Iraqi Leaders For Obama

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Those dastardly, unappreciative Iraqi leaders have Bush-whacked our local sheriff-and-chief with his own game of electoral politics in the "War on Terror." How could they do this? Who invited the Iraqi leaders to have a seat at the high-stakes poker game of Amercian politics anyway, in which the big GOP trump card is in declaring what "big a favor we are doing for the people of Iraq?" Don't they know how this game is supposed to be played? Bush decides, and everyone else gets to go along with whatever his "Brilliance" dictates. Don't they know a good thing when they see it? They should just shut up and suffer -- like the rest of us.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25786952/

 

I think when the surge was introduced, there was the idea that it'd be temporary and lead to withdrawal. Isn't it funny that someone actually remembered it?

 

It's: 'Iraqi leaders for Iraq'

You silly Americans! You are as always framing it in terms of US domestic policy

It's the other way around! I said before that the little people matter. Maliki has managed to frame the US debate on whether to stay in Iraq to the 'when' and away from the 'if'. The other remarkable thing is that Maliki actually said 'The earlier the better' for quite a while. He was ignored. Only by reiterating Obama, he for the first time succeeded in actually making Iraq relevant to the domestic US discussion about withdrawal. It needed Maliki to breathe life into Obama's timetable. Now that Maliki has said that, he has created a de-facto deadline that will define further US discourse. Quite a feat.

Through Liebermann's neo-con goggles everything is clear: Obama is willing to accept defeat in Iraq. LOL! Defeat against whom? Maliki? Saddam? Al-Khayyyy-dah? Iran? Evil? The man in the moon?

On the Bush side of this, it was hilarious to see Miss Perino trying to explain how Maliki has been badly mistranslated. Hahaha!

An entertaining week this is promising to be. So Maliki has insisted that he really does agree with Obama's goal of getting US combat units out of Iraq by the end of 2010. Even better was Gen. Petraeus saying that he is to obey his orders from any CinC and when the CinC wants US troops out by 2010, that's what he will do. Hahaha! Take that George 'Commander Guy' Bush. There's your buck, Gen. Petraeus doesn't want it. Stop passing it around, you coward! It was of course the Decider himself who 'decidified' the decision on the surge, not Petraeus.

In the meanwhile, the Whitehouse, ignoring that, is saying that in siding with Obama, Maliki is merely building a negotiating position. LOL! Nonsense again: The Iraqi insistence that the US leave is non negotiable. A negotiating position for negotiating with the US for withdrawal of forces from Iraq is something other than 'alliance building', which is what the Whitehouse has in mind.
Point in case is that according to the Whitehouse a US-Iraqi deal can't be finished this month. That is unsurprising. Why should Maliki hurry when Obama appears to be a so much more agreeable negotiating partner?

All this leaves McCain insisting that he knows better than Maliki what is good for Iraq. It implies that according to McCain the US will withdraw when he chooses so. Also implicit is the assumption that Iraq is and will remain a base area for US endeavours in the region. No way.
This has inflicted a probably fatal wound on McCain's chance of becoming president. That doesn't mean Obama has a sure win. The GOP is in disarray. Obama should be polling way ahead of McCain. He isn't. Apparently there are still a lot of people in the US who are uncomfortable voting for a black man they don't know. Expect the GOP trying to exploit that.

 

Dude, you are the silly one. THAT was my main point. I just added my own brand of sarcasm. You completely restated my theme without the sarcasm. But I guess that was the only way you could get your slap at EVERYTHING American into the topic...including Obama.

Yes, and that may cost him the election. But the Dems are on track to pickup a nice amount of seats in Congress.

 

Of course the Iraqi people will support Obama. ANything to get the Americans out of their country...

Don't they know that the only promise a politician will keep is the one that they make privately to the corporate investers?

 

Good one, Gnarf.

