TOBY PETZOLD

Peter Wehner responds to Andrew Sullivan’s response to him. It’s all very meta, of course, but this much is devastating:

The main points of my post on Obama and Iraq are ones Andrew never really addresses; namely, that (a) Senator Obama was profoundly wrong in his opposition to the surge and his predictions of what would come to pass; (b) if Obama’s plan had been implemented, America would have almost unquestionably suffered a terrible defeat in Iraq by now (not to mention mass death and probably genocide in Iraq); and (c) Obama has been intellectually dishonest in his refusal to acknowledge, until only recently (and grudgingly), progress in Iraq. In that sense, Obama has been in a state of denial and the embodiment of the kind of rigid ideologue of which he claims to be the antithesis. Those points are ones I think Andrew, at his best and at his most intellectually honest, would concede.

Cults rob people of their integrity —and then their dignity.

Peter Wehner unloads on the Eleven Percenters’ Democratic half with respect to the success of the surge in the War for Iraq. The Democrats, he concludes:

have compounded their initial bad judgment about the surge with reckless obstinacy. As ethno-sectarian violence in Iraq rapidly declined, as al Qaeda absorbed tremendous military blows, and as political accommodation and legislative achievements have emerged, Democrats, rather than welcoming the progress, grew agitated. They embraced with religious zeal the belief that the Iraq war was lost; they therefore viewed the success of the surge as a terribly inconvenient development, one they sought to deny to the point that they looked silly and out of touch. Worse, Democrats acted as if they had a vested interest in an American defeat.

Rarely has a political party been so uniformly wrong, in such an obvious way, on such an important matter. And when Americans cast their vote on November 4, they should carefully consider how Barack Obama and the entire Democratic party fought ferociously and relentlessly to undermine a policy that has worked extraordinarily well and may yet prove to be among the most successful military plans in modern times.

Not only are the Democrats defeatists, but they have nominated an unqualified liar for the ostensible reason that he —and not Hillary— will act on his promise to them to end the war. But now that the war has already been won in large measure because of a commitment to victory and to political stability that Obama repeatedly denied our military could ever accomplish, what is he to say? Who knows? No one cares because it isn’t what he has to say that’s so damned mesmerizing, but how he says it. It’s all so Kennedyesque and wonderful and epochal in its significance.

Enjoy telling our troops in Iraq that they have accomplished nothing. Make a mockery of the very idea of leadership by turning this little junket of yours into a Big Media suckfest. Go and give us a speech on peace before a Prussian war memorial, Barry. Who says you have no sense of humor?

Barry, when the only thing that would validate your position on the War for Iraq, insofar as you could be said to have one, is the sudden escalation of violence there, particularly aginst our troops, it would be best for you to come to terms with reality and tell the hippies in your party to shut up and sit down. The war is won —if we choose to leave there on terms that serve our wider strategic interests in the region. If we withdraw in such a way that reawakens the hostile elements in Iraq just because you want to keep to some arbitrary date (a “date certain,” indeed), then you will have squandered what has been won at great cost for mere political purposes. Nobody oughta give a damn what your anti-military/anti-war party says about what Iraq really is and what we’re accomplishing there because all Iraq has ever been to you is a fundraising cause. Lots of Democrats supported the war in the beginning because Iraq had been festering for years. Even Bill Clinton knew Iraq was a danger —and officially endorsed regime change in Iraq as the policy of this country. But you’re to the left of them all. You’re supposedly better than them all because of your “superior” judgement —but that’s garbage and you know it. Right now, because of your lack of judgement and your lack of integrity, you are allowing yourself to be bullied by the anti-war Left for fear of offending them when you know that we have succeeded in Iraq. Your judgement is apparently inferior to those you have long insulted as incompetent. What are you going to be saying to the troops? Are you going to look them in the eye and tell them that they haven’t accomplished anything and that their sacrifices have been for naught? Do you have any optimism to share with a country thats democratic and free market future owes itself to our efforts there? I doubt it. But you’ll be sure to dispense platitudes like the soft soap of your ideology. The Eurofreaks will eat it up and the nauseating propagandists travelling with you will coo and moan at your every utterance, but maybe there’s just enough of us still here in America who won’t buy your lies and are ready to call you on them every time.

