In yesterday’s posting, I beat the Washington Post to the punch. In today’s paper, Jonathan Rauch of The Brookings Institution and The National Journal proclaims that we can issue the sheet music to When Johnny Comes Marching Home to every local brass band in the country. He argues President Bush will have no choice but to begin a serious drawdown of American troops in Iraq. His insightful article, All Over but the Pullback, is tagged for your own evaluation. In one of the most devastating sentences I’ve ever read about Iraq, Rauch demolishes the effort with, “The public will not support a military operation that it has come to regard as social work on behalf of Iraqis, rather than security work on behalf of Americans.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/02/AR2005120201409.html?referrer=emailarticle
Rauch compares and contrasts Bush’s position with that of my favorite but fatally flawed Republican president, Richard Nixon. I still lament that Tricky Dick was over the top with paranoia; ah, what I can I do about madmen of the past?
So, like Wild Bill, Rauch sees little alternative for Bush but to start the strategic withdrawal. And like WB again, Rauch sees the Republicans trying to deflect blame for the fiasco that is the cancer in Iraq. In the fourth paragraph from the end of the piece, the author hints at the arguments likely to be propounded by the White House to blame the Democrats for any resulting problems. It isn’t too far from the `Stab in the Back’ argument used a thousand times in the past that I’ve written about in a previous posting. (I heard Rush Limbaugh use it almost word for word the other day.)
As I argued yesterday, we must not let red herrings draw us from the fact that this is George Bush’s war. The neocons dreamed it up, and he bought it. First in line at the sales counter were the Republicans in Congress. No matter how hard they try to squirm out of this calamity, Republican legislators must be punished by rational independents and moderates of both parties.
Do not be drawn from the trail! Vote Democrat in ’06 and ’08!
What? You’re a Republican moderate! Hold your nose and vote Democrat in ’06 and ’08. Do not lose focus.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
