Trapped by the intractable
Obama's liberal base, quietly seething about the war in Afghanistan
Trapped by the intractable
Dick Polman, Inquirer National Political Columnist
The Sunday print column, updated and expanded:
We can all agree that this Fourth of July holiday was not particularly festive, given the grim tidings on all fronts. But perhaps the unhappiest Americans these days are the antiwar liberal Democrats who voted with enthusiasm for Barack Obama, only to find him tethered to a protracted war in a remote region that for two millenia has foiled virtually every foreign invader. Even Alexander the Great had to flee with an arrow in his leg.
If George W. Bush was still in office and presiding over the same exact circumstances in Afghanistan - with western allies such as Canada pulling out their troops; with American casualties on the rise; with resilient insurgents bedeviling our forces; with an American nation-building effort held hostage by a corrupt host government that lacks grassroots credibility; with a fungible withdrawal deadline; with the prospect of untold billions of dollars being poured into an open-ended occupation - you can bet that liberals would be vocally apoplectic.
But with Obama on the hot seat, they're stuck. Even though Obama is basically trapped in this intractable war, even though he's using Bushspeak to talk about all the "progress" we've supposedly made in Afghanistan and to boast about the supposedly broad-based western "coalition" that is fighting alongside us, liberals don't want to make his political life more miserable than it already is. So mostly they fume about their powerlessness. Last December, Obama sought to placate them setting a July 2011 deadline for the start of troop withdrawals, but they know that the date is basically a con job; after all, Obama's new commander, Gen. Petraeus said in testimony last week that America's commitment to the Aghanistan would be "enduring."
Occasionally they do voice their concerns, while recognizing that their efforts are all in vain. Last Thursday night, 153 of 251 House Democrats voted for a losing amendment that would have required Obama to set a deadline for the withdrawal of all troops; in the words of one liberal congressman, New York's Jerrold Nadler, "Every dollar we spend in Afghanistan, every life we waste there, is a waste. An intelligent policy is not to try to remake the country that nobody since Genghis Kahn has managed to conquer...What arrogance gives us the right to assume that we can succeed where the Mongols, the British, and the Soviets have failed?"
And a few left-leaning journals have entered the fray. What's most noteworthy about the now-famous Rolling Stone article is not its depiction of Gen. Stanley McChrystal's trash-talkers, but, rather, its diligent expose of a war going badly - as acknowledged by McChrystal's own people. As a top McChrystal adviser said (in a quote that the Obama White House didn't try to refute), "If Americans pulled back and started paying attention to this war, it would become even less popular."
But, for the most part, fervent liberal criticism of Obama has been sporadic or muted. Liberals recognize that they don't have the numbers to sway policy. In Washington - indeed, as evidenced by the House's decision on Thursday night to OK the next round of war funding - Obama's war is broadly supported by the Republican lawmakers (who actually don't think he's hawkish enough), and by moderate and conservative Democrats, who don't want the voters back home to think that they're "soft" on terrorism or disrespectful to the troops.
(Actually, liberals received some surprise assistance late last week from Republican national chairman Michael Steele, who buttressed his reputation for ineptitude by inexplicably contradicting the militant Republican line on Afghanistan. In a Connecticut speech, he positioned himself somewhere to the left of Cindy Sheehan by virtually dismissing the war as unwinnable: "The one thing you don’t do is engage in a land war in Afghanistan...Because everyone who has tried over a thousand years of history has failed." A day later, under GOP pressure, he radically reversed himself and announced that the war of course was winnable. In any event, liberals won't bother to claim Steele as an antiwar ally, given his ongoing approximation of Bozo the Clown.)
Actually, liberals have been relatively quiescent about the war for a slew of reasons. For starters, they have the same war fatigue that afflicts most other Americans. Afghanistan (now officially the longest war in U.S. history) and Iraq are simply a drag to contemplate; it's easier to just tune them out, to not even patronize the outpouring of movies - Brothers, The Messenger, the new documentary Restrepo - that vividly depict the pain. And it's more fun to debate who should be Dancing With the Stars than whether we should be launching a spring or autumn offensive in Kandahar.