 

From what I remember I tried to be ironic in my first line. I really had a hard time finding the right smileys

But EVERYTHING American? It was only Lieberman, Dana Perino and Bush, who got what they deserved, probably less.

As for bashing Obama? No. I see him as certainly better than McCain. I see him as a significant improvement over Bush. Obama is clearly presidential material. I wish him all the best. McCain, the more I hear from him, and when I see who surrounds him, scares me. Obama's foreign policy, which is the part of Obama that might affect me, will run along realist lines from what I have read, which is good. So if he ends up making a Bush Sr. like or maybe a Clintonesque foreign policy we can count us all very lucky.
But the Democrats have a history of Idealism, which is great at home, but which in foreign policies has brought the D's into adventures of their own. I just see this realistically I think. That said, Obama's withdrawal plan is sensible, doable and ought to be followed on.

I understand that suffering part. In the current political situation I would go berserk if I was a US citizen. I get pissed off by just reading press announcement from the Whitehouse on foreign policy that I understand to be almost inevitably distorted or misleading. Bush, Perino, Mukasey, Rice etc. (not to mention shills like Kristol, Liebermann etc.) - they try sucker you whenever they open their mouth. The Bushmen's politics on justice and law are to my legal sense almost universally revolting. Thus my scorn. It offers relief. It is as a solution vastly superior to sucking it up and getting an ulcer.

And then I see the current political inertia among the Democrats dealing with this - not. I am totally with Obama that the US needs change. At the top. Folks, when Bush is out and by freak accident McCain becomes the next president it is somewhat predictable that he then will still have some of Bush's old hands in and around the White House. They will not be born again and suddenly embrace constitutional righteousness. Will a democratic Congress and Senate only then start investigating the past abuses by the Bush crew they are ignoring for expediency now? Then it'll be too late. That's why Conyers pisses me off. Then the D's will have their hands full with McCain; the R's will rightfully ask why they complain now, after all they didn't complain earlier. Their tacit complicity now puts the D's in a silly position tomorrow. The current D strategy relies on them winning - the presidency AND congress and senate - which that is far from certain.

All this would only be ameliorated with McCain having to cooperate with congress and senate, probably leading to a clear moderation in policies.

 

Ah, but Ragusa, the Dems already HAVE control of both the House and Senate. The way things look presently, it's not IF the Dems will pick up more seats in both chambers of Congress this fall, but how many seats. One thing that is pretty certain, is that we will have a House and Senate controlled by the Dems in 2009 and 2010.

That leaves the presidency. I admit that the prospects of Obama winning the presidency are less certain than the Dems maintaining the majority in both houses of Congress. But to say that the Dems strategy relies on them winning the Presidency is just silly. Isn't the goal of all political parties to win? And when speaking of political parties in the US isn't the biggest prize winning the presidency? The goal is always to win - the presidency, the House, and the Senate. In fact, I think you are even misusing the word strategy, because winning is not a strategy - it's the goal - it's the outcome. The strategy part is HOW you win.

I agree that the performance of the Dems in Congress these last two years have been disappointing. The problem is they don't have a veto-proof majority (2/3 in both the House and Senate). Heck, they don't even have a fillibuster proof majority (60% in the Senate only). While it is highly unlikely that the Dems will get to a 2/3 majority in either the House or the Senate this fall, that point is moot if you win the presidency along the way. So while I agree that the goal is to win - that would be true regardless of what was happening in the world, or what the current makeup of Congress was, or who the current president is.

 

Aldeth,
the approach to a problem that puts all the money on one potential outcome is also known as gambling. I feel intensely uncomfortable with that.

 

Hey, that explains that, since those were "serious" smileys. I thought you had gone a bit over the top, even for you.

The game is high-stakes poker - The idea is for the politicians to keep a straight face, or poker face, while telling us about all those "good things" they are going to do for us; things like giving us everything under the sun, while not raising our taxes - you know, the "free lunch."

