Look Who Just Caught Up...

Faced with almost daily reports of sectarian carnage in Iraq, congressional Republicans are shifting their message on the war from speaking optimistically of progress to acknowledging the difficulty of the mission and pointing up mistakes in planning and execution…

…Rep. Gil Gutknecht (Minn.), once a strong supporter of the war, returned from Iraq this week declaring that conditions in Baghdad were far worse "than we'd been led to believe" and urging that troop withdrawals begin immediately…

And who led "us" to believe this?  The "liberal" media?  The decadent, elitist, coastal liberal enclaves of Fifth Columnists?  Fat Michael Moore?

Nope.

Republicans like Gil Gutknecht.

The shift is subtle, but Republican lawmakers acknowledge that it is no longer tenable to say the news media are ignoring the good news in Iraq and painting an unfair picture of the war. In the first half of this year, 4,338 Iraqi civilians died violent deaths, according to a new report by the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq. Last month alone, 3,149 civilians were killed -- an average of more than 100 a day…

On Tuesday, Shays joined U.S. Comptroller General David M. Walker in criticizing unreliable cost estimates of a war that is nearly 3 1/2 years old. Shays said the Defense Department has not "had respectful [cost] accounts since the end of World War II," adding that he hopes the agency will withstand an audit in his lifetime…

Jesus, forget the Defense Department!  That ship sailed a looooong time ago.  How about just trying for the ridiculous new graft machine--The Department of Homeland Security?

Do you guys get it yet?  We could defend this country, keep it safe from terrorism, and have the greatest military in the world for a fraction of what we spend every year.  If it weren't for...Republicans.  Who run for election year in and year out, decade after decade, attacking anyone who dares question the mindblowing waste and greed and corruption that has become institutionalized in the Pentagon and the new Pentagon, Jr., the DHLS.

But we can't even have a grown up, reasonable debate in this country about the five or six hundred billion dollars a year that gets spent with little or no Congressional oversite supposedly for our defense because Republicans immediately label anyone who would even like to see the receipts as "soft on terrorism" or "soft on defense".

The evolving Republican message on the war contrasts with the strong rhetoric used by House and Senate Republicans recently in opposing a deadline for withdrawal from Iraq…

"Evolving" being a nice way of saying "forced to admit what everyone who isn't an insanely partisan idiot could plainly see at least two years ago..."

Republicans and some conservative Democrats who have backed the president's call to stay the course are finding it increasingly difficult to square their generally optimistic rhetoric with the grim situation on the ground in Baghdad and other cities.

They're finding it increasingly difficult?  Why?  It was impossible from the day looting exploded in Baghdad.  Why have they insisted on lying to the American people?  Why were they not facing reality and insisting the White House do something about this unfolding disaster?

What took them so fucking long???  What took them 3000 American lives and 300 billion dollars???

"This escalating trend . . . represents the greatest danger to Iraq as it threatens to erode the government's authority," Ashraf Qazi, the U.N. envoy to Baghdad, said in a statement. "The emerging phenomenon of Iraqis killing Iraqis on a daily basis is nothing less than a catastrophe."

Three years down the road.  And the Gee Oh Pee is just starting to admit what the "angry" left was pointing out three years, 3000 American and tens of thousands of Iraqi lives, and 300 billion dollars ago.

And, still, every asshole pundit in the "liberal" media is absolutely astonished by the irrational anger on the left!

Yeah, if you doubted the really half-assed WMD case for war and if you doubted the wisdom of trying to forcefully create a Western friendly democracy in Iraq, and if you were mortified by the obvious lack of any kind of plan at all for creating that democracy, and then, for the next three years, had to endure being labeled as "defeatist", "objectively pro-Saddam", and "objectively pro-terrorist" despite being right and entirely rational and reasonable, you might be a little angry yourself.

Top that off with having the same irrational and totally wrong people, who have been calling you an enemy comforting and aiding traitor, finally, after three stupid, expensive wasted years saying the exact same things you were saying three years ago, and you might actually flip your wig, too.

I'm astonished at how little anger there is in the "liberal" media.  Frankly, in light of how much unjustified and utterly senseless carnage--tens of thousands of dead people, tens of thousands of people--not frozen embryos--but real live walking and talking men, women, girls, boys and, yes, even babies--horrendously pulverized, crippled, burnt and blown apart.

For no good reason at all. 

I find the lack of anger in the "liberal" media and amongst the pundits disgusting.  I mean, it's revolting.  It's grotesque.

What the fuck is wrong with these people?   

But I'm not flipping my wig.  I'm not.

I'm flipping something else.

You fuckers.

Comments

[lloyd chance]

I flip likewise.

But where are the rest of the flippers?

This country is so fucked up, even Elvis couldn't fix it.

[Bruce]

Uh, liberal media? All I see are Faux News and "reporters" that cut and paste press releases from the White House.
Face it, Ricky, those of us that have railed against this unfounded war were wrong to do so at the time cuz we weren't supporting the Prez. The poor Republicans have to deal with the realization that our troops DID die for no reason and the difficulties of rephrasing "cut and run" to something more palatable.

[trueleigh]

All this flipping flopping makes me think the Talking Heads song from Stop Making Sense
(how ironic)

Check out this site if you haven't already done so

http://www.oldamericancentury.org/14pts.htm.

[Kit E]

When our generations' grandkids are sitting here in the newly third-world-like US due to the crushing deficit and the rapidly declining dollar, they are going to ask "why"? Ricky just explained it, and very clearly I might add. Makes me glad I never had kids because the future looks pretty damned nasty.

[Neil Shakespeare]

Well, they aren't really admitting anything, they're just finally finding it "untenable"...meaning they can no longer get any mileage out of their retread lies. They've known all along that they were lying through their teeth, and they would go on doing that endlessly, were it at all tenable with the stupid folks back home.