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My personal musings about anything that gets on my radar screen--heavily dominated by politics.

2007-02-22

Out Of Their Depth

One has to wonder why those on the Left never seem to recognize when they are just plain out of their depth on issues. [courtesy CO Senate News]

Senate Majority Leader Ken Gordon, D-Denver, lashed out today at U.S. plans to boost troop reinforcements in Iraq and drew a stern rebuke from Senate Republicans . . .

Gordon, speaking at a Capitol news conference hosted by the liberal, anti-war group, Colorado Progressive Coalition, also expressed dismay that “trillions of dollars" are being spent on the Iraq war effort. The entire U.S. fiscal year 2008 budget is approximately $2.9 trillion. . .

Gordon, who was joined at the news conference by freshman Democrat Rep. John Kefalas of Fort Collins, blamed war spending for domestic woes, including Colorado’s inability to fund services like higher education and roads. . .


“It’s very difficult to bring democracy to a country while you are killing, even inadvertently, many of the civilians that live there,” Gordon said. “Although we’ve had 3,000 Americans die, we have also participated in creating a situation where over 100,000 Iraqis have died.”

Perhaps it's because a fawning press never bothers to ask the obvious questions. Like . . .

1. "Mr. Senator, are you suggesting that Iraqi civilians would NOT be dying now if the U.S. had not invaded Iraq?"

2. "Mr. Senator, can you show us where, in the federal budgets for the last five fiscal years, federal spending on roads has been re-categorized for the supplemental military expenditures?"

3. "Mr. Senator, in opposing the President's plan to augment troop levels currently in place in Baghdad and Anbar, is it your belief, contrary to the understanding of every military mind who has spoken on the problem, that civilian casualties in Iraq would be reduced if America maintains the current situation, or even pulls out?"

Of course, the answers to those questions are, in order: we know that Saddam murdered AT LEAST 10,000 Iraqi civilians every year, on average, during his reign; um . . . .no; and every expert who has ventured a guess has used phrases like "genocide" and "3,700 dead in a night" to describe a post-U.S. Iraq.

But Senator Gordon gets to stumble blithely forward in his cocoon of ignorance, imagining himself a great statesman, because NOBODY COVERING THIS EVENT BOTHERED TO QUESTION HIM.

I wonder if a Republican would get the same treatment.

[cross-posted at Political Avalanche]

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