Yglesias noted this afternoon that Joe Lieberman is “probably beyond shark-jumping at this point.” That’s no doubt true. (For me, Lieberman’s point of no return came in 2004, when he questioned the U.S. apology for Abu Ghraib torture because, “[T]hose who were responsible for killing 3,000 Americans on September 11th, 2001, never apologized.”)
But the Connecticut senator continues to push the embarrassment envelope at every available opportunity. This morning, for example, Lieberman, after praising Gen. David Petraeus and Amb. Ryan Crocker, seemed utterly dumfounded by the fact that some senators are displeased by conditions in Iraq.
There’s a lot to digest here, but this was the quote that stood out for me: “Hey, let’s be honest about this: The Iraqi political leadership has achieved a lot more political reconciliation and progress since September than the American political leadership has. So we’ve got to give credit for that.”
This is just so wrong, it’s hard to know where to start. The obvious problem, of course, is with reality. Political reconciliation in Iraq hasn’t occurred. Perhaps Lieberman missed this report from the weekend: “A new assessment of U.S. policy in Iraq by the same experts who advised the original Iraq Study Group concludes that political progress is ‘so slow, halting and superficial’ and political fragmentation ‘so pronounced’ that the United States is no closer to being able to leave Iraq than it was a year ago.”
But it’s also worth noting that the comparison between Iraq and the United States is itself foolish to the point of humiliation.
As Yglesias put it:
To state the obvious, America has a heated political debate, but liberals and conservatives aren’t shooting mortars at each other and we don’t have pitched battles in the streets. To compare the situation in Iraq to the persistence of strong partisan disagreement in the United States is idiotic.
Quite right. For a U.S. senator to compare Iraqi officials to Americans, and insist that Iraqis are somehow more impressive, is kind of offensive, in addition to being wrong.
Indeed, I’ve noticed that this comes up from time to time in conservative circles. If Iraq’s parliament passes a budget, the right says, “See? Iraqi politicians are more efficient than American politicians.” If Iraq passes a piece of noteworthy legislation, the right says, “See? Iraqi politicians can work together better than American politicians.”
I can’t really relate to the worldview of those who support the status quo in Iraq and want it to continue indefinitely, but I really have trouble relating to U.S. political figures who compare Iraqis to Americans, and believe we should be more like them.
For what it’s worth, here’s an excerpted transcript of the clip above:
“General and Ambassador, thank you for your extraordinary service in the cause of freedom in Iraq.
“I must say that, as I listen to your testimony, which is encouraging and yet quite realistic, and in my opinion, not overstated — you’ve told us that the strategy associated with the surge is working, progress has been made, but it’s entirely reversible. You’ve been very frank about some of the problems that we still face.
“What I’m about to say, with respect to my colleagues who have consistently opposed our presence in Iraq, as I hear the questions and the statements today, it seems to me that there’s a kind of hear no progress in Iraq, see no progress in Iraq, and most of all, speak of no progress in Iraq.
“The fact is, there has been progress in Iraq, thanks to extraordinary effort by the two of you and all those who serve under you on our behalf.
“I wish we could come to a point where we could have an agreement on the facts that you are presenting to us, the charts you’ve shown, the military progress, the extraordinary drop in ethno-sectarian violence, the drop in civilian deaths, the drop in American deaths, and the very impressive political progress in Iraq since last September.
“Hey, let’s be honest about this: The Iraqi political leadership has achieved a lot more political reconciliation and progress since September than the American political leadership has. So we’ve got to give credit for that.
“I repeat, I wish we could have an agreement on the facts which you presented. You work for us. I don’t distrust those facts.
“And I wish we could go from an agreement on those facts to figure out how we can move to more success so we can bring more of our troops home. That’s apparently not going to happen in the near future.”