With respect to the war in Afghanistan, the dominant domestic emotion is numbness. As retired Army colonel and foreign policy professor Andrew Bacevich put it recently: "To be an American soldier today is to serve a people who find nothing amiss in the prospect of armed conflict without end."
Numbness notwithstanding, liberals have been sporadically seething about Obama's flexible promise to start troop pullbacks in July '11; the president won't say whether the pace will be fast or slow, and a few weekends ago he mocked those who have an "obsession" with the timetable. But, truth be told, they haven't made a coherent case for a smart alternative policy. that's probably because there are so few alternatives. What happens if we leave Afghanistan on our timetable, and the terrorists now hunkered down in Pakistan take the opportunity to set up shop all over again? Liberals are lamenting what they call "open-ended war," but how do they propose to close Afghanistan to the bad guys?
The bottom line is that they're locked into this war, just like Obama. For most of the past decade, and especially when Bush was fixated on Iraq, the liberal complaint was that America was rushing to avenge 9/11 by invading the wrong country. Liberals, eager to demonstrate that they too believed in the application of military force, saw Afghanistan as the right place for a just war - a chance not merely to defeat al Qaeda on the battlefield, but to bring humanitarian aid to people (especially the women) who had suffered human rights abuses at the hands of the Taliban.
Indeed, candidate Obama was quite clear about his plans for a wider war in Afghanistan. For instance, during a CBS interview in July 2008, he said: "I think one of the biggest mistakes we've made strategically after 9/11 was to fail to finish the job (in Afghanistan), focus our attention there. We got distracted by Iraq." He also said: "For at least a year now, I have called for two additional brigades (in Afghanistan), perhaps three" - in other words, as many as 15,000 new soldiers. And that autumn, during his first debate with John McCain, he said: "We have seen Afghanistan worsen, deteriorate. We need more troops there. We need more resources there."
Did liberals not hear what he was saying? Maybe they figured that he had to say those things about Afghanistan to ensure that he wasn't perceived as a Democratic softy; having invested in his campaign, liberals may have seen his stance as nothing more than shrewd politics. Mostly, I suspect that when he attacked the Iraq war and got hawkish about Afghanistan, what liberals actually heard in their heads was simply this: "I'm not a dummy like George W. Bush."
Nevertheless, a wider war in Afghanistan was a key feature of the "change" that liberals voted for, even if they chose not to see it at the time. The immediate political danger for Obama, however, is that the left's unhappy quietude might further depress Democratic turnout in the November midterm elections. With apologies to Alexander the Great, this dearth of enthusiasm could be the next arrow in the president's leg.
blackhawk: "If a foreign government gives the U.S. the right to operate a base, it's too bad if some of the people object." Oh I get it, it doesn't matter that an authoritarian government denies the will of its people, since it involves the U.S. installing military bases there. Because we're a beacon of freedom and all that great stuff. Point taken.— p-diddy- blackhawk: I didn't say apartheid existed for Israelis, genius. I said they were imposing apartheid on the Palestinians.— p-diddy
- blackhawk: Did we overthrow the democratically elected leader of Iran? Yes we did. What's your point again? That he was supported by the Russians? So what! How'd that turn out? And what about our alleged support for democracy? You're venting, not disagreeing with me.— p-diddy
- bill.atkin = dittohead broken record who refuses to answer questions. Typical.— LorettaL
- Phil Checchia is a prime example of the hypocrisy of the right and the ignorant egocentricity that conservatives wreak of.— RightWingHypocrite
- "democrats cannot be trusted with our national security" Hmmm, I seem to recall that the Republicans slept on the job in 2001 while terrorists attacked our country. Republicans are failures, we should simple eradicate this nation of them.— RightWingHypocrite
- After the Vietnam War, dems and the dem presidents became weak. before the vietnam war, dem presidents had guts.— CD75
- Phil-A nuke would not have been necessary in Vietnam.All that was required to end that adventure is what was eventually done during Linebacker 2,commonly called the Christmas bombings.Mine Haiphong Harbor,let the b-52s run north of the DMZ & take out the power grid at Thai Nguyen.That could have been accomplished no later than the summer of 1965.— Yankee Air Pirate 12
- echoes of LBJ and Vietnam. Wouldnt the troops in Afghanistan and Iraq look a lot better standing shoulder to shoulder along the Mexican border?— catwalks
