Posted by PBS Mind |
Yesterday, the New York Times published an article about discussions within the White House concerning a significant troop reduction in Iraq during 2008. (See article.) On its face, it looks like the WH is finally getting the hint.
But wait -- didn't we JUST have a huge wrangle between Congress and the White House over this very topic?
I smell political grandstanding at the cost of American lives.
The article reads in part:
"But what is different now is the political environment in the United States. While Democrats in Congress relented this week and dropped demands to attach a schedule for withdrawal to a bill to finance military efforts in Iraq, White House officials concede that they have bought a few months, at best.
By the fall, they say, they are likely to lose several Republican senators and many members of the House who voted with Mr. Bush in recent weeks."
This would make it sound like the Democrats have scored a back-handed win of sorts. But I predict when the time comes it won't play out that way.
Instead, here's what we'll see:
1) W won't be able to stand looking like he's doing anything because the Democratic majority told him to.
2) Therefore, when it actually happens, it will be portrayed as something W got done because the Dems couldn't get it done, and aren't they weak?
3) It will be timed in such a way as to give the GOP a big election boost and
4) Unless every Democrat who can get behind a microphone or lead some journalist by the ear to his keyboard screams bloody murder, the fact that this political grandstanding on W's part is going to cost countless more American and Iraqi lives will go quietly by the wayside.
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