President Bush seems likely to recommend a temporary increase in U.S. forces in Iraq. But so far, the "surge" option isn’t playing well with the public or with lawmakers — including most Republicans. Only 12 percent of Americans support sending more troops to Iraq, according to a Bloomberg/Los Angeles Times poll in early December. And Bush could have trouble getting support from more than 12 of the 49 Republican senators, columnist Robert Novak wrote. "It’s Alice in Wonderland," Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., told Novak. "I’m absolutely opposed to sending any more troops to Iraq. It is folly."
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
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57 Comments
Good to see that even most Republicans are seeing that Bush’s policies are idiotic. However I predict that Bush will proceed with his ’surge’
The only surge is the one in the neo-cons pants when they think about all that oil they haven’t stolen yet.
The generals are running this war, remember. That’s what “Mr. Responsibility I’m-the-Decider” keeps telling us . . .
An interesting conversation with a friend in California brought out the fact Bush is still trusted by a majority in the state. Too much cheap wine, I’m thinking.
PDaddy–
I think your friend is misinformed.
http://www.pollkatz.homestead.com/files/graphic-approval_files/pollkatzmainGRAPHICS_8911_image001.gif
This link is a graph plotting some dozen or so major polls that try to evaluate Bush’s approval rating.
The latest round showed an average of all the polls at about 34 percent.
Nixon’s approval was something like 28 percent when he resigned.
So the best you can say about Bush is that he’s still not as loathed as Nixon yet . . .
I am wondering if history is about to repeat itself here.
Gerald Ford was really the uniter and George W. Bush who professes to be the uniter, has done but embrace policies that do nothing but divide.
I’m just wondering what the future holds for us all.
The opinion was from a friend in California, CAm. Nothing else was implied; nor do I care, since I don’t live there anymore. It was an observation by him, and, believe me, I trust his observations way more than the ones I read here.
correction: Bush has done nothing but embrace policies that have divided us.
To mix a few threads – Nixon only resigned when it became obvious that he had lost the support of Republican Congressmen and Senators. Until that point (the ’smoking’ gun) he had resolved to ride out the impeachment debacle. He even stated that he resigned, not because he was guilty, but because he had lost his “political base.”
When Bush has so little support, even from Republicans and the pressure is on to begin investigations into the rush to war and the conduct of the occupation, will Bush follow suit with Nixon?
Bush and Cheney are close to being irrelevent at this point – how much longer will it be before the talk turns to resignation?
puffdaddy – my in-laws who live in CA tell me Bush is almost universally reviled there. Maybe your friend is in Orange County.
WSC – if Bush moves ahead with ’surge’ and ignores the Baker report look for that. Nixon ignored advice of senior Republicans; Bush is following that same path. Difference is – there is nobody in line to be “Ford”.
I don’t think the surge of troops will do anything but to tick off the troops who have to return to Iraq with even higher frequency than they do now. I have nephews that are on their third trip over there and some who will soon be on their third trip.
All of them say, “yeah some things are doing very well.” But almost all of them say we are spinning our wheels in Iraq and it’s time to get out. They blame it on the newly formed Iraqi government which one of them said, “Couldn’t pour water out of bucket.”
Unless we can put a squad on every corner, it’s probably just a waste of lives.
SJM,
Interesting. I am very sorry to hear your nephews are having to go back, and glad to see we’re on the same page about how futile Bush’s initiative really is. This Iraq victory fantasy shit has got to end.
I think Bush is going to walk into a Congressional buzz saw with this talk about a need for still more ’sacrifice.’ Even Dick Lugar said so on the Sunday morning news shows.
To import a question from another thread, I do think that if Bush tries to go to the wall over more troops against major opposition, we could see a major, major, major constitutional showdown. It is not inconceivable to me that if Bush tries to push this thing all the way, he could find his Presidency in real jeopardy. People are really pissed off, and he has zero base of support for escalating jack shit.
