Washington Post Iraq Flacking
21 July 2007 9:44 am by Taylor Marsh
Washington Post Iraq Flacking
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Why not just say it was written out of the White House? Why even bother with
the facade? It’s nakedly obvious that the powers that be at the WP need to get
out of the beltway and talk to some real Americans who aren’t simply interested in pushing presidential propaganda.
The editorial page of the Washington Post really has done it now.
They’ve come down from their jounalistic perch to pronounce the debate Reid and
the Democrats launched last week as “phony.” It’s evidently “phony”
to face facts, to confront reality, to try to move Republicans who talk about
leaving Iraq, but who are too busy protecting the president to stop and think
what continual escalation in Iraq means. But Reid is the one who is
“irresponsible”? Bipartisan solutions on Iraq are missing because of Reid?
This logic strains all credulity, but that didn’t stop the editorial weenies
of the WP from pontificating on it today.
The decision of Democrats led by Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.)
to deny rather than nourish a bipartisan agreement is, of course, irresponsible.
But so was Mr. Reid’s answer when he was asked by the Los Angeles Times how
the United States should manage the explosion of violence that the U.S. intelligence
community agrees would follow a rapid pullout. “That’s a hypothetical.
I’m not going to get into it,” the paper quoted the Democratic leader
as saying.For now Mr. Reid’s cynical politicking and willful blindness to the stakes
in Iraq don’t matter so much. The result of his maneuvering was to postpone
congressional debate until September, when Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander
of U.S. forces in Iraq, will report on results of the surge — in other words,
just the outcome the White House was hoping for. But then, as now, the country
will desperately need a strategy for Iraq that can count on broad bipartisan
support, one aimed at carrying the U.S. mission through the end of the Bush
administration and beyond. There are serious issues still to resolve, such
as whether a drawdown should begin this fall or next year, how closely it
should be tied to Iraqi progress, how fast it can proceed and how the remaining
forces should be deployed. … ..The
Phony Debate
Congress could agree on a new Iraq strategy, if its leaders would allow it.
It’s as unconscionable and it is ignorant for these corporate hacks to suggest
that Democrats are the ones playing politics with Iraq.
There is only one reason Bush continues on the current course. Legacy, with the
Republicans in his party providing cover for the most irresponsible foreign
policy decision in my lifetime. Come election season you’ll see just how bankrupt their actions to stonewall withdrawal have been. They’ll be following Democrats as fast as they can in order to save their own skins.
But the WP thinks it knows better than the
generals, all of them, except those currently serving and replaced the ones
who wouldn’t follow the Bush line further into the Iraq abyss. Just ask General
Abizaid.
Oh! But it’s all Harry Reid’s fault.
Why is it that flacks at the WP think they know more than military men like
James Webb, Chuck Hagel, Colin Powell, former general Odom and so many, many more.
Courage rarely gets rapidly rewarded, but that doesn’t mean Reid is wrong.
The WP needs to face that the people are finished with the Iraq war. Reid is responding to our outcry, because that’s his job. Somewhere along the way the Post forgot who runs this republic. They ducked their jobs when the war got started, so their last ditch effort to save something long past rescue doesn’t impress anyone. In fact, it’s embarrassing.
But if you want to put this in strictly national security terms, our military cannot continue much longer. We’ve got a growing threat out of Pakistan. The Taliban is resurgent in Afghanistan. When you turn to other brewing conflicts in the Middle East and beyond the conversation grows even darker. Our Iraq centric foreign policy has strangled our power and prestige in the world.
The truth is that it’s not going to be pretty whenever we leave, because we should not have not invaded Iraq in the first place. That wrong can never be righted, no matter how long we stay. Perhaps the Post should think on that for a while instead of blaming Reid for what Bush’s policies have wrought.
Memo to the Washington Post. We’re leaving Iraq. Everyone knows it, so for the Post to pretend Reid working towards that end is “irresponsible” is not only tone deaf, but arrogant. To think you know better than the majority of the American people truly defies understanding that a war that has lost the people can never be won. That’s likely why circulation among newspapers continues to plummet. Outlets like the WP long ago let the people down. You can’t catch up now, not ever. You simply can no longer be trusted to present the truth. Today’s attack on Reid and the Democrats is just more proof that your time has passed.