Comment removed.- blackhawk90 - careful what YOU wish for, bub. The Republicans haven't been able to present any new ideas for years now. If you DO gain control of one or both chambers - what exactly will the R's do? Their only rhetoric so far indicates reverting back to the failed Bush policies that sank this country in the first place. If you think that "winning" in Nov is good for the GOP, think again. You'll not get the WH in 2012, no matter what, and if you gain controll of either chamber and can't deliver - as quickly or quicker than you are demanding of Obama and the Dem's then the GOP will not be elected to power on the national level for GENERATIONS. Ignore Palin at your peril - (isn't that what you keep telling the Dems?) you created her and you have to deal with her - she is the single most damaging factor to the stagnant state of the GOP that there is today. The other is that your party has NO solutions, No ideas, and their views are out of touch. Sweet!— LorettaL
- Obama and Bush are the ying and the yang. Opposites that are exactly alike.— Mark Glaeser
JimR - From the New York Times: "The case arose after two members of the New Black Panther Party stood outside a polling place in a majority-black precinct in Philadelphia on Election Day in 2008. A video of the men, posted online, showed them dressed in paramilitary clothing, and one carried a billy club." And from the Wall Street Journal: "The episode—which Bartle Bull, a former civil rights lawyer and publisher of the left-wing Village Voice, calls "the most blatant form of voter intimidation I've ever seen"—began on Election Day 2008. Mr. Bull and others witnessed two Black Panthers in paramilitary garb at a polling place near downtown Philadelphia."- Phil, I hate to keep on a roll here, but I'm not to keen on plans to absorb 10+M illegals either. We tried that years ago and all we got was another 10+M illegals to absorb. Better to target the market that provides the illegal jobs.— JimR
- Lord.Humongous, let's try a little copy/paste. "Politically, not prosecuting this is wrong and unjust since it sets a bad president" (I just found a real Freudian slip there!) What part of that says it's AOK????. Did you read the whole post? It was impractical to prosecute since it is/was next to impossible to prove intimidation in court. Look at the numbers for that neighborhood! It was some powerless schlub looking for his 15 minutes of fame.— JimR
Uh, p-diddy, you're historically challenged. Yes, the CIA and British Intelligence bankrolled and gave support to the resistance that overthrew Mohammad Mossadeq of the Communist Tudeh Party in 1953 Iran. Of course we are supposed to believe the election of Mossadeq was fair and had no ties to the U.S.S.R. I suppose we should have let Russia meddle in the Middle East, given their history of annexing countries in Eastern Europe to form the Soviet Empire? Iraq, democratically elected Hussein? You've got to be kidding. We have withdrawl dates from both Iraq and, unfortunately Afghanistan, although Barry is waffling on that one. Israel is a soverign country. There is no apartheid there. There are Arab citizens in Israel that have the same rights as Jewish citizens. If a foreign government gives the U.S. the right to operate a base, it's too bad if some of the people object. Basically your post is silly. Try checking this link on Iran: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB126/index.htm By the way, let me know how many times Israel has been attacked by the Arabs and also tell me the last time Israel threatened to wipe Iran off the map?- The point being missed here is that the U.S. is not trying to take over Afghanistan, like the Russians and and prior occupiers. The purpose is to eliminate the Taliban. Unfortuantely, these human vermin terrorize, murder and use the indigenous populace to their ends. To say that McChrystal single hanledly came up with the Rules of Engagement is, to quote Hillay Clinton, "the suspension of disbelief". While McChrystal was the architect of COIN, The White House was deeply involved in this, no doubt. Probably part of the months long soul searching Obama did before approving the Afghan "surge". This is what happens when the war is micromanaged at the White House. Very similar to Johnsons handling of the Vietnam War. Numerous accounts of Johnson picking targets for the Air Force to bomb, the inability of the pilots to bomb targets of opportunity, and accounts of planes with full bomb loads returning to their home bases. Of course, like then, we have the press with the "can't be won" mantra just like Vietnam. Evoking the failure of the French and Walter "Traitor" Cronkites absolutely erroneous and biased "We have lost the war" reporting after Tet 1968. It was a massive defeat for the NVA and the Viet Cong and it would be a year before they could mount any meaningful offensive. All objective historical accounts theorize the U.S. had the momentum and superior technological advantage and the war could have been won with a push at that time in 1968. Unfortuantely for our brave troops, I see unsettlinig parralels in this conflict.
