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The Iraqi Albatross around the Donkey’s Neck
As Barack Obama hosted a Maker’s Faire and “jobs” conferences in any desperate attempt to keep his fingerprints off events of the world, Sunni militants are slaughtering their way across Iraq. This has led to a media resurgence of debating the Iraq war prior to Barack Obama, who, we’re apparently being told, became President last week.
John Kerry, not anxious to revisit a topic that torpedoed his 2004 campaign, attempted to ignore his duties at State by talking about oceans with Hollywood actors like Bill Nye and Arnie Grape. Joe Biden is watching soccer and Hillary Clinton is talking to giant squirrels.
Democrats want no part of the catastrophe in Iraq, which is too bad because they happen to be the ones in charge.
As progressive and Obama cheerleaders in the media prepare for seppuku over another foreign policy implosion, the old voices on the right emerged to assess the situation. John McCain, one of their favorite targets, inevitably weighed in. Dick Cheney wrote an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal which trolled the entire progressive media complex into hyperventilating into a paper bag. They all responded on social media and op-eds as they have done in the past:
“If you were one of the architects of this mess you don’t get to tell the rest of us how to fix it! Meah!“
Fair enough.
Progressive media is certainly welcome to go this path but they do so at their own peril. The right will be perfectly content to let the press automatically discredit anyone tied to the old Iraq policy who attempts to speak about the current Iraq policy.
This includes Hillary Clinton, who voted for it. This includes Joe Biden, who voted for it. This includes John Kerry, who voted for it but then voted against it. All willingly gave President Bush authorization for military action in Iraq.
And all three are possible Presidential candidates in 2016.
None of the suspected 2016 GOP contenders will be tied legislatively to the past mess or the current mess in Iraq. Not Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Chris Christie, Scott Walker, Rick Perry or Bobby Jindal. Not even Jeb Bush, which has got to sting the left just a little.
There isn’t a single aspect of U.S. Middle East policy pre-Obama that will be better off post-Obama. He ran on healing the world and he now stands idly by as it eats itself. Obama ignores ISIS’s Guinness record-level body count to talk about football logos and robotic giraffes. Obama ran on fixing Iraq, now he’s simply running away from it. Gutsy call.
Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice and George W. Bush all have retired from policy making. Out of that group, only Rice can possibly be considered as a candidate or running mate in 2016. It makes the dwindling Obama loyalist media feel better about themselves to snark at former administration officials who, right or wrong, made decisions 12 years ago. But it doesn’t solve the fix in which Obama has left his party for 2014 and 2016.
The Democrats, always quick to point out that they are the party of youth and the future, will be stuck in the past if their candidates are just as responsible for the quagmire in Iraq as members of the Bush Administration. “Bush’s fault” isn’t going to fly with voters in 2016 after hearing “Bush’s fault” for eight years — especially when Clinton’s opponent will have had no hand in shaping Iraq policy. Voters will want change and they aren’t going to find it in Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and John Kerry.
You can bet Elizabeth Warren is paying close attention.
Published in General
That the thought is not original to me will not prevent me from repeating it. The Left is getting what they wanted in Iraq all along. They wanted the United States humiliated and Iraq to become a screaming mess.
Fairness isn’t a liberal virtue as regards conservatives or Republicans. As usual, you can expect them to apply different standards to opposition candidates than they apply to their own.
Consequently, it would be best if the old Republican guard, like Cheney, would keep silent. Anything they say will be used to smear Republicans in general.
The Iraq catastrophe doesn’t need to be explained to hurt the politicians in power.
To the Obamaphile Left, the Iraq War wasn’t bad policy, a military blunder, or imperial overreach. The Iraq War is their version of Original Sin.
It is pure evil that cannot be saved, redeemed or even dealt with. All we can do is curse its name, treating it like the Hajj ritual where pilgrims throw stones at the devil. That’s one reason I think none of the war-supporting Democrats mentioned in this piece can win over the Democratic base. These progressives might not believe in God, but they have a whole of pantheon of ideological demons which must be destroyed.
It’s all under control. They’re sending Bowe Bergdahl to Iraq.
Man, you ruined it right there at the end. Ugh!
Is it the donkey’s neck or the horse’s ass?
So, who must be crucified to atone for these original sins?
Hot Air has an interesting piece on this very topic, with the headline: “Wait, didn’t Obama take credit for full Iraq withdrawal in 2011?”
In 2017, under a new GOP president, I’ll bet that Nancy Pelosi will accuse the Republicans of triggering a rise in health care prices. This’ll be about the time that Obama’s “postponed” premium hikes and waivers will start hitting home, and they’ll blur that fact (with media help) to blame everything on the GOP.
Once again, we’d like to thank the investigative and explanatory journalism of our media for keeping the Democrats immune from every stupid policy decision they’ve ever made.
Yes, my master …
Why, Bush, of course!
You and me, pal.