Quote of the Day

"Being on the wrong side of Dick Cheney is to be on the right side of history."

Harry Reid, from the Senate floor, talking about Cheney's recent op-ed piece

From Today's Daily Kos

The war in Iraq cost 4,489 American servicemen their lives. More than 32,000 were wounded. More than 100,000 Iraqi citizens died. Remember those numbers.
In recent days, as the situation in Iraq has deteriorated, you haven't been able swing a dead cat without hitting one of the architects or cheerleaders of the war in Iraq, in front of a TV camera, declaring that President Obama had snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. And today, it's former Vice President Dick Cheney's turn, penning an op-ed (with the help of his second draft deferment, Liz) in the Wall Street Journal:

Rarely has a U.S. president been so wrong about so much at the expense of so many.

Let's replay just a few of Cheney's greatest hits:

• "And he [Saddam Hussein] is actively pursuing nuclear weapons at this time." (March, 2002)
• "I think it will go relatively quickly. Weeks rather than months." (March, 2003)
• "My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators." (March, 2003)
• "I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency." (July, 2005)

Seriously, Dick, shut up.

A Simple Question

Here's a simple question....

If the media were really liberal, why would utterly discredited Iraq "experts" like Wolfowitz, Bremer, Kristol, and et al, ever be allowed to be in front of a TV camera again?  Yet they are all over the talk shows expounding their wisdom.  Sheesh!!

Quote of the Day (More on the Revisionists)

As a follow-up to my earlier post today, here is a quote from Kevin Drum's blog today about John McCain's alternate reality on Iraq.  As usual, Drum says it better than I.

John McCain is now the Donald Sterling of foreign affairs: old, angry, retrograde, and only barely in touch with the real world. This is the same guy who declared Iraq safe after taking a carefully staged stroll through a fruit market in Baghdad seven years ago, and he hasn't been willing to engage with reality any more seriously ever since. He's just sure that we had it won, that American troops had victory in their grasp, and now it's all turned to ashes. And since the actual politics of the region seem to be beyond him, all he can do is rage at President Obama for somehow ruining his lovely pretend victory.

It's a little sad in a way, and perhaps sadder still that the media continues to give him the means to keep embarrassing himself on national TV. It's time to move on, guys.

Here Come the Revisionists

Well, once again David Brooks has written a preposterous column basically stating that we had the war in Iraq all but won except (of course) for Obama.  This echoes the know-nothing assertions of the neo-cons like Charles Krauthammer and the Senate wing led by John McCain, who still has hurt feelings that the American people chose Barack Obama instead of him.

Look...the surge wasn't really a surge.  To the extent that it "succeeded" at all, it is because we started paying the Sunni militants to switch to our side for awhile.  Once those payments stopped...well, anyone could have guessed. The frustrating thing is that Krauthammer and McCain know this but choose to create an alternate reality to serve their own political purposes.  (Creating alternate realities seems to be the best Republicans can do nowadays.)  The Iraq War was a disaster.  The "surge" may have made it a bit less of a disaster, but a disaster nonetheless.

Of course, there are always revisionists (mostly from the right).  It is common sport for them to come up with the latest reason that--just like the Iraq disaster--the Vietnam War was also ours to win, if only we had blah blah blah.  Well, those of us who were around then know better.  It was never our war to win.  And we never should have gone into Iraq to begin with, either.  Contrary to popular belief, there was never unanimity that we should have, except in the Bush White House and the press, including (especially?) The New York Times.  And then, once we did invade, the Bush team totally botched it.  David Brooks and the others can retroactively try to blame this on Obama (like they blame everything else on him).  My conservative friends might buy it, but I think it's embarrassing and sad.

Quote of the Day

"Occasionally, Krauthammer is interestingly and usefully wrong. More often, though, he is tiresomely and mischievously wrong."

George Scialabba, in his review in The Nation (June 9/16 edition) of Charles Krauthammer's book, Things That Matter.  I don't think the link above requires a subscription.  The entire review is a bit long but worth the read.