- Phil: Iraq never attacked us. We've overthrown democratically elected governments in the Middle East, have installed military bases on THEIR soil despite popular opposition among their people, have continued to sell weapons to Israel which imposes a system of apartheid upon the Palestinians, and occupy two countries bordering Iran - yet Iran is supposed to be the big threat to world peace. This is big fish/little fish stuff, nothing more.— p-diddy
- LorettaL, get off of the Palin foolishness. She is NOT running in 2012. If anything, you should pay attention to November 2010, because you lefties have a lot to fear.
- JimR.. This is weird, I agree with you today. Diddy, I think it was little George trying to help daddy. They both gave republicans a bad name. But LordHumongous,you got off the best line of the day. Diddy, good to see you back on blogs.— Phil Checchia
- Phil: We were attacked by Iraq?— p-diddy
- JimR - Got it. Voter intimidation is AOK as long as its not a lot of voters that are being intimidated.
- Phil's point is this: Rubble makes no trouble.
- Phil, I'd agree that too many chances were missed by Clinton but we're in Iraq because Bush 41 wouldn't/couldn't/didn't dispose of Sadaam when we had him on the ropes the first time. And in the 80's we had multiple attacks on military sites by terrorists because we couldn't safeguard our troops with enough hardware and structure.— JimR
- Phil, from a few days back: A while back you posted a definition from a dictionary regarding “racist” while supposedly refuting my claim that you were. (BTW, I never did, and challenge you to back up that silly claim) Your assertion that the DOJ decision not to prosecute the intimidation case in Philly was racist doesn’t meet your criteria so I won’t argue it on racist terms since I know you’d never tolerate such a thing. Politically, not prosecuting this is wrong and unjust since it sets a bad president . But, I don’t give the AG a lot of credit. He’s a minor leaguer and he’ll be gone before the end of the term (end of year, I’d bet) As a practical matter, it was a waste of money to move on this. Who was intimidated? Phil, it’s 12th & Fairmount! Scaring off white voters? The area is almost 98% AA and Obama got ~96% of the vote. McCain got (113 votes) ~3%. The normal turnout is 51%. These results are proportionally in line with the 2004 election when there was no claim of intimidation. My problem with it all is that it was nothing more than N.Philly , B.S. ,street theater. If the cops and DA’s office were doing their jobs, these clowns would have been arrested and the issue would never have made it outside the city. Nobody at DOJ has paid attention to this as a systemic problem in Philly –ever. And it’s been a problem – forever.— JimR
- Hey Righties - Here's your reality - you CAN NOT beat Obama - deal with it: Sarah Palin's 2012 general election prospects from Daniel Larison: “If she did somehow [win the nomination], Democrats would spend most of the summer and fall of 2012 rubbing their eyes in disbelief at their good fortune... [A] ticket headed by Palin would be hard-pressed to break 40%. Palin as the nominee would probably make 2012 the most lopsided election victory for the incumbent President since 1984.” Perhaps that is why the NRO is endorsing her to replace Steel (Please do it!) I’d be happy with a Palin 2012 campaign!!! The GOP has got NO One Else.— LorettaL
- SteveMG... I devoted most of my life to protecting people, and their civil rights. So dont lecture me. You're liberal ideas and attitudes are a danger to this country. When you are at war you fight until the other person quits. A lesson you learn as a boy growing up. Anything less than that is useless. Maybe you never had a fistfight as a boy, that wouldn't surprise me.— Phil Checchia
- since all you chicken hawk bush supporters are sooooo much smarter than us liberals....what would you consider a win in Afghanastan? I thought you couldn't answer that. You can't answer that for Iraq either. You just want endless war to be your form of welfare. You care not for our country just the stock prices of the bomb builders and oil producers. Just like the Phil, your indoctrined war mongerers.— Atlas
- OK, so if you're Osama bin Laden, what are you trying to do? Blow something up? It's a nice way to start, but don't you think he wants more than to just make things go boom? So if you put yourself in the seat of someone who hated the West and all of its ideals and all all that it stands for, like you do now, Phil, hating all this due process baloney and innocent before proven guilty stuff and human rights whiners and the idea of working together, but anyway... No single entity can invade and conquer the west. But you can cripple it. The west, like the rest of the world is hopelessy dependent on what comes out of the muslim world, namely, oil. And, Osama bin Laden specifically hates the governments that allowed the basing of US troops and who sell oil to the west. So how does he leverage his tiny little force against a superpower? By making the superpower look like the villain. If you're an Afghan, it's a lot easier to blame the deaths of family and friends from aPredator strike on the US, than to consider the nuances of the civil war. In a way, it's kind of like your philosphy, or lack thereof. Who needs thinking when there are civilians to kill?— SteveMG
