Thursday, August 23, 2007

Even Liberals Can't Ignore Progress

The "surge" in Iraq, otherwise known as "reinforcements" consisting of 30, 000 additional brave U.S. servicemen and women, has been so effective that even some congressional liberals are beginning grudgingly to concede the progress. Senator Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Service Committee, issued a statement yesterday, along with Senator John Warner (R- VA), saying, "The military aspects of President Bush's new strategy in Iraq appear to have produced some credible and positive results."

Even Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY), looking like she just swallowed a lemon, told the Veterans of Foreign Wars national convention yesterday, "It's (the surge) working." Of course, she quickly added that the surge came "too late" in the war and it was still time to withdraw.

Now I happen to agree with Senator Clinton that the surge came late, but I'm not going to let her get away with making that point without reminding you why it came late. The surge was delayed because of Hillary and all the other liberals who constantly harassed the president, criticized our troops and threatened not to fund any attempt to send more men!

That's right - the surge Levin, Clinton and others now praise for its success is the same surge they opposed because they claimed it wouldn't work! In fact, they were so convinced it would fail that they forced roll call votes in February to express their opposition to the president's decision to send additional reinforcements. (Check out CWF's online Congressional Scorecard to see how your members of Congress voted.)

The liberal Democrats were wrong then, and they are wrong now when they still demand withdrawal in spite of the progress being made.

(Gary Bauer, End-of-Day, Aug. 21, 2007)