Keep on Surgin'
EDITORIAL Keep on Surgin' I don't think Congress ought to be running the war. I think they ought to be funding the troops. —George W. Bush, press conference, July 12, 2007 President Bush is...
...Al Qaeda in Iraq has now surged against the surge...
...If Bush can hang tough, and General Petraeus can keep on surging, the Defeatists will fail...
...And, so far as one can tell, the country as a whole pulled back a bit from the irresponsibility of cutting and running...
...Congress can, in principle, achieve this, and the Democrats who control this Congress are doing their best to bring it about...
...The Defeatist Democrats have lots of support from the mainstream media, most of whom have simply given up on reporting the war or analyzing arguments about the war...
...We're pushing them back...
...If so, this past week could turn out to have been a pivotal moment in the Iraq war...
...But run-of-the-mill foreign policy and White House reporters have little interest in what is actually happening in Iraq, or in a real consideration of the likely outcomes of different policy options...
...It may be, though, that calling this the re-McGoverniza-tion of that party is unfair to George McGovern—especially as his friends assembled in Washington this weekend to celebrate his 85th birthday...
...They're not even reporting what's happening in Washington...
...Over the last few months, the United States (finally) surged in Iraq...
...The establishment, like the media and the Democrats, wants to discredit and humiliate an administration that too often (though not often enough...
...And the United States will have a good chance to succeed in Iraq...
...George W. Bush, press conference, July 12, 2007 President Bush is absolutely right...
...But in a way his admonition to Congress at his press conference last week was unfair...
...The story of the past week—an important week— is this: They failed...
...All for naught...
...Many in the Bush administration who care for their standing in the establishment's eyes have spent an awful lot of time cultivating these masters of nuance and complexity...
...Now, the assumption in the media, and among most in the political world, remains that the Defeatists have the momentum, that Bush is fighting a rearguard action, and that his retreat at home, and U.S...
...The notion that their party is serious about any policy alternative other than getting out and giving up is becoming unsustainable...
...But what if this week is a harbinger of things to come...
...As for the foreign policy establishment and its fellow travelers in the punditocracy, one might have thought they could be serious about this war—actually analyzing events, engaging in a grown-up debate about the real-world consequences of different courses of action, keeping calm amid the political posturing...
...He's correct that Congress can't run a war...
...Many around Bush wobbled...
...defeat abroad, are basically inevitable...
...Now the Democrats in Congress, the mainstream media, and the foreign policy establishment have mounted their own surges against the surge...
...security interests as Iraq—and that McGovern had a coherent, if mistaken, world view that guided his actions in a principled way...
...But Bush stood firm...
...It is worth noting, after all, that Vietnam wasn't nearly as central to U.S...
...Last week, 95 percent of Democrats in the House voted in favor of legislation requiring that the United States withdraw most combat troops from Iraq by April 1, 2008...
...defeat for the sake of destroying the Bush administration...
...What if they continue to sound the tocsin of defeat—and the president, and the commanders, and the soldiers, don't snap to and obey...
...Most Republicans on the Hill stood firm...
...Iran is surging against the surge...
...What if the surge continues to show better and better results, and the Bush administration does a more effective job of communicating them...
...We'll just call them Defeatists, who are willing to ensure a U.S...
...dared to think for itself, and to act without their permission...
...But this Congress doesn't want to run a war...
...In the process, congressional Democrats are also doing a good job of re-McGovernizing their party...
...Over the last few weeks, all of these estimable entities— the Democratic party in Congress, much of the media, and the foreign policy establishment—have joined together to try to panic the country, and the Bush administration, into giving up...
...What if the Defeatists have overplayed their hand...
...Actually, the newsmen who know something, like John F. Burns and Michael R. Gordon of the New York Times, have produced some terrific reporting...
...They're out to destroy Bush, his ideas, and his supporters, no matter the consequences for the country...
...So it would be unjust to George McGovern to call these Democrats McGovernites...
...They're simply committed to discrediting the war and humiliating the Bush administration...
...It wants to lose a war...
...William Kristol...
...So far, Bush is beating them back...
Vol. 12 • July 2007 • No. 42