- SteveMG.. I will not let you change history. CLINTON DID NOTHING. We were attcked 6 times under his presidency. He had three chances to kill Bin Laden and didn't. At least Bush showed the fanatics that we would fight them. And those warnings were around a long time, mostly under Clinton, and he still did nothing.— Phil Checchia
It's must easier for you SteveMG to put yourself in the seat of an AQ leader you liberal hun.- Diddy.. hardly the same thing. Hitler's attacks were purely offensive in nature, regardless of what he said. We are in Middle east because we were attacked. Hitler wanted to rule the world, we want to live in peace, but when someone test's us we must respond with overwhelming force. We languished in Vietnam for years when we should have concentrated on Hanoi, probably with at least on nuke.— Phil Checchia
- Get a grip Phil. First of all, on a historical note, the CLinton administration was more involved in the war on terror than The Bush administration was. The Bush administration ignored the recommendations of former Clinton oficials that Al Qaeda was a serious threat. The President himself ignored the infamous August 6, 2001 briefing, "bin Laden Determined to Strike in the US". Save your partisan trash for another day. Second, standard military doctrine, not liberal military doctrine, is to limit civilian casualties. The greatest quality of the American soldier is his high level of training discipline and professionalism. That breaks down when you start wantonly creating civilian casualties. When discipline and professionalism break down you start having more casualties of your own. Finally, what on Earth makes you think you'll have to fight them here? Al Qeada will never invade the USA. They don't have to. If you would use your brain for a minute and put yourself in the seat of an AQ leader. I'll come right back.— SteveMG
- Under your moral calculus, virtually any action based on nationalism can be justified. According to Hitler, the invasion of Poland was a matter of self-defense. We are not leading by example.— p-diddy
- Good point, Spock...Phil is basically a dittohead for Osama bin Laden - same exact philosophy.— Mr. Green Genes
- PresidentSpock... That was an act of war, just like Pearl Harbor. It is incumbent on us to seek out those involved and kill them. And when they attacked us they thought we would react like Bill Clinton did for 8 years, lob in a few missiles and make a lot of noise. Want to be angry with someone about the mess in middle east blame Clinton, and elder Bush for not finishing job in Desert Storm.— Phil Checchia
- Phil do you concede that the logic you use in that post also justifies the attack on WTC?
- Liberals... my concern is not for people that live in countries that we are at war with. This is a great example of why you people should not be permitted any input into fighting. To the liberal that was aghast that I would rather see 1000 civilians die instead of one American soldier, change a 1000 to 100,000. And I mean that. You idiot liberals and your concerns about harming civilians. Well, they are the people who make the weapons that enable their soldiers to fight us. And act as shields for them .And inform them of our operations. And by the way, we are fighting in Afghanastan because your liberal president, Bill Clinton, refused to kill Osama Bin Laden, three times, because he was near civilians. Keep up your politically correct ideas about fighting wars and we will soon be fighting a war right here on our own soil. And guess who will be hiding under a bed, looking for some LOW LIFE SOLDIER to protect them. That would be Former goper, Logathis, Mrgreengenes. HELLO DIDDY, somehow I think you would take care of yourself.— Phil Checchia
- Thich Nhat Hanh: "It is a hard fact for Americans to face, but it is a fact that the more Vietnamese their troops succeed in killing, and the larger the force they introduce into Vietnam, the more surely they build the very thing they are trying to destroy. The war has destroyed not only human lives but all human values as well. It undermines all government structures and systems of society, destroys the very foundations of democracy, freedom and all human systems of values. Its shame is not just the shame of the Vietnamese but of the whole world." (from Vietnam: Lotus in a Sea of Fire: A Buddhist Proposal for Peace)— p-diddy
- American soldiers today would rather be on the front line than at home, because Obama has destroyed the economy for a generation to come.