 

I'll take you at your word. However, I still maintain the goal of all political parties - whether in the US in Germany, whether free market or socialistic, whether big or small, whether east or west, whetherin the present, past, or future - is to win. So if that makes you uncomfortable, then it implies you are uncomfortable with politics in general.

 

I actually find myself siding with Ragusa, here. Our democratic party has had both the evidence and the numbers necessary to impeach or otherwise hold the Bush administration accountable for its actions for nearly two years, yet it has continually refused to do so. Why?

Usually, the argument posited is that an impeachment could ruin their chances at the White House in the coming election, or even cost them their majority in the house and senate. Historical precedent, however, has shown otherwise. The republicans gained seats and ultimately gained the presidency when they impeached Clinton. The democrats gained seats and the presidency after nearly impeaching Nixon during the Watergate scandal. After two failed impeachments on Andrew Johnson, the republican party gained seats and, again, gained the presidency.

Despite the fact that, historically, the party of an impeached president loses seats, the democrats have instead decided to let Bush off the hook until they get him out of office. It appears to me that they are rolling the dice on winning the white house and gaining a few more seats so they can ensure that the results of their investigation are successful. While I think it likely, there is no guarantee that either will happen, and I'm also concerned that Bush's trail will get colder as more time passes.

 

Drew,
there is a splendid opportunity to address those issues in the confirmation hearings of McCain's people.

/sarcasm

 

I'm not trying to shut anything down here, but none of this has anything to do with my topic. I just thought that it was wonderful how the Iraqis have turned the tables on the Bushmen by "embracing" (please note the punctuation) Obama. I thought it was a brilliant move, and that they helped the cause of their own country by hoisting the Bushmen on their on petards, so to speak. I'm sorry that Ragusa has seen fit to turn this into a rant about how "ineffective" the Dems are. The Bushmen have used the current "state" of Iraq as a political football in the upcoming election for everything it's worth: "Wasn't the Surge just wonderful," and now "we've WON in Iraq," and "We told you so, that we could WIN the War."

Well, great. Can we leave now?

It appears that the Iraqis seem to think it's time.

 

As far as that is concerned we are in total agreement. It is indeed nice to see that with the help of Maliki the D's have indeed managed to turn the tables on the GOP in using Iraq as political ammo. That is utterly obvious. The GOP strategy of using Iraq as a political all purpose weapon against those 'D appeasers' has finally backfired, and now they deservedly have the pie in the face. Delicious irony indeed. And in this case it even works to the mutual benefit of both countries, which is all the better.

I think it is predictable that the Rs will try turn a withdrawal into a 'D defeat'. After a withdrawal the question of 'Who lost Iraq?' will become an atrocious political subject in the US, and an R theme. Certainly no reason not to withdraw, but knowing the Rs a predictable domestic consequence. Forewarned is forearmed.

 

Ragusa - I'm glad we agree. While the Dems (in Congress) have shown that they are somewhat cowardly in dealing with the "The War on Terror" issue, the leadersip in Iraq showed courage in their "agreement" with Obama. No doubt Cheney will send Blackwater after them for getting so far out of line (he may even leak the secert idenitity of Maliki's wife to the NYT). The Bushman always get even (much like the mafia).

 

chandos you do know that it was Richard Armitage that leaked valeire plames name not scooter libby right?
You do know that scooter libby wasn't convicted for that offense right?
You do know that there was never anyone charged with leaking her name right?

 

Libby got nailed with obstruction of justice, Martaug. Had the leak been accident, Libby wouldn't have been charged with anything, and he sure as hell wouldn't have needed to obstruct an investigation. You're dissembling again. Badly.

 

How am i dissembling? He wasn't convicted of the offense of outing a covert CIA agent, in fact NO ONE was. It's just like the martha stewart deal, she was convicted of Lieing to the government NOT insider trading but if you ask 10 people probably 8 of them will say she was convicted on the insider trading.