Taylor Marsh – TaylorMarsh.com – News, Opinion and Weblog on Progressive Politics

War Theater for Bush
(posted from Washington, D.C., 8:23 a.m. eastern time)

Very busy morning for me, as I take in some meetings, then I'm off to a foreign policy lecture at the New American Foundation on Winning the Un-War: A New Strategy for the War on Terrorism. Looking forward to that very much. Afterwards, I'll hit the ground running to catch a plane. While all this is going on in my world, Bush has big things on his plate.

Operation save Bush's presidential butt has begun.

It began with a desperate drive by through Iraq by Bush. We've finally got
a crack down in Baghdad, with al-Maliki deciding he'd better get the violence
under control because Americans are ready to leave and when I say leave I don't just mean Democrats, but most Americans (all except the wingnut Hannity-Rush Limbaugh crowd).

And finally, Bush has noticed all the trouble
in Afghanistan, so he's decided that he'd better do something about that one
before he loses the country back to the Taliban, which has been happening over all the months and years he's been engaged in operation Iraqi implosion.

The force of more than 11,000 troops is by far the largest deployed in Afghanistan for one operation since the 2001 invasion. Previous offensives in the country have involved several thousand soldiers. Maj. Gen. Benjamin C. Freakley, U.S. operational commander in Afghanistan, said coalition and Afghan troops would attack “Taliban enemy sanctuary or safe haven areas” in Kandahar, Helmand, Zabul and Uruzgan provinces. “Right now … they'll be in one area, they'll move out of that area, they'll conduct an attack in another area, then move back to a safe haven,” he said last week in an interview at Bagram, the U.S. military headquarters north of Kabul. Large Afghan Offensive Begins

The
2006 election is off and running, which is always evident when you've got
Rove and the Bushies going after Democratic leaders' war records. It's the reason
I'm continually drawing out comparisons between the swiftboating, anti veteran
Republicans and the Democratic leaders today. If Bush is going to send Rove
out to the Republican hordes to talk about Murtha and Kerry's Iraq stance, first
slamming them as veterans, then the comparison of Republican chickenhawks needs
to be drawn.

Of course, what would this be without Adam Nagourney drawing out some ludicrous
narrative in the Times, talking about Democratic Party division. Note to Ad
Nag: Democrats aren't divided. We want out of Iraq as soon as it's practicable;
leaving a strike force in the region at one of the bases we've built that Bush
isn't going to tear down. Get it?

With President Bush making a high-profile visit to Baghdad, and his chief political adviser, Karl Rove, having unleashed a sharp attack on Democrats over the war, Republicans said Democratic infighting over Iraq would hurt Democrats as the midterm elections approached. On a day when Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice appeared on Capitol Hill to press the administration's message that Iraq was making progress, Representative Thomas M. Reynolds of New York, the head of the National Republican Congressional Committee, described Democrats as “all over the lot” on Iraq. His Democratic counterpart, Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, said that the war would prove a burden for Republicans, given its unpopularity and the perception that the White House has no withdrawal plan. Representative Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat, said the House Democratic caucus shared “a pretty universal disgust” with the Bush administration's management of the war. He estimated that 50 percent or more of the caucus supported the position of Representative John P. Murtha, the Pennsylvania Democrat who has called for a speedy pullout of American combat troops. Clinton and Kerry Show Democratic Divide on Troop Withdrawal

All over the lot on Iraq? Republicans wish.

What Democrats don't want is Hillary Clinton giving us advice we do not need,
as in we must “stay the course, part deux, her way.” Talk about clueless.
If Ad Nag was in the room when Kerry was there he would have smelled the unity.
If the Democrats like Hillary and others, masquerading as adults, think staying
in Iraq is the right course, well, they won't have the people behind them and
by people I mean the American people, not just Democrats. Americans want a choice
and Democrats like Hillary aren't offering us one.

The so called “division” is between the Democratic hierarchy, which
is what Ad Nag is trying to say, but the rest of us really aren't interested,
which is what he and others just don't get. It's pretty simple. The majority
of Democrats want out of Iraq, and so do the majority of Americans. Pelosi
outlined it yesterday.

Bush is simply trying to save his butt by all this war
theater, which Democrats like Hillary are buying into by saying ME TOO! Evidently,
the New York Times has decided to help Bush out. Cue the Washington Post, who
we can always trust to not be very far behind.

But as for most Democrats, including those of us who are serious about foreign policy, we want out of Iraq, so we're just not buying what Hillary and others are selling. And guess what, the American people won't buy it either.