- Phil: No, I love to feel bad about what I do.— p-diddy
- And you know lastly - what did we get for the Iraq 'investment" ? I'd much rather waste the countries money on upgrading the infrastructure of this country ! And these same rah rah GOPers are the same who say to hell with the VA and their budget when the warriors need their services they were promised ! Any problem with that ????— FormerGOPer
- Comment removed.
- So, Phil, basically America at war should just be one big My Lai after another until nobody is left alive in the adversary's (victim's) country? Sounds a lot like that great humanitarian general, Ghenghis Khan. Though I guess if your objective is to annihilate the entire country's population, friendly or not, genocide would be the tactic of choice.— Mr. Green Genes
- Phil - Unless you are willing to allow wholesale slaughter the it's just one of them is a folly way to think. If an occupied nations sees wholesale slaughter do you think they will like us ??? Winning the initial battle is to be expected. Successful completion of the mission requires a gov't to turn control over to. your way would require armies many times their current strength. Unless and until your side cheerfully pays the tab - I suggest slaughter of innocents is not in the US's best interest.— FormerGOPer
- Phil Checchia your shameless disregard for human life is utterly deplorable. It's obvious you have no notion of the mechanics of warfare in even the dimmest sense. Mercilessly kill 1000 civilians so that 1 US soldier could be saved? Is that really how you would fight the war in Afghanistan, or any war for that matter? You're reckless bloviating is truly startling. Let me make a guess; you're 'pro-life', right? Just a guess.— Logathis
- SteveMG... Thank you, you make my point, liberal. Bottom line is we won war because of civilian bombing. To compare bombing of Britian to what Japan and Germany suffered is nonsensical. And as far as using troops, you're liberal slip is showing. Identify an enemy village and destroy it. No troops, just bombs. But for you liberals that doesn't FEEL GOOD. So, let's just send those low life soldiers into harms way just so enemy civilians aren't harmed. Idiotic and unpatriotic.— Phil Checchia
- Trying to use logic with CD is like trying to use a sledgehammer to kill a mosquito. Utterly pointless. CD seems to forget that FDR, Truman, and Wilson were all Dem CinCs. In fact when I was growing up the conventional wisdom was that you don't want a Dem in the White House because they'll take us to war whereas the Republicans wouldn't. Yet since 1968 we've had Nixon invade Cambodia, Reagan invade then retreat from Beirut, invade Grenada, and Bush senior invade Panama and have to be shamed into defending Kuwait. If it weren't for Maggie Thatcher Bush the elder would have waited to see what happened in Kuwait.
