The Washington Post is catching up to a story we’ve been telling on Wizbang for weeks. That the surge is working and the Democrats need a new load of B.S. message on Iraq.
Democrats Refocus Message on Iraq After Military Gains
Criticism Shifts to Factional UnrestDemocratic leaders in Congress had planned to use August recess to raise the heat on Republicans to break with President Bush on the Iraq war. Instead, Democrats have been forced to recalibrate their own message in the face of recent positive signs on the security front, increasingly focusing their criticisms on what those military gains have not achieved: reconciliation among Iraq’s diverse political factions. …
The leading Democratic candidates for the White House have fallen into line with the campaign to praise military progress while excoriating Iraqi leaders for their unwillingness to reach political accommodations that could end the sectarian warfare.
“We’ve begun to change tactics in Iraq, and in some areas, particularly in Anbar province, it’s working,” Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) said in a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars on Monday.
“My assessment is that if we put an additional 30,000 of our troops into Baghdad, that’s going to quell some of the violence in the short term,” Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) echoed in a conference call with reporters Tuesday. “I don’t think there’s any doubt that as long as U.S. troops are present that they are going to be doing outstanding work.”
Advisers to both said theirs were political as well as substantive statements, part of a broader Democratic effort to frame Petraeus’s report before it is released next month by preemptively acknowledging some military success in the region. Aides to several Senate Democrats said they expect that to be a recurring theme in the coming weeks, as lawmakers return to hear Petraeus’s testimony and to possibly take up a defense authorization bill and related amendments on the war.
For Democratic congressional leaders, the dog days of August are looking anything but quiet. Having failed twice to crack GOP opposition and force a major change in war policy, Democrats risk further alienating their restive supporters if the September showdown again ends in stalemate. House Democratic leaders held an early morning conference call yesterday with House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton (D-Mo.), honing a new message…
The WaPo inadvertently nails it; even if they don’t explain it. The Democrats have already admitted that good news in Iraq is bad news for Democrats. So now they have to change the message and whine about the supposed lack of political progress.
It’s not surprising they continue to use Iraq as a political football. They have a long history of it.
In the last days of January, General Petraeus was confirmed by the Senate 81-0. Not a single Democrat voted against him. Less than 60 days later, in late March, it was obvious the surge was working even before it was at full strength.
Yet at the beginning of April, Harry Ried said he wanted to cut off funding for our troops. Of course he didn’t know about the good news in Iraq because, only a single Democrat would meet with Petraeus to get a report on how things where on the ground in Iraq.
By the end of April the good news was too much for them to take so NOT A SINGLE DEMOCRAT was attending briefings on Iraq. They didn’t need to because they had their spin… we where losing in Iraq. Good news hurt that message.
On April 25th, Harry Reid launched his attack on General Petraeus calling him liar for saying the surge had made progress even though it had been obvious for over a month. — The new “message” was set. Petraeus was incompetent and a liar for saying the surge was working. The war was lost and everyone knew it. It was time to cut and run.
In June the message was that General Peter Pace was also incompetent. The idiocy peaked in early July when the the House Democrats (and 4 Republicans) voted for a surrender.
Along the route, the Democrats where forced to say some bizarre things. Obambi has said more stupid things on national security than I can link and Hillary has tied herself in knots with her statements. She has now acknowledged that if the troops leave Iraq there will be genocide. She has also acknowledged that she knows the surge is working and we’re winning but she has also promised the moonbat left she would pull the troops out anyway and vowed to not send them back to stop the genocide.
So she knows we’re winning in Iraq, she knows if we leave there we be genocide and she thinks we should pull out anyway. When you add all her statements up, she’s basically come out “Pro-genocide.”
Slowly buy surely the evidence of the surge has overwhelmed the Democrats. We are winning in Iraq and their bad dream was coming true. So now we have a new load of B.S. message from the Democrats, carefully crafted to not sound like they aren’t cheering for defeat any more but instead they whine about the supposed lack of political progress in Iraq.
There’s a big problem with this message. It won’t work. When the Bush economy was booming before the last election, the Democrats found the one outlying statistic that resonated with voters, job growth. Forget it was a bogus indication of the economy and it is always a lagging indicator, the Dems used it and it was effective. This won’t be.
The average voter wants us to win in Iraq and they want freedom for the Iraqi people. What they don’t want is 3 soldiers dead every night on the evening news. If we secure the military situation in Iraq, the American people will be more than patient while the Iraqis figure out this thing called Democracy. After all we’ve had troops in Germany for over half a century, when was the last time you heard calls for them to come home?
This summer should stick with you for a long time. The Democrats showed their true selves. They will gladly cheer against our troop and for our enemies on if it means they can grab political power. And that’s simply pathetic.