So, let’s have it, tough guy. Let’s see you shock and awe the Democratic Party with the news they haven’t bothered to hear —which is that we have succeeded in Iraq and have made a better world possible because of it. But let them down easy, Barry. You’re finally going to have to say something that matters. Don’t flub your lines.

Regarding Barry Hussein Obama’s latest lie —this time about Iraq— ABC News’ Rick Klein writes:

There’s been lots of speculation this week about whether Sen. Barack Obama has an Iraq problem. He does now.

His comments Thursday, saying that he will “continue to refine” his plan to withdraw combat troops from Iraq inside of 16 months, seems likely to leave the campaign on the defensive on this issue for days or weeks.

And it increases the likelihood that his trip to Iraq later this month will not turn out like Obama wants it to.

Well, Barry doesn’t even want to go to Iraq, but McCain has apparently shamed him into it. This horseshit about “refining” his position on the withdrawal of our troops makes Obama just another lying hack politician. Klein concludes:

Obama’s migration to the political center has been well-documented, and is already a frame McCain is building around his candidacy. But Iraq — this is qualitatively different, an issue that lives on a higher plane, since opposing the war was the rationale for his candidacy in the first place.

Being opposed to the war may have been a major selling point, but let’s not lie about Obama’s candidacy. He is where he is because of his race. Period. The Leftists have taken over the Democratic Party and have installed an absolute fucking clown on their Presidential ticket for the sake of identity politics.

Obama’s nomination is the final proof of the Democratic Party’s contempt for their own country.

David Ignatius, who is a respectable man and reporter, has some interesting observations on how America will end its time in Iraq:

The presidential campaign debate about Iraq, so far, has been a sterile one — implying that the choice is between an Obama solution of pulling out the troops and a McCain solution of staying the course and winning military victory. Neither alternative is realistic.

The right way out is something in between — ambiguous, messy, occasionally in the shadows — a course that recognizes Iraqi sovereignty but also works with care and cunning to protect America’s interests.

The purpose of our being in Iraq is to be in Iraq. There are many great rewards for our military’s sacrifices there in terms of diplomacy, intelligence, and commerce. Oh, and liberty and representative government for millions. This isn’t some colonial scheme. This is how we extend and sustain the Pax Americana. As long as the West has its dick in the Mohammedans’ mashed potatoes, everything will be fine.

What happened to all of the Democrats’ tough talk on making the President cry uncle on the War for Iraq? I don’t know, but opposing the war there must not be as important as it used to be:

WASHINGTON, June 16 (Reuters) - Democrats in the U.S. Congress, who came to power last year on a call to end the combat in Iraq, will soon give President George W. Bush the last war-funding bill of his presidency without any of the conditions they sought for withdrawing U.S. troops, congressional aides said on Monday.

Lawmakers are arranging to send Bush $165 billion in new money for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, enough to last for about a year and well beyond when Bush leaves office on Jan. 20.

What’s changed their minds? Is it the same thing Obama doesn’t want to have to acknowledge, but must, anyway?

Don’t forget that the War for Iraq has made us safer. International jihad was drawn to Iraq because we made that country the primary venue for taking on the Great Satan. After five years of fighting our best and bravest, what is the opinion of martyrdom now? As they continue to reject al-Qaeda and even Osama himself, the Muslim world is beginning to see that Uncle Sam’s judgements are altogether righteous.

ABC’s Jake Tapper recently asked Barry Obama (emphases mine):

The Bush administration says, no matter what people think about other programs, other policies they’ve initiated, there has not been a terrorist attack within the U.S. since 9/11. And they say the reason that is, is because of the domestic programs, many of which you opposed, the NSA surveillance program, Guantanamo Bay, and other programs.

How do you know that they’re wrong? It’s not possible that they’re right?

Notice that Obama never answers the question:

Well, keep in mind I haven’t opposed, for example, the national security surveillance program, the NSA program. What I’ve said that we can do it within the constraints of our civil liberties and our Constitution.

TAPPER: They disagree, though.

OBAMA: Well, but the fact that they disagree does not mean that they’re right on this. What it means is, is that they have been willing to skirt basic protections that are in our Constitution, that our founders put in place.

And it is my firm belief that we can track terrorists, we can crack down on threats against the United States, but we can do so within the constraints of our Constitution. And there has been no evidence on their part that we can’t.

And, you know, let’s take the example of Guantanamo. What we know is that, in previous terrorist attacks — for example, the first attack against the World Trade Center, we were able to arrest those responsible, put them on trial. They are currently in U.S. prisons, incapacitated. 