The fact that he jabbed the ISG’s report back in James Baker’s eye means that he’s burned major institutional bridges in DC. Where does Bush think his base of support is coming from? They’re in fantasy land.
What Bush doesn’t realize, and has never realized, is that most of the President’s power comes in the form of soft power, i.e. the power of persuasion and, well, actual leadership. If he thinks he can just force his will on a recalcitrant Congress, an unwilling public, and an uncooperative military, he’s going to find out real quick how limited the power of the Presidency actually is.
So, SJM, I could see things turning on Bush real quick. And if the situation in Iraq goes south in a big way (i.e. rout or destruction of large numbers of military personnnel), I don’t see Bush’s Presidency surviving. He’s already in the low 30’s, after all.
Impeachment … and especially conviction. What would it take? In the House, easy. The majority party can do it alone as they did in the extremely partisam Clinton-bash. But, in the Senate it would take a significant chunk of the other party. Nixon was put on notice that his own party would not fall on their swords for him; that is why he bailed out. Clinton, on the other hand, had his party behind him. Bush seems to be losing his party. “Bush could have trouble getting support from more than 12 of the 49 Republican senators” That could spell doom for him.
CF:
Just what, specifically, would you propose are the “high crimes or misdemeanors” (the constitutional language) which would support impeachment and conviction? Please respond, if at all, with specific violations of law or clearly established constitutional limitations, not generalities.
Additionally, I’m not sure Congress, short of specifically removing spending authority for additional forces or withdrawing Constitutional authority entirely (which could provide a constitutional crisis re: the War Powers Act), could prevent such a “surge.” The President is C-in-C, after all, and while I agree that much of a President’s authority is informal (the “bully pulpit, if you will), that one is fairly specific.
Just wondering . . .
GMC70,
Dunno. I’m not a lawyer, and I’m not going to play this game on your turf. As yet, thanks to six years of no Congressional oversight whatsoever, we have no clear picture of what the Administration has and hasn’t done.
But I will predict that once Henry Waxman, John Dingell, Carl Levin, and other committee chairs get their investigations underway, there’s going to be no shortage of things for which the Administration ought to be held accountable. Whether these are actionable or not is another matter entirely. But if a President can be impeached for lying about received a consensual blowjob, I think a President ought to be impeachable (at the very least) for cooking intelligence in support of predetermined policy objectives. Or for the malfeasance that allowed a major American city to be destroyed in a foreseeable natural disaster.
We’ll see. Once Congress starts acting like Congress and investigating the Adminstration (which already has announced its unwillingness to comply with subpeonas, by the way), all bets are off.
As for the ’soft’ power that could be brought to bear on Bush, if he pushes through this ’surge’ against the opposition of his party, I predict large-scale resistance on the part of DC power apparatus, the military, and GOP itself. The Administration has lots of Achilles heels, and leaks could rapidly erode the President’s legal and moral standing. I think the situation is much more fluid than you do, and that Bush has gone a bridge too far in rejecting the ISG’s report.
I don’t know whether things will go this way or not. But once Presidents reach a tipping point, as Nixon did, things come crashing down very rapidly. Think about Nixon: the chair of the Joint Chiefs ordered his subordinates not to obey any doomsday orders from Nixon without consulting him first.
I think Bush is a lot closer to this than you realize.
I would observe that the lack of Senate support referenced in Mr. Novak’s piece is specifically limited to the so-called “surge”, and nothing more. I, for one, do not think this translates at this time into a crisis of Nixonian proportion. It is my best guess, and a guess only, that if there was to be an impeachment and trial in the Senate, many of the 37 Republican senators would not vote to convict; and there would be some Democrats joining them.
As to impeachment itself, while I have from the beginning disagreed with the Iraq action, there must be something more presented than cherrypicking intelligence in favor of the invasion to substantiate beginning the process. If there is more, let’s hear it. I would remind all that the public statements made building support for the invasion were not made under oath, even if the same were untrue.