- CD, ANY president would get hounded by the loony left. I can't imagine what qualities are better than brians in a CinC. Freindliness? Stubbornness? (go ahead and try to prove a stubborn cammander is better than a smart one).— SteveMG
- Civilians are so much easier to kill, too. Phil, how did that killing millions of civilians really work out? Funny thing, in Russia, Germans were originally greeted enthusiastically by the civilians. Didn't hold up very well in the long run. Did the Blitz weaken or atrengthen the resolve of the English? Did you know that with their cities in ruins, most German soldiers preferred to be on the lines than to go back home? Japanese resistance grew stronger and stronger the closer we got to Japan which included more devastating B-29 raids. There were strong resistance movements all over Europe in spite of the Nazis' brutal reprisals. The ROE isn't just "Obama's". We already know that civilian casualties drive the local population over to the side of our enemy. What you are oblivious to is the identity of our enemy. So far, the population has been reasonably neutral, so it could be worse. Simple fact is there are 33 million people in Afghanistan. That's about half the size of Nazi Germany. Look how hard it was to defeat that with the combined armed forces of the Allies. Now imagine trying to defeat half of that (admittedly unindustrialized) but in impossible terrain and with only 110,000 troops. So, General Phil, don't you think it's smarter to try to limit the number of your enemy?— SteveMG
- CD75: Good point that a Dem President will always be hounded by the Left to find a way to avert war. Whether that's good or bad is up to the history of each situation. But, keeping that logic, isn't a 'Pub President always be hounded by the Right? Wouldn't they tend to look for ways to fight wars?— yobill626
- Phil's first sentence is right on the money. Civilian support for the War in Afghanistan was extraordinarily high in 2002-2003. When it started to dawn on Americans that our entry into Iraq was pretty much a shell game, the breakdown in the support for the whole enchilada (fairly or unfairly) grew.— yobill626
- Steve MG: You miss the point. A dem president will always be hounded by the loony left who want to surrender to forst entity that will accept it. By the way, being the smartest does not mean you are the best commander in chief.— CD75
- Any war that does not include civilians that support the enemy are destined to end badly. When the enemy retreats to a village that supports them they get a pass. Or in other words, Obama's rules of engagement. Fight the war to win or get out. I know you liberals are aghast at such an idea. But in my mind it is better that 1000 sympathetic civilians to the enemy are killed, than one US Soldier. But unfortunately, you liberals love to FEEL GOOD about what you do, so you obviously feel better about US soldiers dying than sympathetic civilians who act as willing body shields for our enemies. Think back to the last war we won, Second World War, with millions of civilians killed. The truth is, warriors will fight forever, but civilians do have a breaking point. WE NEED TO FIND IT.— Phil Checchia
- Yeah, it took him 6-1/2 years to figure out not to listen to Cheney...— yobill626
- Bush was definitely smarter than Obama.
- SteveMG: Well, you know, he DID prevent an attack on American soil! After the most horrific one, of course...— yobill626
- Right, CD, George W. Bush was SOOO much smarter! //— SteveMG
- I was always amazed at the way people ignored his position on the Afghanistan War. It certainly wasn't a secret. Fact is, there are no alternatives to the policy in Afghanistan right now. The problem is actually with Pakistan. It doesn't have the strongest government but it does have nukes. We were fortunate about the last change in power from Pervez Musharref, but will we be so lucky next time? So, for now we are stuck trying to tamp down the Taliban and Al Qeada.— SteveMG
- This is why democrats cannot be trusted with our national security and a democrat always fails as commander in chief.— CD75
Cited by the Columbia Journalism Review as one of the nation's top political reporters, and lauded by the ABC News political website as "one of the finest political journalists of his generation," Dick Polman is a national political columnist at the Philadelphia Inquirer. He is on the full-time faculty at the University of Pennsylvania, as "writer in residence." Dick has been a frequent guest on C-Span, MSNBC, CNN, NPR and the BBC. He covered the 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2004 presidential campaigns.
ARCHIVES
All commentaries posted before April 18, 2008, can be accessed at www.dickpolman.blogspot.com.
- American Spectator
- David Limbaugh
- Free Republic
- Glenn Reynolds
- Hugh Hewitt
- Human Events
- John Hawkins
- Matt Lewis
- Michelle Malkin
- National Review
- Opinion Journal
- Power Line
- Red State
- The Brody File
- The Daily Caller
- Town Hall
- Weekly Standard
- Center for American Progress
- Crooks and Liars
- Daily Kos
- David Corn
- Huffington Post
- Media Matters
- Mojoblog (Mother Jones)
- Open Left
- Political Animal
- Salon's War Room
- Talking Points Memo
- Tapped
- The Democratic Strategist
- The Grey Matter
- Unclaimed Territory
- Andrew Sullivan
- Attytood
- Chi Tribune's The Swamp
- CJR's Campaign Desk
- CNN's Political Ticker
- CQ Politics
- FactCheck.org
- Gail Collins
- Howard Kurtz
- Mickey Kaus
- NBC's First Read
- Obit
- Political Wire
- Politico
- Politics Daily
- Pollster.com
- Real Clear Politics
- The Atlantic Wire
- The Fix
- The Moderate Voice
- The Plank
- USA Today On Politics
- Wonkette
