Rather than deny funding for Bush's initiatives, Congress should provide it now -- but only for fiscal 2007 (meaning through September). By that point, or even the August congressional recess, we should know if the surge is showing promise. If it does, Congress could consider continuing its support....
If the surge fails, we will need a whole new paradigm for Iraq policy, and it is hardly too soon for Congress to start fleshing out our choices. But for now, Congress should also give the president the money and support that he requests.
It should be noted that O'Hanlon has been a consultant with the Brooking's Institute, one of the oldest "Liberal" think tanks in existence, which has long sought to counterbalance the conservative Heritage Foundation and Liberterian Cato Institute - at least in theory. In fact, what he's saying here is "Lets Give War A Chance".
Um, how about let's Not - M,kay?
I may be wrong here, but it seems to me that Batiste has just been Goodling-ed:
Two years ago, Robin C. Ashton, a seasoned criminal prosecutor at the Department of Justice, learned from her boss that a promised promotion was no longer hers.
"You have a Monica problem," Ms. Ashton was told, according to several Justice Department officials. Referring to Monica M. Goodling, a 31-year-old, relatively inexperienced lawyer who had only recently arrived in the office, the boss added, "She believes you’re a Democrat and doesn’t feel you can be trusted." [...]
Ms. Goodling would soon be quizzing applicants for civil service jobs at Justice Department headquarters with questions that several United States attorneys said were inappropriate, like who was their favorite president and Supreme Court justice. One department official said an applicant was even asked, "Have you ever cheated on your wife?"
Ms. Goodling also moved to block the hiring of prosecutors with résumés that suggested they might be Democrats, even though they were seeking posts that were supposed to be nonpartisan, two department officials said.
Is CBS applying an anti-Democrat Litmus test? It's a good question after Dan Rather and superscript-gate led to Katie Couric on the CBS News, and on 60 Minutes with her despicable grilling of John Edwards on what "some people say..." about his wife's cancer, even though she herself had continued working while her own husband battled colon cancer, isn't it?
One clue might be the fact that CBS took two weeks to fire Don Imus for his racial and gender slurs, but just two days to fire Batiste for speaking up on Iraq.
Hmmm...
Or how about this further comment from Ms. Mason:
"It isn’t just that he took an advocacy position," she said. "General Batiste took part in a commercial that’s being shown on television to raise money for veterans against the war."
Well, no - he didn't. The VoteVets ad that General Batiste - who commanded the Army's First Infantry Division in Iraq during 2004 and 2005 - participated in was not a fundraising ad and made no request for funds. Batiste simply spoke out and shared the benefit of his experience after two years on the front lines fighting Bush's pointless War, and simply targeted those in Congress who continued to enable it.
Like Kyle Sampson, how many different stories on why Batiste was really fired is Mason going to make up?
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