No one realistically pursued impeachment of LBJ over Vietnam, as an example, notwithstanding the way the Gulf of Tonkin “event” was used to obtain the authority to expand the war there. Nixon was facing impeachment and conviction over the coverup of the Watergate incident. If it can be shown that there was clearly unlawful action taken with the President’s knowledge and approval with regard to the Iraq invasion, and future actions were taken to cover this up, then let the hearings begin.
I acknowledge that “high crimes and misdemeanors” are whatever the House says they are. I think the public position of Speaker Pelosi in putting a damper on impeachment proceedings is appropriate; while we may wish things were different, they are where they are. At the present, the Congress’ time would be better served in figuring out a different course, including cutting off the funding should they so choose, for the future of our forces in Iraq, as opposed to holding highly publicized hearings over what, to date, is a general mess of the administration’s own making, with early support, at least, of the Congress with little hope of accomplishing anything of merit.
I recall reading, at the time, that the Democratic leadership at the time of the Iran-Contra matter realized that a clear case for impeachment of President Reagan existed, but they decided to not pursue the same, in light of the Watergate mess being so fresh in the memory; in other words, it would not be good for the country to proceed in that fashion. I submit that in light of the Clinton impeachment proceedings being of recent vintage, the same would hold true today with reference to Bush 43.
GMC – I think it might have been Ford in the House who defined “high crimes and misdemeanors” many years ago – anything a majority of the House says it is. I vaguely recall this had to do with the effort to impeach Earl Warren.
What were the crimes of Andrew Johnson?
With 2 million Iraq refugees amassed along its borders with neighboring countries, will Bush succeed in destabilizing the entire Mid-East?
steve – in many ways he already has. The vacuum will likely be filled by the countries that are hosting most of the refugees (since we refuse to help them) – Syria and Iran. Our ally Saudi Arabia is threatening to support the Sunni insurgency.
Can Splurge and Surge stop the inevitable Purge?
Damn it, Steve! Get it straight! This week’s slogan is (drumroll!!!!)
Surge and Accelerate.
It is important in the time of war to keep the latest slogan in mind.
Surge and Accelerate.
Coming soon to a country near you.
No matter what the rest of us thinkd Bush is going to go full steam ahead with increasing troops in Iraq. What does he have to lose? It is not his children!!I just get sick to my stomach when I think that more sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, and so forth will die for a lost cause. I try not to think about my kids over there and I say a prayer for them and every other soldier that God will overshadow them.I thought after Vietnam we had learned our lesson but it seems we have not. I really thought we would never do this again.
I just heard Keith Oblerman launch a tirade against a flawed decision to Surge & Accelerate! He was calling Bush out for all his lies. Not too long ago I posed the queery, “Who will be the next Edward R. Murrow of our generation”, to my surprise, I believe it may be Oblerman!
He even ended with “Good Night, and Good Luck”.
steve?
Where have you been?
Olberman’s been on that bit for months. And I give you he may well be the Murrow of our day. His commentary and delivery are devastating. You might want to google “Keith Olberman special comments” for some more examples.
I think CF is on the right track here. I don’t think the mood is there yet to impeach bush. But bush is in a very compromised spot. He can’t bail on Iraq. Unfortunately he has put all of us in that position with him. But neither can he stay the course or send more troops. In snubbing the ISG, he has left himself no real way out at all.
Somewhere? Colin Powell is choking back an “I told you so!”
The only real solution for Iraq in on some other course. International cooperation maybe. But as we know, bush has now limited himself to one course.
George ‘Custer’ Bush continues to prove to us that not only is he the PINOCCHIO PRESIDENT, but also the Village Idiot in the whitehouse.
A surge in troop numbers is good for military business.
More aircraft, helicopters, humvees etc. keeps the wheels turning.
The artificial intelligence of capitalism keeps the world at war.
Well the status quo isn’t working either, I don’t support anything other than something that could possibly win or get out. And right now the only thing I see allowing us to win would be dividing the country into their own separate regions.
