Iraq outcome far from settled
In his best-selling “Fiasco,” Tom Ricks of the Washington Post told the tale of the early blundering days of the Iraq occuption, with Gen. Ray Odierno cited as the epitome of the wrong-headed blunt-force approach taken by many American generals. When you talk to officers about the literature of the U.S. misadventure in Iraq, “Fiasco” is generally the first book they want to discuss.
In Rick’s latest book, “The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008,” Odierno becomes one of the heroes of the more recent years of our occupation. Until recently the No. 2 man in Iraq behind Petreaus and now the top U.S. commander there, Odierno and other U.S. military leaders switched tactics and strategies as the war went on, adopting the more community-based approach of counterinsurgency and advocating policies that came to be known as the surge.
I haven’t had the chance to read “Gamble” yet, but excerpts published in the Post lay out Ricks’ analysis pretty clearly. He believes we will still have tens of thousands of troops in Iraq for at least the next five years, a conclusion I’m not sure I buy. I have my doubts that the people of Iraq or the United States will tolerate that outcome.
But overall, Ricks’ assessment that the war in Iraq is far from over seems accurate. As he points out, the biggest winner of our invasion has been neighboring Iran, and the acceptance of democracy by Iraqi leaders is in many ways an illusion, with brutal dictatorship still the default approach.
In a piece now available at the Post site, Ricks writes:
“Many of those closest to the situation in Iraq expect a full-blown civil war to break out there in the coming years. “I don’t think the Iraqi civil war has been fought yet,” one colonel told me. Others were concerned that Iraq was drifting toward a military takeover. Counterinsurgency expert David Kilcullen worried that the classic conditions for a military coup were developing — a venal political elite divorced from the population lives inside the Green Zone, while the Iraqi military outside the zone’s walls grows both more capable and closer to the people, working with them and trying to address their concerns.”
And while Odierno is hopeful that the Iraqi military accepts and supports democratic leadership, others in the U.S. military have their doubts, Ricks reports.
“When you got to know (Iraqi officers) and they’d be honest with you, every single one of them thought that the whole notion of democracy and representative government in Iraq was absolutely ludicrous,” said Maj. Chad Quayle, who advised an Iraqi battalion in south Baghdad during the surge.
If Rick’s time frame is correct, we’re almost six years into our occupation of Iraq and our story there isn’t half-written, with important twists and turns to come. As he concludes, “the events for which the Iraq war will be remembered probably haven’t even happened yet.”
Tell us what you think about the site
Customer Care »
Vacation stops, manage subscriptions and more
AJC Services
Sections
Other Editions
Guides
Visitor Agreement | Privacy Statement
© 2011 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
101 comments Add your comment
AJC/DNC Management
February 15th, 2009
7:22 am
As he points out, the biggest winner of our invasion has been neighboring Iran
I thought as a reporter you had access to reality, Bookman, I guess that’s no fun, eh?
While not a candidate himself, Maliki saw his State of Law alliance emerge as the top vote getter in the provincial elections. The coalition topped competitors ranging from the political network inspired by radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr to Sunni Islamists to tribal parties in an election that monitors from the Arab League said took place in an atmosphere of “transparency and integrity.”-Newsweek
Mookie Sadr, Iran’s stooge in Iraq, only got about 5% of the vote in his own stronghold of Sadr City.
Jay: You’re welcome to explain how this is a victory for Iran.
And do tell us, now that oblahma is the president, why would Iran still be meddling in Iraq? I thought hopeandchange was coming to the Middle East?
“Many of those closest to the situation in Iraq expect a full-blown civil war to break out there in the coming years.
Can you believe this crap, these are the same anti Americans that harped on a civil war for the last five years with none ever materializing, do they ever give it a rest?
Considering that some neighborhoods in Atlanta have a violent incident rate greater than the whole of Iraq, should we be expecting a civil war in Georgia?
AJC/DNC Management
February 15th, 2009
7:31 am
Surprise! Bill slaps limits on executive pay. The provision, inserted by Senate Democrats over the objections of the Obama administration, is aimed at companies that have received financial bailout funds.-Urinal/kult of oblahmi
Huh, a could have swore I saw Oblahmi reading from his teleprompter about the exact same thing just a few days ago, hmmm, now he’s “objecting?”
I guess that ReedPelosi monster is too much for wittle barry to handle, you reckon?
But consider Tanya M. of Fairburn, whose story was among dozens featured on BarackObama.com. Tanya said she fell behind on her mortgage. She’s still in her house, trying to finish her MBA and hoping something helps. “I believe that I, like many other Americans, will regroup and make the best of this economic situation that we find ourselves in,” Tanya says on the site.
Bwahahahahahahahahahahaha, boy, isn’t she in for a surprise.
Unless, of course, she’s only behind on her mortgage by 8 dollahs.
Robert Barron
February 15th, 2009
7:35 am
Bill Clinton’s CIA director George Tenet with his totally inaccurate intelligence greatly exaggerating Iraq’s weapons on mass destruction is the person most responsible for the Iraqi War.
I have noticed Democrats tend to quiet down in their blaming of W for the war when I point that out to them.
GodHatesTrash
February 15th, 2009
7:41 am
Now, now. Intelligent decent people know that Dumbya took the War on Tare to Iraq because Saddam dissed his Pappy.
GodHatesTrash
February 15th, 2009
7:46 am
Dumbya gave Tenet the Medal of Freedom, America’s highest civilian award for his service. He cooked the books just like Dumbya told him to.
Mike
February 15th, 2009
7:52 am
So Jay ignores the good news coming out of Iraq for a year, but chooses to comment on a negative assessment made by Ricks. (Ricks has been hitting the MSNBC circuit hard, so it is not surprising that the partisans have been citing him so much.)
