At this point, it’s probably a little too easy to highlight the war-related flaws in a Charles Krauthammer column, but Krauthammer’s latest was so entertaining, I can’t myself.
By the day, the debate at home about Iraq becomes increasingly disconnected from the realities of the war on the ground. The Democrats in Congress are so consumed with negotiating among their factions the most clever linguistic device to legislatively ensure the failure of the administration’s current military strategy — while not appearing to do so — that they speak almost not at all about the first visible results of that strategy.
And preliminary results are visible. The landscape is shifting in the two fronts of the current troop surge: Anbar province and Baghdad.
As it turns out, “preliminary results are visible,” but Krauthammer apparently can’t see them. Baghdad, of course, was home to two huge disasters — a suicide bomber destroying Baghdad’s Sarafiya bridge and another suicide bomber detonating a device inside Iraq’s parliament — before Krauthammer bragged about progress towards peace in the city. Tragically, there were more “visible results” this morning: bombings in Karbala and the Baghdad area killed at least 56 people and wounded scores of others.
And yet, Krauthammer believes Democrats are “increasingly disconnected from the realities of the war on the ground.”
Apparently, before his column went to print, Krauthammer managed to sneak in a “to be sure” line: “The situation in Baghdad is more mixed. Yesterday’s bridge and Green Zone attacks show the insurgents’ ability to bomb sensitive sites. On the other hand, pacification is proceeding.” If multiple bombings are indicative of “pacification,” I’d hate to see what he considers escalating violence.
Krauthammer then turned his attention to Capitol Hill.
How at this point — with only about half of the additional surge troops yet deployed — can Democrats be trying to force the United States to give up? The Democrats say they are carrying out their electoral mandate from the November election. But winning a single-vote Senate majority as a result of razor-thin victories in Montana and Virginia is hardly a landslide.
Should we really debate the merits of the Dems’ mandate? If so, terrific — almost no one was willing to predict that Democrats would be able to knock off well-funded Republican incumbents and get a net gain of six seats in 2006. And yet, they did, defeating two likely GOP presidential candidates (Allen and Santorum) in their home states. All available evidence suggests these victories came as a direct result of Americans’ desire to see a change in Iraq policy, and subsequent polls show the public strongly supporting the Dems’ approach. “Electoral mandate”? Yeah, I’d say so.
Second, if the electorate was sending an unconflicted message about withdrawal, how did the most uncompromising supporter of the war, Sen. Joe Lieberman, win handily in one of the most liberal states in the country?
Christopher Orr summarized the sophistry of this argument nicely: Let’s see, the fact that a popular three-term incumbent and recent Democratic vice presidential nominee lost his primary race against a virtually unknown challenger and managed to stay in the Senate only by running as an independent and consolidating the conservative vote from his still-more-hapless GOP opponent is evidence against voter dissatisfaction with the war?”
And third, where was the mandate for withdrawal? Almost no Democratic candidates campaigned on that. They campaigned for changing the course the administration was on last November. Which the president has done.
Nonsense. If Krauthammer seriously believes Americans wanted a change in course that includes a massive escalation and extended tours for badly-stretched military, he’s living on another planet. As Orr added, “[Americans] wanted a change, Krauthammer concedes, he just doesn’t think they cared in which direction. Ramping down the war? Fine. Ratcheting it up? Sure. Unilateral withdrawal? Okay. Universal conscription? Why not? Surprise us. ”
Ultimately, Krauthammer quoted a Marine commandant who argued that we “have turned the corner” in Iraq.
Of all the cliches, this has to be the most ridiculous. Rahm Emanuel said, “When you’ve ‘turned the corner’ in Iraq more times than Danica Patrick at the Indy 500, it means you are going in circles.”
Emanuel said that a year ago, when “turned the corner” was already tired and over-used.
Honestly, how does such foolishness even appear on the WaPo op-ed page? Matt Yglesias has a theory: Krauthammer’s “a Demented Rightwinger; the Washington Post will publish anything he writes, no matter how terrible, and he’ll never be fired, because for the Post to do anything else would be to show how liberal that liberal media is.”
Sad, but true.