Iraq Is THE Issue

It's getting to the point where the Administration's position on Iraq is incoherent. If you listen to their spinning, the key culprit for this month being the deadliest month for US troops in a year is because the Islamic calendar sneakily scheduled Ramadan right before the midterm elections. Or something.

I just watched Donald Rumsfeld yell at a bunch of reporters because they dared to suggest that Iraqi security forces might not have a full hold on the situation. I mean, who are you going to believe, Don Rumsfeld or your lyin' eyes that watch 100 bodies a day get piled up in Iraqi morgues?

Arianna noticed the latest Vietnam-era talking point:

Looking for a bright spot amidst all the gloomy assessments, the president, the vice president, and the top U.S. commander all seized on the military's perfect win-loss record in Iraq.

"The men and women of the armed forces have never lost a battle in over three years in the war," said President Bush during today's news conference on Iraq.

"We've never been defeated in a stand-up fight in Iraq in over three years," Dick Cheney told NPR.

"The men and women of the armed forces here have never lost a battle in over three years of war. That is a fact unprecedented in history," said Gen. Casey at a press conference in Baghdad.

2,804 dead U.S. soldiers -- 93 (now 96 -ed.) in this month alone. 20,687 wounded. Tens -- perhaps hundreds -- of thousands of Iraqi civilians killed.

If this is what being undefeated looks like, god help us if we ever start losing.

Nobody even seems to understand why Bush decided to hold that press conference given the current environment where the war is cutting against GOP candidates so badly that the sitting Senate Majority Leader, in a stunning turnaround, suggests that GOP hopefuls should STOP talking about Iraq, which is only the most important issue in this election:

"The challenge is to get Americans to focus on pocketbook issues, and not on the Iraq and terror issue," Frist said in an interview with the Concord Monitor on Tuesday.

Frist suggested that Republicans remind voters of subjects like tax cuts and lower gas prices, the result, he said, of the energy bill passed by Congress last year.

"These are all things the media has not covered," Frist said. "People don't say, 'This Congress passed tax cuts.' But that means something to every American."

Up truly is down when the Republicans are trying to talk about "bread and butter." Because there are probably millionaires out there waiting to be captured by that great GOP economic message!

And the Democrats, who are talking about the concerns and needs of Americans all the time, have added Iraq to that message. This is from Patrick Murphy in that Washington Post article I cited before:

"When we went there in 2003, we had a mission to get rid of Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction. We're still in Iraq 3 1/2 years later and the mission isn't clear," Murphy told an audience here last week. "Together we can change it. We can change what we're doing in Iraq."

Two years ago Democrats were afraid to talk about Iraq, afraid to talk about national security, afraid to talk about the war on terror. The fact that optimism is so high in the mind of this blogger is that they're actually reversing that this year. The candidates that are strong and speak Democratic values and Democratic principles will be rewarded.

Finally, I have to give the last word to Brad at Sadly, No, who took down resident wingnut Ralph Peters, who in an op-ed today made the argument that "Bush is being too nice to terrorists." Sadly No has become one of my favorite blogs lately, mainly because of passages like this:

Ralph, let me explain the Iraq war to you with a story. It’s about this company called America, Inc. that wanted to buy a horse to race in the Kentucky Derby. After months of searching and searching, the CEO of America, let’s call him “George W. Bush,” finally settled on an old horse named Raqi.

“I just like his name,” said Bush. “Kinda sounds like that boxer Sly Stalone played, don’t he?”

However, there was just one small problem: Raqi was an old horse whose best days were behind him. He was certainly in no shape to run any race, let alone the Kentucky Derby. Unfazed by this, Bush came up with a plan to revitalize Raqi’s sagging career: sawing off one of his legs.

“I don’t think this is a good idea,” said America Inc’s accountants. “I don’t think a three-legged horse can win.”

“Nonsense!” shouted Bush. “Children do three-legged races all the time in gym class! If six-year-olds can win three-legged races, I don’t see why Raqi can’t!”

But once Bush started training Raqi for the race, it became clear that something wasn’t right. Raqi didn’t have much motivation to run, and when he did, he often fell over and lay on the ground. Bush decided that the problem was poor diet, and so he bought Raqi a year’s supply of Halliburton Horse Helper Meal for $500 million.

“Eat all this up, Raqi!” said Bush. “It’ll make you healthy as a horse!”

Unfortunately, the “Horse Helper” was really a bunch of rat sphincters thrown into a bucket. This made poor Raqi even sicker, and now he wouldn’t even get up to run his drills. To make matters worse, some local photographer snuck into Raqi’s stable at night and snapped a photo of the feeble horse. The pic appeared in the local tabloid the next day. “IS THIS REALLY BUSH’S HIGH HORSE?” blared the sarcastic headline.

“Aw man, just what I need!” said Bush. “The damn press is makin’ fun of me! Hey, can our PR people get out there and tell everyone how great Raqi’s doing?”

And so Bush’s public relations flunkies went on the Internets to spread the good news of Raqi’s true condition, which the mainstream media was not reporting.

And it just gets better and better. Read the whole thing.