Who Doesn’t Want The War To End?
That’s the question I put before you…of course, we ALL want the war to end…but victory is more important than a speedy resolution, and victory can take years. That’s my response to the Republican Senate proposal that was passed today urging ‘progress reports’ from the President on the conduct of the war, as if we were talking about midterms. I agree, as I find myself often doing, with William Kristol:
One hopes Republicans in the House will show more spine. One trusts that President Bush will not bend in any way to these winds of worry. One hopes that a year from now this vote is simply remembered as a minor hiccup on the way to success and victory in Iraq. But one doesn’t win a war by showing weakness. And one doesn’t win a political fight by half capitulating to one’s opponents, and, in effect, accepting the premises of their critique.
I also join Kristol in congratulating the senators who resisted this nonsense, while noticing that neither of my Texas senators are on that list:
All honor to the 13 Republican senators who stood up against the me-too, we-want-to-get-out-as-well-but-not-quite-as-quickly, Republican leadership: Bunning, Burr, Chambliss, Coburn, DeMint, Graham, Inhofe, Isakson, Kyl, McCain, Sessions, Thune, and Vitter. Let’s hope their colleagues reconsider and join their ranks in the near future.
Pessimism is a nasty thing; it spreads like a virus, as anyone who’s ever worked in a negative environment can tell you. We need to be trumpeting victories like this, and this, instead of trying to out-pander the kings of pandering…leave that garbage to Harry Reid and Teddy Kennedy…
If the Republicans lose in 2006, I don’t want to hear any talk about how it was Bush’s fault; the Republican Congressional leadership has been woefully poor far too often…
I can’t see why we can’t blame a Republican loss on BOTH Congress and the President. Senate Republicans have been a bunch of wavering ninnies, House Republicans have been bit-champing neanderthal reactionaries, and Bush has been… well, frankly, an almost complete disaster. If Republicans lose in 2006 it’ll be because the entire party is either incompetent or wicked.
(I will grant exceptions to a few, namely folks like McCain, Graham, and Hatch who are generally quite sensible.)
Up until now I had pegged McCain’s chances at winning the nomination at somewhere between “none” and “no chance in hell”. However, his willingness to stick to his principles on national security has suddenly given Republican voters another reason to vote for him (support of the Coburn amendment would be the other). He’s still unlikely to win the nomination, but now he’s more of a longshot than a no-shot.