{"id":11165,"date":"2007-06-18T15:40:39","date_gmt":"2007-06-18T19:40:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/11165.html"},"modified":"2007-06-18T15:40:39","modified_gmt":"2007-06-18T19:40:39","slug":"he-was-against-the-democratic-plan-for-iraq-before-he-was-for-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/he-was-against-the-democratic-plan-for-iraq-before-he-was-for-it\/","title":{"rendered":"He was against the Democratic plan for Iraq before he was for it"},"content":{"rendered":"

I suppose it’s easy to forget, but former Virginia Gov. James Gilmore (R) is a presidential candidate right now who’s struggling to distinguish himself. Today, he tries to carve out a niche with a “third-way<\/a>” approach to the war in Iraq, between Dems and the Bush administration.<\/p>\n

In a WaPo op-ed that’s written as a letter to the president, Gilmore gets the obligatory attack on Dems out of the way early.<\/p>\n

Like you, I reject the Democrats’ policy of an immediate withdrawal or a withdrawal on a timetable. Unfortunately, they are playing to the polls to obtain political advantage at home, to the detriment of the United States.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Those bastards. You’d have to be some kind of lunatic to endorse the Dems’ poll-driven war policy, right? What could they possibly be thinking? How irresponsible can a party be?<\/p>\n

Then Gilmore explains his approach, which happens to be identical to the Dems’ policy.
\n<\/p>\n

First, I urge that we stop thinking it is our responsibility to solve the Iraq conflict. It is not. We behave as an occupier…. [T]he responsibility for peace and order of the country rests with the Iraqi government, which can make a specific request to the United States for assistance like any other country of the world. […]<\/p>\n

I believe the only realistic alternative — the least bad option, if you will — is a limited deliberate drawdown of our military men and women and a redeployment of the forces remaining in the region to areas where they can more efficiently and effectively carry out a clearly defined mission.<\/p>\n

I believe that the American military is on target when officers ask for a mission that includes maintaining — either at bases in Iraq at the request of Iraq or in bases in Turkey, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia — a military force powerful enough to launch special operations missions against al-Qaeda or Sunni insurgents in Iraq; train Iraqi troops to defend their own country; and guarantee the security of the Iraqi government, if so desired by Iraq.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Congratulations, Mr. Gilmore, you just articulated exactly what Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and Barack Obama have suggested we do. You know, the ones you said are acting “to the detriment of the United States.”<\/p>\n

Kevin Drum suggests<\/a> the Dems’ top tier would “almost be justified in suing Gilmore for plagiarism.” That’s true, but I also think it’s a subtle opportunity for Dems. How bad is the Bush\/GOP war policy? Even conservative Republican presidential candidates are endorsing the Democrats’ proposal.<\/p>\n

Perhaps Gilmore’s Republican rivals would be so kind as to join him in standing behind Democrats on war policy, too?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I suppose it’s easy to forget, but former Virginia Gov. James Gilmore (R) is a presidential candidate right now who’s struggling to distinguish himself. Today, he tries to carve out a niche with a “third-way” approach to the war in Iraq, between Dems and the Bush administration. In a WaPo op-ed that’s written as a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11165\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}