Over at Barack’s White Lies, Todd Feinburg is bewildered at the lack of media attention Barack’s online flip-flop on Iraq is getting. Barack has quietly changed the description of his Iraq policy online, from absurd to something more respectable. Todd can’t believe nobody in the MSM is taking note, instead they are obsessing over a New Yorker cartoon cover.
At Slate, Mickey Kaus hits on a key point that I have been thinking about as well. Barack has chosen Republican Senator Chuck Hagel as his chaperone for his trip to Iraq. Some pundits see it as a stroke of genius! Is it really? After all, Sen. Hagel’s pre-surge comments live in infamy today,
Actually, Hagel called the surge “the most dangerous foreign policy blunder in this country since Vietnam.” … Is Obama cannily trying to demonstrate why Hagel would be a horrifying VP pick? Is he trying to deflect attention from his own poor surge judgment (“the surge has not worked”) by bringing along as a lightning rod someone whose judgment was even worse than his?
At Blackfive, retired Special Operations Master Sergeant James Hanson, aka Uncle Jimbo, reviews Barack’s NYT op-ed on Iraq, and focuses on the only issue that truly matters,
Why can’t you bring yourself to say winning the war is essential to our broader strategic goals? What is wrong with winning in Iraq? Like too many on the left, your hatred of W and his war blinds you to the fact that you are an advocate for defeat. You cannot allow W’s blunder to become a success and you are willing to turn a budding victory into a loss, that is sad Barry.
What’s not going to work is your attempt to sweet talk and smile your way into power. You are not man enough for the biggest job in the world and your inability to mouth the word victory shows it all too clearly. Men don’t sidestep the tough calls with weasel words like end the war.