And the fact that the administration has not tried to do that has created a situation where not only have we never actually put many of these folks on trial, but we have destroyed our credibility when it comes to rule of law all around the world, and given a huge boost to terrorist recruitment in countries that say, “Look, this is how the United States treats Muslims.”

So that, I think, is an example of something that was unnecessary. We could have done the exact same thing, but done it in a way that was consistent with our laws.  

Remember how the elites howled when Bush the Younger referred to terrorists in the days after the atrocities of 11 September 2001 as “these folks”? Remember how that was inappropriate and cowboyish? Well, now such constructions are acceptable because someone else is making them.

And when you look at how Obama evades Tapper’s question, he does so by dashing into the thicket of the Bill Clinton-John Kerry approach to America’s defense in the post-Cold War world: these terrorists can be handled through the judicial system. And why is that? Because anti-war liberals apparently believe that American Constitutional jurisprudence extends itself throughout the world and even into our combat theaters. Mo may be Mirandized —even though Mo would slash a hippie’s throat as soon as he would mine.

So where do liberals come by this imperialist belief in the United States Constitution? I have no idea. That they do, though, is an indication of their essential childishness. These are not the spiritual descendants of Wilson or FDR or Truman making the world safe for democracy or making us an arsenal of such a world; these are incoherent people, now isolationists and then, some other day, globalists. These miserable hippie bastards deem America’s military sacrifices only worthwhile if there’s no discernible strategic interest at stake. They do not support the troops because they cannot understand the value in winning the War for Iraq. They also do not support the troops because they reflexively charge anyone who supports the war, but has never served, as a chickenhawk who deserves the punishment of military service himself. You could ask Obama this very hour whether this war should have been waged and he would say no because he has never been anything more than a gainsayer on that point. He believes that that is his answer and trump card in one. That he has supposedly opposed the war from the start is asserted to be the final proof of his superior judgement and, yet, neither part of that equation is true. When does he have to start making sense? Shouldn’t it have happened by now —or is the intoxication of charisma too much for such concerns?

I thought it was a joke when I first read about it at Jim Hoft’s blog, but the Speaker of the House recently told a newspaper in her hometown:

Well, the purpose of the surge was to provide a secure space, a time for the political change to occur to accomplish the reconciliation. That didn’t happen. Whatever the military success, and progress that may have been made, the surge didn’t accomplish its goal.

And some of the success of the surge is that the goodwill of the Iranians-they decided in Basra when the fighting would end, they negotiated that cessation of hostilities-the Iranians.

Why is our Speaker of the House giving props to the Iranian government? WTF? How do these Leftist idiots live with themselves? She and Obama must be planning a surrender tour.

Barack Obama was wrong to put it on the street that John McCain’s proposal that they go together to Iraq is a political “stunt.” Bad move, dude. As Paul Mirengoff points out:

The question of visiting Iraq won’t go away if Obama is elected, either; in fact it will become more acute. If Obama hopes to retain respect from our armed forces and their leaders, he will have to visit Iraq before he abandons the country. But, depending on the situation in Iraq and what Obama learns on a visit, he could lose this respect if he abandons the country following a visit.

It is typical liberal cant that everybody supports the troops even if they don’t all support the mission. This is Obama’s line, too, usually accompanied by assertions of his own wisdom in opposing the War for Iraq ab initio. But when he has to face our troops along with McCain, how far do you think his anti-war rhetoric will fly? Those men and women have given a lot to see their efforts finally succeed —and they are, no matter how much the hippies wish we would be defeated. We have a strategic security interest in helping Iraq become a fully-functioning country and ally. This guy wants to withdraw and walk away from the future of a stable Middle East?

Obama will never become President.

Hillary thinks she’s above showing a little leg, but she’s wrong. Get feminized, woman, or forget about the Oval Office.

It’ll be funny if the Democrats actually make an essentially unknown black man their nominee just because he’s opposed to a war that he and they don’t have sense enough to recognize as historically positive for Arab/Muslim democracy and for American business. Wouldn’t that be something like conceding the bankruptcy of their position on this war and going ahead with a choice that says, “Look at us! We stood by our convictions and made a minority our nominee just so we could look ourselves in the eye again.”?

The System won’t let Hillary lose this nomination. Bill won’t allow it.