Gamble?

It's interesting to watch how Republicans are reacting to the current showdown with President Bush. Obviously they want to condemn Democrats, but on two somewhat exclusive grounds. They want to accuse Congressional Democrats of both being weak and and standing up to the President. Makes for some confusion.

William Rusher's latest article finesses it by saying that their standing up to President Bush is in fact a political gamble, after getting a factually shaky account of the current situation. He notes that some Democrats voted against the plan in a way that makes it seem like they are opposed to it; in fact many of the Democrats who voted against Pelosi's bill did so because they felt it was too weak. He also predicts that the Senate will quash it, which has proven inaccurate (admittedly because the Republicanoids want President Bush to get the chance to veto it).

But let's go back to this gamble idea.

Still, a realist would have to concede that the chances are that the Democrats will win their bet, or at least escape major damage if they lose it. American forces have spent four years trying to devise a way of suppressing the terrorist insurgents that have killed so many scores of thousands of their fellow Iraqis, thus far with notable lack of success. It seems unlikely that a military "surge," however well conducted, can reverse that record.

Of course by positioning this position as a political gamble he robs it, purposefully I assume, of any of the moral implications involved. Congress isn't working to get our troops out of Iraq because they care about the troops or because they think us being there is a horrible mistake. Nope. They are doing it simply to score political points. By shifting the terrain we get to talk about strategies rather than whether it's right or wrong, moral or immoral, for President Bush to keep troops dying in Iraq in a situation Rusher admits might not get any better.

I suppose it's more enjoyable to talk about strategy anyway.