Aug 09 2007
Senate Democrats Declare Surge Successes
It was not too many months ago, as Majority Leader Reid and Speaker Pelosi were trying to surrender Iraq to al-Qaeda, that Sen Reid declared Iraq lost. Now some senators in his party are breaking ranks with these leaders and declaring The Surge a success in many respects:
One senator said U.S. troops are routing out al-Qaida in parts of Iraq. Another insisted President Bush’s plan to increase troops has caused tactical momentum.
One even went so far on Wednesday as to say the argument could be made that U.S. troops are winning.
These are not Bush-backing GOP die-hards, but Democratic Sens. Dick Durbin, Bob Casey and Jack Reed. Even Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services committee, said progress was being made by soldiers.
The suggestions by them and other Democrats in recent days that at least a portion of Bush’s strategy in Iraq is working is somewhat surprising, considering the bitter exchanges on Capitol Hill between the Democratic majority and Republicans and Bush. Democrats have long said Bush’s policies have been nothing more than a complete failure.
The Democrats’ choice to acknowledge the military’s progress in Iraq signals support for the troops, a message that voters want to hear. But they still heap criticism on Bush and his Iraq strategy, which promises to be a prominent issue in next year’s presidential election.
From the AP no less! The Democrat leadership had planned to hold Iraq SurrenderVotes on a regular basis to peal away GOP support from President Bush. Clearly this strategy is now backfiring and I suspect we will see GOP efforts to push SurrenderVotes to show how bankrupt the Democrat policy of capitulation to al-Qaeda truly is. H/T to reader Mark78
AJ
They may be reading the tea leaves from the blog reactions and trying to push an image of more thoughtful and midstream to keep from losing center type voters.
In short it could be a scam.
Waiting for more data.
It is a scam. I’ve heard this a number of times. The talking points have gone from “we’re losing, all hope is lost” to “we’re succeeding militarily, but that doesn’t matter, because the military situation was never in doubt. All hope is lost!” They are still going to push for withdrawl. This game isn’t over yet. Now, all they will focus on will be the political situation, the Maliki government, and the “unmitigated disaster” theme will live on, strong as ever.
Agree,
This generation of Dems will never acknowledge anything that might suggest that Bush got something right. With success staring them in the face, they will “explain” it away.
Is there any question it’s a scam???? Puhleeze! These dems are incapable of leading because all they do is read polls. A computer can read polls.
Within 2 weeks they completely do an about face with our foreign missions? Sheeze. What a joke these people are. They were fighting to bring the troops home and cause utter destruction in Iraq and to our military. Unbelievable. THEY ARE NOT ACCEPTABLE.
And yet, they can count on their “mushrooms”( base) to never know the truth.
They were for the war before and after they were against it. As Ive says above, This is not leading this is following their perception of what they interpret as public opinion. It is only important to them to be seen as sharing an opinion with the majority.
AJ,
Thanks for the HT and for posting this. If these guys are changing their minds then the rest of their party might “be in trouble” as the one Democrat in the House so famously said the other day.
Some of the Democrats might be trying to show some independence.
Terrye, there IS a big rift in the dem party which we hardly EVER hear about…so what you post makes sense…
IF it weren’t for the characters involved…Turbin, Leaky, et al.
🙂
The Blue Dogs elected to get control can turn around and bite them in the butts.
And it couldn’t happen to a more deserving bunch.
Feeding raw hamburger to pit bulls ain’t quite the same as feeding fish to dolphins.
Dolphins rarely want to take your arm off in the process.
Yes, those blue dogs are getting a bit unruly, in fact one might say they have jumped the fence.
I am continually dismayed at how citizens and politicians become so entrenched in their hate for each other. If someone changes their opinion on a subject [even due to receiving new information or witnessing something first hand] they are labeled as flip flopping. Personally I don’t give a hoot for anyone on capital hill. They all have their hands in the corporate pockets of America with very few voting by their conscience. What we need to do is quit fanning the flames of hate and distrust, get off our politically slanted backsides and learn to work together to bring our troops [the only people I care about] home. To be perfectly candid ‘King George’ and his cronies lied his butt off to get us into Iraq now [whoever is in charge] is left with the clean up. So let’s quit slapping each other on the back and calling ourselves ‘great Americans’ and do what needs to be done.