Tuesday, April 24, 2007

 

Vice President Cheney Rebuts Senator Reid

This is why most right thinking Americans really like Dick Cheney. He makes sense in an understated but rigorously logical way. That's reasonably rare for a politician. Here's the text of his comments about the white flag of surrender the Democrats are wrapping themselves in.

I usually avoid press comment when I’m up here, but I felt so strongly about what Senator Reid said in the last couple of days, that I thought it was appropriate that I come out today and make a statement that I think needs to be made.

I thought his speech yesterday was unfortunate, that his comments were uninformed and misleading. Senator Reid has taken many positions on Iraq. He has threatened that if the President vetoes the current pending supplemental legislation, that he will send up Senator Russ Feingold's bill to de-fund Iraq operations altogether.

Yet only last November, Senator Reid said there would be no cutoff of funds for the military in Iraq. So in less than six months' time, Senator Reid has gone from pledging full funding for the military, then full funding but with conditions, and then a cutoff of funding — three positions in five months on the most important foreign policy question facing the nation and our troops.

Yesterday, Senator Reid said the troop surge was against the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group. That is plainly false. The Iraq Study Group report was explicitly favorable toward a troop surge to secure Baghdad. Senator Reid said there should be a regional conference on Iraq. Apparently, he doesn't know that there is going to be one next week. Senator Reid said he doesn't have real substantive meetings with the President. Yet immediately following last week's meeting at the White House, he said, "It was a good exchange; everyone voiced their considered opinion about the war in Iraq."

What's most troubling about Senator Reid's comments yesterday is his defeatism. Indeed, last week, he said the war is already lost. And the timetable legislation that he is now pursuing would guarantee defeat.

Maybe it's a political calculation. Some Democratic leaders seem to believe that blind opposition to the new strategy in Iraq is good politics. Senator Reid himself has said that the war in Iraq will bring his party more seats in the next election. It is cynical to declare that the war is lost because you believe it gives you political advantage. Leaders should make decisions based on the security interests of our country, not on the interests of their political party.

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Comments:
The Iraq Study Group report was explicitly favorable toward a troop surge to secure Baghdad.

I must have missed that part. I am one of the few that read the whole thing. An Iraqi troop surge, yes. An American troop surge, I don't think so.

So conservatives like Cheney because he likes to twist facts and hang labels? I guess that is understandable.

I wonder if Cheney knows the difference between a magazine and a clip.
 
I think he knows it better than you. I'm glad you read the whole Iraq Study Group report, but it seems now like wasted effort given the Patreus change of tactics. Like reading the Maginot Line instruction manuel in June, 1940. Interesting, but no longer useful.
 
So if he knows better than I, then he knows twice as well as you? Well, I guess that isn't fair since now you are well schooled.

If the ISG report is interesting but no longer useful, then I wonder why Cheney is (mis)using it to justify the surge. Odd.
 
"The insurgency is its last throes"
 
I'm sure what you said was clever, but I didn't follow it, Mike. Probably my fault. He responded to what Reid said about the ISG and a change in tactics re Baghdad. This was not a justify the surge speech.
Glad to see you're coming around, buk, but I'm only willing to say things are no longer getting worse in Baghdad and al Anbar. We'll see what's happening by Labor Day.
 
Oh, good, so Cheney is not for the surge.

Glad we got that cleared up.
 
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