I think the people today are more willing to go through an impeachment process BECAUSE the Republicans did it to Clinton. There are still people who are furious over that.
Politics is not like it was 30 years ago or even 20 years. It is much more partisan and an all out death match. And that can be blamed on the Conservative Republicans and the quest for power. They were the ones with the drumbeat of ‘my way or no way’ – much like George W. Bush.
“Politics is not like it was 30 years ago or even 20 years. It is much more partisan and an all out death match. And that can be blamed on the Conservative Republicans and the quest for power.”
haha lucee, You don’t read History much do you.
GMC asks what crimes Bush could be tried for–
Trying Bush for lying about the threat Iraq posed to the US is probably impossible without witnesses coming forward and e-mail evidence etc.
Bush can just say he thought Iraq really was a threat, and since he is so obviously out of touch with reality, it’s not hard to believe that he would believe that. It’s not that hard to believe that he STILL BELIEVES IT.
But what is more quantifiable is the massive fraud and graft going on even as we speak. Billions of dollars going “missing,” billions of dollars spent for secretaries and receptionists on their personal Escaldes (when they can’t drive out of the green zone), the 100 dollars for Halliburton to launder a small bag of a GI’s clothes, 180K big rig trucks ABANDONED because they have a flat tire–these are clearly legally actionable.
Lawyers may not be able to do much about a man being a dirty son-of-a-bitch like our W so clearly is, but when it comes straight forward like stealing money, the legal profession has all kinds of ways to punish offenders.
The window of opportunity for a ’surge’ in troops has long passed. George and Rumbsfeld were continuously forwarned, and they didn’t listen when chaoes was in its infancy.
The values of ME ‘eye for an eye’, revenge and honor, have now been un-leashed and it will continue to fumie the violence with no end in sight.
Military historians say when a civil war between factions is taking place, an occupying force should withdraw. Not to do so will ultimately force us to side with one side.
It appears Bush unwittingly is siding with the shiite majority, which is a pivotal mistake since, our Arab allies are mostly Sunni, and they will have no alternative but to engage to save the sunni faction.
George is no longer able to clean the ‘caca’ mess he’s made in the ME. It will take new leaders on both Iraqi-U.S. sides which will give a window of hope to the masses.
placing more troops is like throwing gasoline on the fire.
International law prohibits an occupying army from dividing another country into seperate regions, during an occupation. The movement has to come and voted within the Iraq country, and it is illegal for us to coerce them to do so.
Some, propose we use our Military troops to guard infrastracture, while the re-building is going on. However, our military is trained for combat operations., i.e., to use lethal force when chaos errupts. They are not trained to do ‘peace keeping’ while building is going on. This is a job for NATO or a U.N. multilateral special force. Unfortunately, the Europeans and U.N. do not want to come near Iraq., because they know darn well, it is an insormountable task which will take years and trillions to clean up. Also they orignally warned George not to destablilize it.
Martial law would have to be in place indefinite, and the Iraq economy cannot function while citizens are under house arrest. So who’s going to feed the masses? The neo-cons want the purse in Washington to continue doing so.
We have domestic problems here which need our immediate attention. We can no longer continue to fund billions, soon to become trillions, on the mess George created.—–
What policies are available to the U.S. warmakers, now? What options are plausible as what they would like to do, if they could have their way? Is withdrawal in the cards? Will withdrawal lead to even worse civil war? Will withdrawal lead to the victory of either Baathists or Islamic fundamentalists? What would be the effect of either? If there is no withdrawal now, forced by opposition or sought by some elites, or both, what do you think policy will be?
One policy available to US planners is to accept the responsibilities of aggressors generally: to pay massive reparations for their crimes — not aid, but reparations — and to attend to the will of the victims. But such thoughts are beyond consideration, or commentary, in societies with a deeply rooted imperial mentality and a highly indoctrinated intellectual class.
