Very Well Said, J.

Cindy

Instead of running off at th mouth about Iraq, Teddy should be in prison, still.

Good one J.
It will fall on deaf ears anyway. Seems they can't get past their hatred of the right to take time to clean their own closets. I still can't fathom how in the hell so many brainless idiots can watch the likes of Tk spew morality and ethics and take him seriously given his background. (His entire family's background for that matter)
Watch it J..TK may ask you to go for a drive over a long bridge. We may never hear from you again and if the boys show up in white robes, best of luck to ya!

Sure,

If it were only the moon bat left that felt that Rice was unqualified you might have a point but there are staunch conservatives (such as some of the folks who contribute to Front Page Magizine Like Lawrence Auster) who writes:

She is a smug, platitude-spouting mediocrity who I have never heard make a single statement showing any particular knowledge, insight, or intellectual distinction. She carries a major share of the responsibility—perhaps the major share—for the catastrophe in which we find ourselves in Iraq. Check out Richard Lowry’s cover article, “What Went Wrong,” in National Review from last October, where he says that the pre-invasion failure to relate the disparate bits of information about Iraq together and to bring the contradictory aspects of our policy into a coherent whole can be attributed to only two people: Bush and Rice.

I just thought you all would like to know that finding issues with the Bush administration is not just for liberals anymore.

If he's falling for that whole "Iraq is a disaster" spiel, I have to question his committment to being a conservative. Because that's just a load of horsecrap.

RE: "not just for liberals..."

He basically says since "we don't have the ability" and don't "have a strategy" to defeat the "insurgents" then we can't possibly leave Iraq, QED.

But I do believe we have shifted our strategies and certainly have an ability, be it strained and difficult on on economy/budget, to accomplish the mission. I am not going to list links here to support my contentions. That's been done here and at many blogs linked to this site repeatedly.

I see no evidence to support his contentions in his post. Sounds like he listened to Barbara Boxer for too long...

Or he is one more person who doesn't understand the bloodly and costly wake war leaves behind it. Regardless of WMD, terror connections, etc., there were other reasons outlined for going to war that did stand the test of time. We had reasonable grounds, and were internationally generally opposed only by those who were bought off by oil for food money (at least initially).

When you go to war all the bad things that are now happening (including dissidents at home) happen. No one in the Bush administration said this wasn't going to be a war. Or that it would be over quickly (the whole war on Terror that is). We expected over 2000 casualties when taking Iraq. While we have played some public relations with "hostilities are over" etc., we are still short of that number, and closer to victory than a year ago. The "insurgents" are getting desperate, and their tactics show it.

We can only lose the war on the airwaves and print at home, not in the streets of Bagdad and Tikrit. While speech is free and opinons welcomed in our society, the blindness to the tragedies that can result from near treasonous activites [also recently outlined and linked here] is a sad comment on the level of intelligence and maturity of our society.

Reader's Digest condensed version:
No one ever said liberals had the corner on stupidity or denial. Though they certainly can keep the lion's share.

And the low road and rickety bridges...

Just saw Rice sworn in again for the cameras. Who were the family members with her? Anyone know?s

I've seen some comments on other blogs recently asking why Frist and the Senate leadership weren't doing more to respond to the attacks. My response to this was to paraphrase Sun Tsu: "When your enemy is f***ing up, it is wisest to allow them to continue." Condi and the Administration handled the whole affair with grace. Kudos.

Actually I have always been entertained by irony, especially unintentional irony.

As a result I Rather (pun intended) enjoyed the Rice hearings. Further hearings on the President's appointments, particularly those of minority ethnicity, might also be entertaining, if you like watching people unintentionally spoof themselves.

The Senate recently looks like a right wing SNL skit.

Is it true that in West Virginia you get a tax break if you name your child after Robert C Byrd? Everything else is named after him I understand.

Bush, unlike todays "leading" Democrats has class.

Cousin Dave, too right.
When the midterm elections come up, and in 08, Frist, Bush and co can just look to the AV nerds, and say "Roll the tape".
Some, like Batty Boxer, the Kleagle and 2 Ton Ted are in districts that would (and have) elect them regardless of their actions or public behaivor. But the rest of them... open season.

Do these people just not believe in democracy anymore? They would rather be right and see others suffer and die, than let Bush be right. Thank God Kerry lost, not just for our sakes but for the Iraqi people's and for the rest of the world.

The dems are run by a bunch of Chamberlains. It is scary when I think Hillary should start kicking ass and taking over the party.

Here is my take on what they would be saying if they applied their logic to domestic policy:

KKK needs TLC

Hey, question for our California friends here. When is Dianne Fienstein up for re-election? Is it next cycle?

Byrd is dyslexic- he actually wanted to be hung as a black man; Kennedy wanted to be known as a wizard under the sheets. See? It dovetails all together.

Dear Cousin Dave:

Yes, Sen. Feinstein is up for re-election next cycle. The sad part is she is the "moderate" from California. The Reps really need to find a "liberal" Republican to run against her in order to win. Schwartzenegger might do it, but frankly, I'd rather keep Feinstein and have S. run against Boxer in six years.

JMHO...

OK well here is an interesting exercise, make a list of all of the prominent people who supported the war in Iraq before we went in, but who now believe it was a bad Idea in hindsight. Then make a list of all of the prominent people who were against the war in the beginning, but who now have changed their minds after seeing who well everything has gone.

