Guess Who Said It
And no fair peeking.
Since retaking Congress in November 2006, the top foreign-policy priority of the Democratic Party has not been to expand the size of our military for the War on Terror or to strengthen our democracy-promotion efforts in the Middle East or to prevail in Afghanistan. It has been to pull our troops out of Iraq, to abandon the democratically elected government there and to hand a defeat to President Bush.
Iraq has become the singular litmus test for Democratic candidates. No Democratic presidential primary candidate today speaks of America’s moral or strategic responsibility to stand with the Iraqi people against the totalitarian forces of radical Islam or of the consequences of handing a victory in Iraq to al Qaeda and Iran . . .
Even as evidence has mounted that Gen. David Petraeus’ new counterinsurgency strategy is succeeding, Democrats have remained emotionally invested in a narrative of defeat and retreat in Iraq, reluctant to acknowledge the progress we are now achieving . . .
For many Democrats, the guiding conviction in foreign policy isn’t pacifism or isolationism - it is distrust and disdain of Republicans in general and President Bush in particular . . .
snip
There is something profoundly wrong - something that should trouble all of us - when we have elected Democratic officials who seem more worried about how the Bush administration might respond to Iran’s murder of our troops than about the fact that Iran is murdering our troops.
There is likewise something profoundly wrong when we see candidates who are willing to pander to this politically paranoid, hyperpartisan sentiment in the Democratic base - even if it sends a message of weakness and division to the Iranian regime.
For me, this episode reinforces how far the Democratic Party has strayed . . .
Here’s a hint:
That is why I call myself an Independent Democrat today. It is because my foreign-policy convictions are the convictions that have traditionally animated the Democratic Party - but they exist in me today independent of the Democratic Party, which has largely repudiated them.
The comments were made by Senator Joseph Lieberman here.
Lieberman, who just two short election cycles ago was the Democrat Party’s choice for Vice President, holds a view of the Vision and Promise of the United States that once held sway in the Democrat Party—until BDS took over the Leadership there—that was once elucidated proudly and profoundly this way:
We dare not forget today that we are the heirs of that first revolution. Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans—born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage—and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this Nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world.
Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty
This much we pledge—and more.
The Generation of Democrats that John Kennedy spoke about received that torch from the Generation of Democrats led by Franklin Roosevelt. Unfortunately for the Democrats and this Nation, they then passed that torch onto the Generation of Democrats led by Bill and Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer, and others who used it only as a means of illuminating a path to personal and political power, amplified by that paranoid hyperpartisanship Lieberman spoke of. It is a path that eschews the lofty rhetoric and noble deeds of their predecessors and supplants it with lies and innuendo designed to demonize their opponent in a nearly schizophrenic fashion. The Democrats have used their power in congress this past year to make symbolic votes to hurt Bush, and to appropriate record amounts of earmarked pork for themselves—and little that actually helps the country, especially in defeating it’s enemies. It is governance, and the pursuit of power, by Bush Derangement Syndrome, nothing more.
To illustrate that, I only have to go as far as Hillary Clinton’s response when she was cornered over Driver’s Licenses for Illegals in New York. The problem, to hear her say it, is not that she supports giving Licenses to illegals—it’s that George Bush failed at something.
There is nothing inspiring, nothing noble, no lofty goals espoused. Even those things they claim to advocate as “serving the public good” are those which pretend to guarantee something for nothing, or to give us the supposed satisfaction of punishing people more successful than we. We were even told by one of their candidates that the prospect of genocide in Iraq if we left was nothing we should concern ourselves with—and they continue to repeat lies regarding how we went to war, who outed Valerie Plame, and that we will all very soon will be reduced to globally warmed cinders if we don’t pay higher taxes or buy carbon credits.
They were so cynical, so negative, and so uninspired by anything more than hatred for George Bush that the truly believed we could not—or perhaps should not—win in Iraq that they very successfully covered their complicity in it’s prosecution by taking as many steps and “symbolic votes” in order to make it “George Bush’s War.”
It says something unpretty about them that they were so successful in doing it that they now have to ignore that the war is being won and continue to lie to the People and tell them it is not.
Now, our soldiers are winning a very hard and long fought fight.
I will echo what Lieberman said here:
“There is something profoundly wrong - something that should trouble all of us - when we have elected Democratic officials who seem more worried about how the Bush administration might respond to Iran’s murder of our troops than about the fact that Iran is murdering our troops.”
and say this:
There is something profoundly wrong with a Political party wedded so completely to one strategy in a war that they ignore the facts on the ground and the advice of the Generals—especially when their strategy ignores the Victory that is being made by our brave soldiers.
At the end of The Bridge Over The River Kwai, Alec Guinness realizes that his single minded pursuit of a personal victory over the Japanese Prison Camp Commandant has manifested itself in an achievement of which he can be proud, but that will help the Allies lose the War. At the last minute he sees that his exposure of the Commando raid sent to destroy the bridge he and his men built results in their deaths and says:
“My God, what have I done.”
My hope is that a enough Democrats have an Alec Guinness moment and pull back from the precipice that paranoid hyerpartisan hatred has perched them on. I may actually consider voting for some if they do.
BTW, the last thing said in The Bridge Over The River Kwai was uttered by Jack Hawkins who, witnessing the actions by Guiness’ character described above, observed:
“Madness.”
November 13th, 2007 at 6:30 am
I was clueless till I read ‘independent Democrat’
Joe Lieberman?