"While it will be a long time before Iraq is a democracy as we understand that word, we can say a few things about the new Iraq that is being born. It will not threaten or attack its neighbors; it will be a greatly decentralized state; and it will represent a new regional model of statehood and nation-formation, one that in all likelihood offers its citizens a variety of lifestyles and models to choose from within the very same Iraq that once knew only the totalizing Arabism of the Baath."
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