This week in an alternate reality:
I must say that I sympathize with the bind that Democratic leaders are in somewhat. Defeatism is forced upon them by their base. That’s why they have no choice but but to insist that Iraq is going disastrously badly, that it was all a mistake, and that we should get out now. Where they have no choice but to acknowledge that progress has been made, they must insist at all costs that President Bush’s policies have had nothing to do with it. It is a matter of political reality. Their base will throw them back into the minority if they say anything else. Chuck Schumer’s recent talking point — that progress has come in spite of the surge, not because of it — is something he has little choice but to say, no matter how little he believes it.
You can’t acknowledge that things are going better in Iraq without implicitly acknowledging that the president was right after all.
I’d have to find any evidence of progress to be able to have an opinion about what it means. As Mike Gravel said, “These people frighten me.”
