Monday, October 23, 2006
The Mouth of the South
Sen. Lindsey Graham, a.k.a., John McCain's Fluffer, offered this bit of constructive criticism of how our CIC and other military commanders have prosecuted the Iraq war:
While the point may or may not be valid (as per this earlier post), the weasel from SC needs to be held accountable for his political betrayal. After all, his criticism is not being offered in good faith. He offers no suggestions on how to improve the situation. He's just dumping on those who are trying to deal with the tactical situation on the ground in Iraq.
And why is the Bush-slap being offered now, with only two weeks to go until a general election that, even at this late hour, could place the House and Senate in the control of either party?
My guess: as McCain's willing surrogate, he's helping the Straight Talk Express play both ends against the middle. McCain has triangulated that being "pro-war" and "anti-Bush" is his best chance in '08. And right now, with the election cycle in full swing, is when he can get the most press coverage for himself and his cronies. The majority status of the G.O.P. be damned.
"We're on the verge of chaos, and the current plan is not working," Sen. Lindsey Graham (news, bio, voting record), R-S.C., said in an Associated Press interview. U.S. and Iraqi officials should be held accountable for the lack of progress, said Graham, a Republican who is a frequent critic of the administration's policies.
Asked who in particular should be held accountable — Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, perhaps, or the generals leading the war — Graham said: "All of them. It's their job to come up with a game plan" to end the violence.
While the point may or may not be valid (as per this earlier post), the weasel from SC needs to be held accountable for his political betrayal. After all, his criticism is not being offered in good faith. He offers no suggestions on how to improve the situation. He's just dumping on those who are trying to deal with the tactical situation on the ground in Iraq.
And why is the Bush-slap being offered now, with only two weeks to go until a general election that, even at this late hour, could place the House and Senate in the control of either party?
My guess: as McCain's willing surrogate, he's helping the Straight Talk Express play both ends against the middle. McCain has triangulated that being "pro-war" and "anti-Bush" is his best chance in '08. And right now, with the election cycle in full swing, is when he can get the most press coverage for himself and his cronies. The majority status of the G.O.P. be damned.
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3 comments:
As I mentioned in the referenced post, my criticism is in the backwards standards for how our soldiers can fight. I don't think stating an opinion counter to your party's is necessarily betrayal. As we discussed earlier, a large part of the problem in our government today is politicians doing what is best for the party rather than what is best for the country. That being said, there is a time and place for constructive criticism (which his comments are not), and this is not the time. There is too much at risk for the country should the Dems take control of one or both houses.
To be fair, I don't think Lindsey said anything new of substance in there that he hasn't been saying for months.
Two interesting questions are:
1. Why has he adopted this position?
2. Why reiterate it so strongly right before midterm elections?
W.r.t. #1, either he genuinely believes that at least part of the present difficulty in Iraq is due to administration policy decisions, and when he (or other Senators) have approached the administration they have likely been shot down, or he is just working the political odds to his own benefit. Either way he's unwilling to simply tow the party line. Bottom line, as we've discussed elsewhere in this blog, is that while Rumsfeld and co. did a superb job with the invasion portion of the Iraq war, the subsequent nation-building portion has not gone smoothly. Whether any other plan existed that would have done a better job, especially in this day of 24-hour always-on news cycles, is unknown. Perhaps we simply need to avoid nation-building at all costs b/c no good plan exists. And additionally, as we've also discussed previously, this news cycle puts our soldiers in a tough position b/c they are being asked to do a job with essentially one hand tied behind their backs.
W.r.t. #2, I'm not sure why he would pick this time to make his point again. Perhaps he sees some advantage to losing the Senate? Can't see what that would be, unless he plans to run for prez in '08 and thinks republicans have a better chance if dems regain control from '06-'08, so that the country doesn't continue to focus their bitterness on republicans. Or maybe he's so bitter that Republicans might lose senate and house and he blames administration for this, so he continues to lash out. Clearly neither one of these is constructive. The only constructive position would be if he truly thought the administration's policies were the problem, AND he knew of someone with a legitimate plan that would be better. Barring presentation of an alternative plan, though, his comments are as unconstructive as those of democrats.
Here are two policy ideas I heard recently and I'm not sure what the downside would be.
1. Don't go to the extreme of splitting Iraq into 3 separate countries (Kurds, Shiites, Sunnis), but do make it a weakly-connected group of republics. Establish strong local control in each of three provinces with some autonomy, and only weak federal government. This is what Republicans have historically stood for (states' rights, concentrate power as close to local level as possible), so they should favor this. I don't know why Bush is against it, haven't looked at it closely enough.
2. Just like in Alaska, give each citizen of Iraq a portion of profits from oil sales. This "stake in the game" will give them a heavy incentive to seek out and punish those who attempt to destroy the oil infrastructure and set the country back. I saw this suggestion in a Forbes column.