The government, and commentators, know quite a lot about the will of the victims, from regular polls run by the US and Western polling agencies. The results are quite consistent. By now, about 2/3 of Baghdadis want US forces to withdraw immediately, and about 70% of all Iraqis want a firm timetable for withdrawal, mostly within a year or less: that means far higher percentages in Arab Iraq, where the troops are actually deployed. 80% (including Kurdish areas) believe that the US presence increases violence, and almost the same percentage believe that the US intends to keep permanent military bases. These numbers have been regularly increasing.
As is the norm, Iraqi opinion is almost entirely disregarded. Current plans are to increase the US force level in Baghad, where the large majority of the population wants them out. The Baker-Hamilton report did not even mention Iraqi opinions on withdrawal. Not that they lacked the information; they cited the very same polls on matters of concern to Washington, specifically, support for attacks on US soldiers (considerered legimate by 60% of Iraqis), leading to policy recommendations for change of tactics. Similarly, US opinion is of little interest, not only about Iraq, but also about the next looming crisis, Iran. 75% of Americans (including 56% of Republicans) favor pursuing better relations with Iran rather than threats. That fact scarcely enters into policy considerations or commentary, just as policy is not affected by the large majorities that favor diplomatic relations with Cuba. Elite opinion is profoundly undemocratic, though overflowing with lofty rhetoric about love of democracy and messianic missions to promote democracy. There is nothing new or surprising about that, and of course it is not limited to the US.
As to the consequences of a US withdrawal, we are entitled to have our personal judgments, all of them as uninformed and dubious as those of US intelligence. But they do not matter. What matters is what Iraqis think. Or rather, that is what should matter, and we learn a lot about the character and moral level of the reigning intellectual culture from the fact that the question of what the victims want barely even arises.
Yes, I do read history and my point was that Ford had at least the common decency to put partisanship aside for the sake of the whole country. Why, even Ronald Reagan used to talk about being friends with the other side of the aisle after work.
What has happened since the era of these two men? Conservative Republicans – that’s what happened. These self-righteous, holier-than-thou types are the meanest and dirtiest of them all. And by the looks of the last Congress – many of them had their own sex scandals and lobbyists scandals going on. The Conservative Republicans were supposedly going to clean up Washington DC and instead just made it dirtier and sleazier.
Or don’t you read the real history books? Or do you read the revised version by the Conservative Republicans?
lucee is right.
thats what we get for having a frat boy mentality for a president
this person will absolutely ruin America
What I’m laughing at Lucee is Demos will blame everything that is wrong with the world to Republicans.
Let’s see, that new Attorney General was a Republican, is he now a good guy and nothing he did in the past his fault according to your guidelines?
Where you going to draw the line? Are airline crashes Republican Fault? How about birth defects? Waist size of middle age Chinese? Maybe that fungus in between the toes of a himalayan Yak?
What part of history do you want to include or exclude?
And btw, when the democrats ran everything, we had depressions, WWII, Korean War, Vietnam, Hostages taken…
oO what’s that? there were other things to cause that?
Oooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
How about that! :)
Did anyone here know that I’m gay? Now, I like them young men. The younger the better. And when I don’t have a dick shoved up my ass or in my mouth, I bitch about Bush.
The Hairy Bush Nuns all agree that Bush is a total doofus. But remember that guy Marilyn Manson? God he was a total freak of nature too, but what he and Bush have in common is that they are both laughing all the way to the bank.
Shock and Awe indeed.
65 cent has spoken.
Has anyone noticed how fucking stupid I am? If not, read the previous post. When I’m not acting like a dumb ass I’m bashing Bush. Why you ask? Because I’m just too stupid to get in there and make a difference. So, I just bitch and post drivvle.
I SEE THE LEFTIST IS TROLLING AGAIN! IT MUST BE A LEFTIST BECAUSE I SAID THAT TROLLS ARE ALWAYS LEFTIST!
A real CapnAmerica post always takes you to my typekey page.
Accept no substitutes. Check for the guarentee of quality.
BTW, Troll, painting me as gay doesn’t work because unlike you, I’m not homophobic and obsessed with gay sex.
