An ‘ass-kicking’ talking point

September 8, 2007

I guess war supporters have settled on their new assessment of conditions in Iraq. Upon arriving in Australia a few days ago, the president insisted that “we’re kicking ass” in Iraq.

In a speech to the American Enterprise Institute, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) was apparently on the same page.

“My last visit convinced me more than anything else that the biggest benefit of the surge is to take the men and women on the front lines and change their attitude about their mission. They’ve gone from going around, waiting to be shot, to feeling like they’re kicking their ass.”

Kicking whose ass? Graham didn’t say.

Indeed, Graham had all kinds of interesting comments at AEI, including a prediction that we’ll see “a major breakthrough” within “weeks” on political reconciliation, which he believes is unfolding at “breakneck speed.” Regrettably, Graham is the only person who seems to believe this.

But it’s the ass-kicking that leaves me speechless. This week, the GAO documented the fact that Iraq has successfully completed three of the administration’s 18 benchmarks. Maybe 17% results were enough for Gentlemen’s Cs to get Bush through school, but in this universe, it hardly qualifies as “kicking ass.”

Both Graham and Bush have been struggling with reality for quite a while, but it seems as if they’ve decided the cautious optimism no longer works, at least as far as public relations goes. Dems keep pointing to reality, and highlighting the fact that the policy isn’t working. If Bush, Graham, and other war supporters concede publicly that the strategy is struggling, it would be perceived as a sign of weakness.

So, they swing for the fences — the Iraq policy that isn’t producing results isn’t just working; it’s actually “kicking ass.”

The AEI audience seemed to appreciate Graham’s comments, and I don’t doubt the GOP base and congressional Republicans got to pump their fist in the air a bit after hearing the president’s remarks. There may even be some Americans who hear about this and think, “Well, if things were really going poorly, the president and his allies wouldn’t seem so confident.”

But that doesn’t make it so.

3 out of 18 benchmarks… Guess I wouldn’t like to see what not kicking ass looks like.

  • Maybe Linds is trying to inject a little testosterone into his persona so people will forget he’s about to be outed by the same blogger who took down Larry Craig.

    Nice try, Linds. Ain’t working.

  • Damn not only did my senator inherit Stroms senate seat, he seemed to have inherited his senilty also..

  • “My last visit convinced me more than anything else that the biggest benefit of the surge is to take the men and women on the front lines and change their attitude about their mission. They’ve gone from going around, waiting to be shot, to feeling like they’re kicking their ass.”

    If he’s really successfully conning them, that doesn’t make it anything to be proud of, because reality is bound to show up.

  • Great! The GOP leadership have adopted the Toby Keith approach to foreign policy public relations.

    We are truly governed by adolescents.

  • I find myself wondering—if I fill out only 17% of my tax return, will I still get a refund? Insted of a meager, paltry few dollars, will I get a “kick-ass” refund?” If my daughter completes 17% of her school-work, will she get all A’s, and find her name on the honor roll every month? Can I buy $100.00 of groceries now for $17.00—and can I expect an 83% reduction in the cost of gasoline, property taxes, utilities, and automobile insurance?

    I’d like to see everyone who owes money to IRS next April 15 send a check for 17% of what they owe, and attach a note saying “we’re paying our taxes—in full, via “the George W. Bush Kicking-Ass-in-Iraq accounting method.”

    Rovian mathematics, is seems, might be of great benefit to the average American citizen. It might also, however, bankrupt the administration, and force an early termination of the Iraq Debacle…. :

  • I believe that one definition of a totalitarian police state is “kicking their ass.” So Graham Cracker is right.

  • It’s the Rambo fantasy all over again where everything is reduced to “kicking ass”. Rambo single handedly got all the prisoners of war out of Viet Nam by ‘kicking ass’. It’s the we’re #1, we are the toughest, we kick ass HS football cheer totally devoid of reality or logic. These idiots just run around with hands in the air screaming we’re kicking ass while the rest of us are discussing foreign policy and political science which this crowd fails miserably at.
    It is an outright embarrassment to the nation. Lindsay Graham is a liar and not credible on Iraq preferring to “jew” the Iraqis down on cheap carpet deals in a ‘Potemken” style mock marketplace than provide any real help to their people. How this loud mouth bigot manages to stay in office is just amazing. This is not the rhetoric of American leaders but rather the cheap talk of rabble-rousers pushing mob violence. Lesson learned…when you see their true colors it’s hard to ever look at them the same way again.

  • Where did all this interest in “kicking ass” begin? Perhaps with Jeff Gannon’s (aka James Dale Guckert’s) 200+ visits to the Rove-Cheney White House? Maybe it’s a consonant shift at the highest levels of power: “licking”(or “dicking” or “pricking”) transforming itself into “kicking”.

    The English language is a marvel. It’s nice to see our GOP leaders outperforming Shakespeare in its usage.

  • I thought it was funny to hear of 7 U.S. deaths reported recently. Maybe I just don’t tune into the news too much, but it seemed the news doesn’t really report on deaths in Iraq, and I was wondering why the mention. It’s almost as if it makes it sounds as if deaths haven’t occurred in a while, because you haven’t heard of them in a while. Just for all those who may read this blog, but don’t have a good idea of how well the surge is working you can check out these two websites:

    As you can see, there were 84 US deaths in August and 18 so far in September. View the graph at the side of the page.

    Here are some recent deaths of Iraqis: as you can see from the bottom of the page, there were 2,575 total civillian deaths in August.

  • Benchmarks are for wimps. Diplomacy is for wimps. When America wants something, we kick somebody’s ass.

    So why do you surrender-monkeys want to set a timetable for defeat while we are kicking their ass? Why do you hate America?

    (See, I’ve learned wingnutese well enough that I’ve almost lost my accent.)

  • Dumbya/Linds explained:

    Rovian Era Strategery –

    Use the Big Lie to fool the public.
    If the Lie you are using doesn’t take, or the take starts to slip, lie bigger.

  • But as any fan of John Milius-directed movies will tell you, you can’t “kick ass” without “taking names”.

    AMERICA: FUCK YEAH!!!

  • With each Bush quote like the above, I wonder more and more if Bush isn’t actually mentally disturbed in some way. I watched a speech of his from ten years ago, and it’s hard to believe he hasn’t undergone a lobotomy or something. He used to be articulate and relatively intelligent, back in the day. What the hell is going on?

    The speech, in case anyone’s interested:

  • Lindsey Graham…wasn’t he on that sitcom, News Radio? Seriously, I think you’re right. The neo-cons are insulting reality to think that they are kicking anyone’s ass in Iraq. I guess they’ve decided that Bin Laden does this more good by remaining free than by being caught. Sad.

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