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

2007-03-28

Salazar's Excuse

Sen. Ken Salazar (D-CO) offered the following statement (editorial comments are all mine) on the Senate vote to give the enemy our playbook . . . er, set benchmarks and a timetable.

“Our troops have done the heavy lifting to free Iraq and now the Iraqis must take responsibility for their country. Today’s vote is about ensuring that change takes place and I voted for it.

“I continue to believe our troops deserve a policy that is worthy of their sacrifice and dedication. This policy continues to honor them [by insisting that they accept defeat] and moves Iraq in a new direction [towards anarchy and genocide].

“Today’s vote does five simple things:

--Plainly states that Congress and America support our troops; [actually it only says Congress and America support the troops, while, in actuality, it clearly states that the Congress DOES NOT believe the troops can accomplish their mission]
--Establishes a series of benchmarks which the Iraqi government must meet – including disarming militias, strengthening Iraqi security forces, and sharing oil revenues; [but, really, this is completely meaningless, because we're running away in March 2008 regardless of what the Iraqis are actually accomplishing]
--Requires periodic reports on the Iraqi government’s progress in meeting the benchmarks; [again, whatever . . . this is really just a way of keeping the general staff busy with paperwork so nothing useful can get accomplished]
--Sets the goal of redeploying, by March 31, 2008, U.S. troops not engaged in training Iraqi troops, conducting targeted anti-terrorism operations or protecting US personnel and infrastructure in Iraq; and
--Encourages the President to continue recent efforts to work cooperatively with Iraq’s neighbors to develop a comprehensive diplomatic, political, and economic strategy for a stable Iraq.

“I remain hopeful the President will listen and support it.” [but we don't really care, because he has no other options available to him as of March 31, 2008]

Notice, the good Senator never say anything about the $20 billion in pork going along with this bill.

Again, I think the President should be talking about this in front of every camera available to him, every day for the next three weeks. And then, when this lands on his desk, he should write in big, bold letters "NUTS" on it and return it immediately.

The media will begin spinning this immediately: "now that the President has vetoed the supplemental, the military will start running out of money in days . . . " The only chance is for every Republican to get their talking points right and do so immedately, and then get in front of every available camera and make the case.

Let's see if this team has any fight left in them.

The troops deserve for someone to stand up and make a line in the sand on their behalf.
Posted by: Michael / 3/28/2007 12:02:00 AM

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