If you really want to insult me, call me a Bush supporter.
Nothing would show a greater level of selfish ignorance than that.
GOOD MORNIN CAPPY!
Well, it seems that once again, a general gets “fired” for not agreeing with what the boss wants, even though the boss says he listens to the generals:
http://www.nypost.com/seven/01032007/postopinion/opedcolumnists/smart__but_wrong_opedcolumnists_john_podhoretz.htm?page=0http://www.nypost.com/seven/01032007/postopinion/opedcolumnists/smart__but_wrong_opedcolumnists_john_podhoretz.htm?page=0
If I recall correctly, General Casey recently expressed doubts about the idea of the “surge” being the right thing.
I believe, for myself only, that if the purpose of the additional troops is to provide security in Baghdad, and not to train the Iraqis, then the surge is too late. I further believe that the provision of additional troops will cause the Iraqi government to become more, not less, reliant upon the U.S., and further delay their taking over.
Hey, Trace-ster!
Top of the morning to ya.
How many more days till America is no longer held hostage?
Vaughn Tolle,
I believe that the fact Casey’s on the way out supports my thesis that Bush is losing the support of uniformed senior military leadership. This is a big deal.
I agree that we haven’t reached the tipping point yet. But, once again, I think Bush is doing all he can to alienate every military and civilian constituency around him. Once he does that, and once the pushback from official DC and the GOP really gets underway, it will be a live question how long he can sustain a hobbled and limping Presidency. Particularly someone as insulated and psychologically fragile as Bush.
Our basic difference, Vaughn Tolle (as well as my difference with GMC70), is that where you analyze Bush’s situation as a matter of law, I do so as a matter of politics. And if the legacy of President Ford teaches us anything, it’s that the latter trumps the former. So we’ll see. But I really don’t see this Richard Myers thing playing well.
Agreed, CF.
As Noam Chomsky pointed out years ago, Nixon’s “crime” was not breaking into people’s offices and illegally spying on them; that’s routine and fairly mild.
(If readers don’t believe it, look at what the FBI under Nixon did to the Black Panthers: the bureau sent threatening letters from “the Panthers” to violent street gangs, so the gangs would attack them–which the gangs did and a number of murders resulted. The FBI also drugged Panther leader Fred Hampton so he could be more easily murdered in his bed by Chicago Police.)
Nixon’s crime was offending POWERFUL PEOPLE, e.g., people with connections that can do something about it.
We see the same thing happening with President Clueless. He has already vilified the intelligence community by blaming the Weapons of Mass Destruction fiasco on them. Any sentient being of course knows that Bush got exactly the “intelligence” he demanded to justify hoarding all that beautiful oil.
Intelligence operatives really don’t like getting blamed for shit like this. They don’t like having one of their own (Valerie Plame) outed in revenge for her husband’s truthful editorial revealing the shell game Bush was pulling.
These are people you don’t want to get mad at you. It’s not healthy.
Meanwhile, he fired the military leaders who told the truth about the number of troops we’d need to pacify Iraq. Then he turns around and says that troop levels are entirely set by the generals in the country, a transparent lie that blames the problem he created on the military.
Again, not healthy.
But wait, there’s more. We saw in the last election that the closer a candidate was to Bush, the more they got CRUSHED. Prime example is Jim Ryun, who might have won had he not been cursed by a last minute rally with President Cuckoo-Bananas.
Bush has aliented and blamed the intelligence community, the military . . . and now his own people are running away from him if they know what is good for them.
He’s a catastrophe that walks on two legs like a man.
CF, you have identified the issue; impeachment is the ultimate political exercise. However, the framers chose to clothe this exercise in legal terms, and thus the analysis I (and GMC) bring is from this perspective. At this point, I do not believe the political tipping point has been reached.
Assuming the political tipping point is reached soon, as a practical matter is there sufficient time to follow the constitutional requirements for impeachment? GW has ~2 years left.