First question, are there any names at all on the second list? :)

Denise: Don't know if anyone is still watching this thread, but thanks for the info. A thought has occurred to me lately: I wonder if Fienstein is worried about the possibiliy that the blowback from Boxer is going to hit her? That could account for her trying to back away from it some recently. They say liberals always eat their own...

Rally to RINO's:
-less Govt.................get out of my bedroom
................................get out of my religion
-less Regulations.......get out of my library

PAY YOUR BILLS.......STOP DEFICIT SPENDING

When will the REAL Republicans stand up?

We have been hijacked.

We are being conned.

RALLY REAL REPUBLICANS:

Let me build my business, get out of my life and my

religion.

Fran

Rick DeMent:

I suspect that, as late as 1988, there would probably be a far longer list of prominent people who had concluded that fighting the Cold War had ultimately become a bad idea, than there were Leftists who had seen the light.

Oddly, I suspect that the latter list would have suddenly become quite long, the day after the Wall came down (or perhaps after Yeltsin jumped atop the tank).

Of course, there are some of the Left still convinced that the Cold War was not only unnecessary, but downright wrong. Does that give them greater credibility, since they've "stuck to their guns"?

The point is that key policies, be it Lincoln deciding not to negotiate with the South, Churchill opposing appeasement, FDR violating the Neutrality Acts or JFK pushing the Soviets during the Cuban Missile Crisis, are rarely going to be supported by referenda; nor should they be judged by their popularity in mid-step.

I think it is still too soon, to declare Iraq a failure, way too soon. I think there have definitely been some mistakes, but find me a war where there weren't any mistakes (even Clintons Kosovo War resulted in a Chinese embassy being bombed by mistake, and he didn't believe in ground troops), because there aren't any.

I do think the administration greatly misunderstood some things, but that more than anything indicates how crappy our human intelligience had gotten during the 90's. I think more than anything, we need to get back to gathering good human intelligience sources.

Mr. Oberserver, et all,

Your right about that; look at how many people thought invading Iraq was a good idea in the first place. And those who are “sticking to the their guns” on Iraq don’t have any credibility at all since almost everything that was being used as a justification for “popular” support has been demonstrated to be wrong. But I’m not talking about the uninformed masses, I’m talking about people who in most other ways support the president and are conservatives, people like William Buckley (or is he just a “leftist” stooge?) or the afor mentioned Mr. Asture. The “popular” sentiment is, as you say, irrelevant. All I’m looking for is one prominent voice, who was against the war, but who now in hindsight, has come to understand that the invasion was an absolutely necessary step in the larger WoT based on the data. I want to see that case made from someone who was not personally invested in the notion that the invasion was a good idea. It’s got nothing to do with “popular” sentiment.

As for your comment about communism, most cold warriors held two contradicting and exclusive notions in their head; first that communism was an inherently flawed economic system that was unsustainable and certain to collapse under its own weight. The second was that the USSR was so powerful that it required a massive expenditure in defense spending to keep their expansionistic tendencies at bay. I would often ask cold warriors which is it and rarely got a satisfying answer as they grouped around pondering those two, pretty exclusive ideas.

But history is not on the side of the Bush administration here. The fact is that we have a recent and clear example of countries where rival ethnic and tribal groups who lived under the boot of a totalitarian regime and who were freed of that regime simply picked up their ethnic and tribal conflicts right where they had left off 50 years earlier and created a hell hole rather then peacefully cobbling together a liberal democracy. Of course I’m talking about Eastern Europe after the fall of communism. Even Yugoslavia, which was as close to being independent of the USSR as any of the “satellites” suffered under ethnic warfare and violence once the totalitarian regime was dissolved. Freedom did a hell of a job in those countries, it gave people the “freedom” to continue their ethnic and tribal violence and that is the problem in Iraq despite the boilerplate and content free platitudes that we seem to be getting out the Bush administration.

Now you can feel free to reject this all out and hand and I’m sure you will, but the point is that to dismiss all of us who have legitimate and reasonable fears about the wisdom of this adventure, and the skepticism that it will ever be worth the blood and treasure we are spending, as ill tempered, and exclusively the product of partisan Bush hatred is not only wrong but it really doesn’t serve the cause of reasonable discussion on the topic. The reason I asked my question (other then to be snarky [grin]) is out of an earnest desire to find a voice that has changed their mind about the wisdom of the Iraqi adventure based on the data, not out of a need to reinforce their original opinions on the policy but as a result of looking at the “facts on the ground”. The reality is that as the data comes in, more people are coming to the conclusion that the benefits will not be worth what we being ask to pay, but no one as far as I know is stepping up and saying, “gosh I was wrong, invading Iraq was a great idea, and effective too!”.

But I figured that if anyone could find such a voice it would be here at Wizbang.

Moral high road!?

Dude, taking the 'high road' would include nominating someone who hadn't lied uder oath to the 9/11 Commission and who didn't have a string of mistakes and bad judgements as NSA.

But since the Bush regime---and apparently you as well---rewards loyalty and distains competence, we're stuck with Dr. Rice.

Am I the only one who thinks Rick DeMent and Don Myers are sounding more and more like Bagdad Bob?

Diane has 4 more years. Whe was re-elected the cycle before last, in a fairly clos election. I will take her any day compared to Babs and Nancy.