Maybe Michael Steele is tired of being RNC chairman because I’m pretty sure that he just got himself fired. Despite approving of the president’s surge of troops into Afghanistan last December, he now says this:
“Keep in mind again, federal candidates, this was a war of Obama’s choosing. This is not something the United States had actively prosecuted or wanted to engage in.”…
“It was the president who was trying to be cute by half by flipping a script demonizing Iraq, while saying the battle really should be in Afghanistan. Well, if he’s such a student of history, has he not understood that you know that’s the one thing you don’t do, is engage in a land war in Afghanistan? All right, because everyone who has tried, over a thousand years of history, has failed. And there are reasons for that. There are other ways to engage in Afghanistan.”
Predictably, calls for his head began immediately.
Strangely, I kind of agree with Michael Steele, even though I know he’s being a hypocritical partisan snipe. But, then, no one would want me as head of the RNC.
It’s beautiful to watch because it’s like Steele doesn’t have the internal wingnut divination-organ which allows him to select the correct hypocritical sophistry to attack the enemy with. He’s going off script and using what appears to be independent thought. This is similar to his open concession that the modern republican party is built on the southern strategy…
That Steele has perfectly articulated the political situation w.r.t. Afghanistan while at the same time being a total political doofus is one of the weirder recent events.
I agree 100% here:
“But it was the president who was trying to be cute by half by flipping a script demonizing Iraq, while saying the battle really should be in Afghanistan. Well, if he’s such a student of history, has he not understood that you know that’s the one thing you don’t do, is engage in a land war in Afghanistan? All right, because everyone who has tried, over a thousand years of history, has failed. And there are reasons for that. There are other ways to engage in Afghanistan.”
Of course he was probably trying to advocate escalation in a confused round about way, but he doesn’t understand the intricacies of republican double-think.
Don’t know what the complaint is. Steele tripped over the truth and did a face-plant at the GOP table. But what he said before he recanted, seems perfectly accurate to me!
Me too, but it IS kind of annoying that he neglected to mention who started the whole thing. After all, Obama just picked up the ball and ran with it. Someone else put it into play in the first place.
Setting aside the silliness of suggesting Afghanistan was a war of Obama’s choice when it began before most of us had even heard of Obama, I find myself more in agreement with Michael Steele than with the DNC.
We are through the looking glass.
…adding: And I’m convinced Steele doesn’t actually believe what he said. I swear he’s just trolling the GOP at this point.
True, but the fact is that Obama has given the war a big bear-hug. So in a way Steele is quite precise. Obama has actively and definitively chosen this war.
It’s not all THAT serious. Obama has taken the war in Afghanistan to a whole new level, making it his war. He has also widened it to include Pakistan, taken military action in Yemen, AND escalated the bellicose rhetoric, and heaven knows what kinds of covert actions against Iran for an alleged nuclear weapons program no one can produce any evidence to substantiate.
It sure looks as if Obama has embraced being a “war president” (barf!) with considerable enthusiasm.
I meant to say it’s not all that silly – never multitask on Friday afternoon at the end of an uber-hectic week!
Isn’t W‘s name noticeably absent from the above remarks? IOKIYAR apparently has near universal application.
Yeah, that’s a good question. Is Steele just trying to write Dubya out of the war? Personally, I think Steele is half-consciously trying to protest that Obama could have done it right whereas LBJ did it wrong. LBJ knew that he didn’t have to escalate Vietnam. He could have just let the war wind down. Obama doesn’t have to break with the July 2011 pullout date. He can claim his hands are tied and that agreements have been made and he can’t break them.