VT – tipping points: the surge is opposed by a majority of Republicans. If he follows through with it and it isn’t followed by quick success look for Republicans to want to run to the exits – and their only exit strategy is marked “IMPEACHMENT”
Cap’n,
Indeed. One should tread lightly around the spooks, even if one’s daddy WAS head of the CIA. Hoover had a job for life just because he files on EVERYBODY, and no one wanted to risk antagonizing him. It is also worth noting that Bush’s pick to head the CIA, Porter Goss, was driven out after sacking most of the agency’s senior leadership. The whole Goss story got almost no play, but it was truly a major, major scandal. The media couldn’t be bothered.
Vaughn Tolle,
I agree that we aren’t quite at the tipping point. I think it’s going to come pretty quickly once the Democratic Congress gets its legislative agenda underway, and once the investigations begin in earnest.
You’re quite right that the procedural framework is legal, and that these things take time. I don’t know if two years is enough time to build a case for impeachment in the manner of Kenneth Starr or the Watergate Hearings. But I also don’t know if such precedents are the relevant ones in this case. After all, Republicans want a credible shot at the White House in ‘08, and the more troops Bush keeps on the ground, the less of a chance that Republican control of the Executive continues for another four years.
This war is colossally unpopular. Its continuation into 2008 may ensure a Democratic victory. If the GOP makes that calculation, they will have to decide whether it is more important to insulate a sitting President from taking responsibilty for the mess he has created, or to throw him overboard to have a fighting chance at retaining the Presidency.
And let’s remember something: Nixon wasn’t impeached. He resigned under pressure. I think we haven’t even begun to see the grey eminences and their media proxies ratchet up the pressure on W, to say nothing of the House and Senate investigations. The White House can stonewall all it wants: enough people are going to be willing to testify to save themselves that the current Administration is probably doomed regardless of what happens.
hmmm,
Indeed. You see what I see.
hmmm, I understand; however, there appears to be a hard core supportive of the “surge”, in fact I read an opinion piece in the Guardian, IIRC, but no link (sorry) arguing that the number should be 40,000 to 50,000; this hard core, I suspect, will be the power players in the next round of primaries. Thus, the Republican senators are in a hard political place; the majority of the electorate want no more to do with Iraq, other than reduce the number of troops or to get out; meanwhile, to get to the general election,the hard core who likely will control the primary wants more troops. I don’t think impeachment provides an “exit strategy” in those cases, and no matter which way the senators in question go on troop levels, they find themselves risking reelection, IMHO.
VT – “12 of the 49 Republican senators,”
That leaves 37 Republican Senators opposed. Lets consider 25 of them hard-core against escalation.
1 Ind-Dem for the war; against impeachment.
50 Dems – virtually all opposed to Bush’s war; figure 45 hard-core.
45 + 25 = 70. 3 more than needed for conviction.
hmmm, I’m not yet ready to equate 25 hard core against escalation to 25 who will vote to convict on Articles of Impeachment.
Vaughn Tolle,
Fair enough. But if that’s where things currently stand, I think the two columns will increasingly become one. My sense is that Bush’s Presidency is closer to auto-destruction than we think.
Oh, and did everybody see Keith Olbermann last night on MSNBC? Holy cow. Spittin’ mad over this insane Bushtalk about the need for “sacrifice.”
http://www.crooksandliars.com
VT – if Bush trashes the entire ISG report and excalates I think he just might make those “hard-core” “pro-impeach”
Actually I blame most of the problems in the world on the men not just the Republican men. That is why we need more women in Congress and a female president. Things are so bad why not try something new? What’s the worse that will happen? That we will do as bad a job as the men?
Republicans better hope that Chuck Hagel runs for president. After GWB’s impending sacrificial “surge”, the election will be about the war and little else. There is exactly one Republican candidate who has been on the right side of this war since the beginning, and that is Hagel, and that makes him the only electable Republican in 2008.
Chuck is prominently featured in my most recent YouTube effort “It’s the war, stupid.” and my most recent blog post of the same name.