{"id":2564,"date":"2004-09-20T10:32:29","date_gmt":"2004-09-20T15:32:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/2564.html"},"modified":"2004-09-20T10:32:29","modified_gmt":"2004-09-20T15:32:29","slug":"at-least-a-few-republicans-arent-lost-in-a-fantasy-world-of-spin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/at-least-a-few-republicans-arent-lost-in-a-fantasy-world-of-spin\/","title":{"rendered":"At least a few Republicans aren’t lost in a fantasy world of spin"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bush may be running around the country telling voters how great conditions are in Iraq, but members of Congress, to their credit, aren’t buying it. Even the Republicans.<\/p>\n

Let’s see, first there was Sen. Chuck Hagel<\/a> (R-Neb.).<\/p>\n

“No, I don’t think we’re winning,” Senator Hagel of Nebraska said on the CBS News program “Face the Nation.” “We’re in trouble, we’re in deep trouble in Iraq.”<\/p>\n

Mr. Hagel, a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, said he planned on Monday to send administration officials a list of recommendations for changing course in Iraq, including a major effort to involve regional allies to speed up training of Iraqi police and troops.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Followed by Sen. John McCain<\/a> (R-Ariz.).<\/p>\n

Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona said Bush was not being “as straight as maybe we’d like to see” with the American people about Iraq.<\/p>\n

McCain, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said on “Fox News Sunday” that it was “a serious mistake” not to have had enough troops in place “after the initial successes” and that the mistake had led to “very, very significant” difficulties.<\/p>\n

“I think every day that goes by that we don’t remove these sanctuaries in Falluja and other places in the Sunni Triangle, the more expensive it’s going to be at the time we take this out,” McCain said.<\/p>\n

He said he “would never have allowed the sanctuaries to start with.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And Sen. Lindsey Graham<\/a> (R-S.C.).<\/p>\n

Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), said he believes the situation in Iraq is going to get worse before it gets better, adding that he believes the administration has done a “poor job of implementing and adjusting at times.” Speaking on CNN’s “Late Edition,” he called for more troops in Iraq. <\/p>\n

“The administration has been stubborn about troops,” Graham said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And, my personal favorite, Sen. Richard Lugar<\/a> (R-Ind.).
\n<\/p>\n

A major problem, said leaders of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was incompetence by the administration in reconstructing the country’s shattered infrastructure.<\/p>\n

The chairman, Sen. Richard Lugar, noted that Congress appropriated $18.4 billion a year ago this week for reconstruction. No more than $1 billion has been spent. “This is the incompetence in the administration,” Lugar, R-Ind., said on ABC’s “This Week.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For Lugar to describe the Bush administration has “incompetent” is stunning. Lugar is a conservative Republican and one of the more respected voices on foreign policy in Congress. As a long-time lawmaker, he also chooses his words carefully. <\/p>\n

“Incompetence” is the last thing America needs right now, but according to the Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, that’s exactly what we have.<\/p>\n

At this point, Democratic talking points are unneccessary. To help voters understand how inept Bush is in handling this war, we don’t need to broadcast John Kerry’s criticisms; we can just tell the public what Republicans<\/i> think of Bush’s leadership.<\/p>\n

Of course, when Dems make charges similar to those of Hagel, McCain, Graham and Lugar, nuts like Zell Miller say we have a “shameful, manic obsession with bringing down a commander in chief.” The truth is, genuine concern for the debacle in Iraq can, and should, cross party lines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bush may be running around the country telling voters how great conditions are in Iraq, but members of Congress, to their credit, aren’t buying it. Even the Republicans. Let’s see, first there was Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.). “No, I don’t think we’re winning,” Senator Hagel of Nebraska said on the CBS News program “Face the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2564","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2564\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}