The Occasional Observer

As I mentioned about a year ago, one negative of the two-party system (as warned by John Adams) is the tendency to become beholden to the party and "victory", rather than focusing on truly serving the people. A hideous example of this occurred about a week ago, when Democractic House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn stated that if Gen. Petraeus' September update indicated that things were turning around in Iraq, that would be "a real big problem for us."

Wow.

I realize this war is political issue #1, but has D.C. (the city, not the blogger!!) really sunk so low that we're at a point where politicians would choose their own re-election victory over what is best for America, Americans, and American troops? If the best policy really is to withdraw troops and force Iraqis to step up, then so be it. But to be so blindly adherent to one option with complete unwillingness to consider that the best option might change over time as the situation on the ground changes--just because you don't want your party to be viewed as making the wrong call--is flat unacceptable when the stakes are this high. In this day and age of what politics has apparently become I have to give tremendous respect to McCain, who I truly believe when he says he'd rather lose an election than lose a war.