"Unlike the President, most of us read newspapers." -- U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, the liberal Congressman from Tennessee
Outside the Bush Bubble, it's damn hard to find anyone who is not horrified by the plan to escalate the War on Iraq.
Like the newspaper says, the plan has bombed. But that would only matter if this were a democracy.
Newsday:
With his new, explosively controversial strategy for the Iraq war, President George W. Bush has engaged in a desperate gamble that's highly unlikely to succeed and could rob him of any of the dwindling confidence that Americans retain in his competence as their commander-in-chief.
At best, sending more troops to Iraq and trying new tactics will only delay the inevitable. Instead, he should have moved toward the gradual disengagement urged by the Iraq Study Group, whose wise recommendations he dismissed with a condescension bordering on contempt. When this new plan fails, as it's virtually certain to do, that is what he must do.
Washington Post:
THE POLITICAL tempest that has greeted President Bush's latest plan for Iraq is largely of the president's making. Mr. Bush could have forged a bipartisan consensus if he had embraced the military strategy laid out by the Iraq Study Group, which was in keeping with proposals by the Iraqi government, U.S. military commanders and leading members of Congress. Instead, he chose to embrace an option -- the dispatch of additional American soldiers to Baghdad and Anbar province -- that has the support of less than 20 percent of Americans and maybe even fewer Iraqis. It's not even clear that the Iraqi government is entirely on board.
The intense criticism that has come from both houses and both parties in Congress is understandable, and justified.
Via Real Clear Politics
Bush Iraq War Politics News Surge Escalation Decider Iraq Study Group Steve Cohen Tennessee