Three quick things about the Ricks article:
1) It cherry picks quotations. When Ricks states that “Many of those closest to the situation in Iraq ..” have a negative outlook, it implies that many do not. Why are none of these folks quoted? Could it be that the author of “Fiasco” has a lot invested in an outcome that fits the title?
2) The notion that “the war isn’t over” is not really news. It certainly does not square with the previously stated opinions of Bookman and other Democrats that it was over and we lost.
3) The notion that Iran is winning is far from clear. The parties that Iran supported were routed in the last election. It seems pretty clear that whatever the outcome, the Iraqi people are not interested in being a vassal state to Iran
I’m not claiming that all is rosy and that success is assured. That being said, it is unfortunate that Jay, Ricks and other partisans in the media are more interested in supporting their long-held arguments that Iraq eill fail than in providing their leaders with any form of objective analysis.
This post speaks to the complaints that many of us made about Jay’s “patch of blue sky” post regarding the economy. This is Jay’s desperate opportunity to give us a “patch of storm clouds” to counteract the recent successful elections that he and the rest of the AJC staff chose to ignore.
Keep the bad news coming, Jay. We can find the positive news elsewhere.
Mike
February 15th, 2009
7:52 am
GodHatesTrash -
Yeah and intelligent people call people silly names.
GodHatesTrash
February 15th, 2009
7:53 am
Actually, Tenet is a Republiklan. He began his government career as an aide to H. John Heinz III, a Republican Senator from Pennsylvania (who was Teresa Heinz Kerry’s first husband).
Tenet received a unanimous confirmation vote in the US Senate, by the way.
(Those darn facts just keep getting in wingnuts’ way.)
Andy the welcher
February 15th, 2009
7:53 am
Tenet was a welcher like Andy.
ew
GodHatesTrash
February 15th, 2009
7:57 am
Mr. Tenet is a Republican, by the way. His first political job was aide to H. John Heinz III, Republican Senator from Pennsylvania (Teresa Heinz Kerry’s first husband). He was unanimously confirmed by the US Senate as Director of the CIA in 1997.
(Those pesky facts keep getting in wingnuts’ way…)
GodHatesTrash
February 15th, 2009
8:02 am
Whine, moan, whine. Bookman, what did you expect from your RightWingnutters?
Tell them a story next time. About how the Iraqi’s throw flowers at our soldier’s feet, instead of plant IEDs.
(Why do the chickenhawks whimper so much? They are safe under their beds, blogging.)
Taxpayer
February 15th, 2009
8:05 am
Knock! Knock! Knock! Hello! Is this the Iraqi Election Headquarters! Hello! Pizza Delivery! I’ll just leave this BIG stack of Pizzas right here. OK!
Joey
February 15th, 2009
8:13 am
It is my understanding that President Obama is pulling our troops out of Iraq. Correcting the focus or our efforts toward Afghanistan. As it should have been all along.
Did I not hear correctly?
RW-(the original)
February 15th, 2009
8:18 am
So we have a writer making a nice living by writing books that cover incremental timeframes in Iraq, whose latest book runs through 2008, telling us the war isn’t nearly over and the worst is yet to come.
I’m shocked, shocked I say that he’s setting up his next book and has a hapless toady media helping his advance sales.
AJC/DNC Management
February 15th, 2009
8:21 am
Tenet was a welcher like Andy.
Personal attacks ok, swastickas not ok.
Obama enjoys gain of ‘major milestone’-Urinal/kult of oblahmi
Sure thing, 7 democrats voted against it but whatever, if this is such a wonderful thing, why does Queen Pinko whine and moan?
Republicans playing same old politics- Such is the state of the Grand Old Party these days, trapped in an outmoded ideology, contemptuous of compromise, bitter about its loss of power. Indeed, congressional Republican leaders seem more interested in finding a cudgel to wield against President Obama and other Democrats in 2010 than in rescuing the nation from the worst economic calamity since the 1930s.
Blah, blah, blah, Republicans, Republicans, Republicans, blah, blah.
You’d almost think we were still a powerful force to deal with (-:, bwahahahahahaha.
You ain’t seen nuthin yet, bozos.
Taxpayer
February 15th, 2009
8:30 am
Someone here wonders why swastikas are not OK! Shocked, I say. Shocked. Then again….
GayGrayGeek
February 15th, 2009
8:32 am
Mike @ 7:52 – Oh, you mean like what Andy spews, and spews, and spews, and spews? You mean THAT kind of “name-calling”?
Gotcha.
GodHatesTrash
February 15th, 2009
8:40 am
Bookman’s RightWingnutterbutters:
Civilized non-knuckledraggers do not think swastikas are OK. Since this is the United States of America, you are free to decorate your trailers and tattoo your forearms with them, but Bookman is also entitled to remove them from this blog.
AJC/DNC Management
February 15th, 2009
8:41 am
Taxpayer- So where did you read that “swastickas” were ok?
This is like basic third grade level comprehension, don’t tell me you got “left behind?”
Read carefully, young man, one “infraction” is enforced, the other is not.
AJC/DNC Management
February 15th, 2009
8:49 am
GayGrayFreak Mike @ 7:52 – Oh, you mean like what Andy spews, and spews, and spews, and spews? You mean THAT kind of “name-calling”?
GodHatesTrash February 15th, 2009 7:41 am Now, now. Intelligent decent people know that Dumbya
GodHatesTrash February 15th, 2009 7:46 am Dumbya gave Tenet the Medal of Freedom
GodHatesTrash February 15th, 2009 7:53 am Actually, Tenet is a Republiklan.
GodHatesTrash February 15th, 2009 7:57 am Mr. Tenet is a Republican
GodHatesTrash February 15th, 2009 8:02 am Whine, moan, whine. Bookman, what did you expect from your RightWingnutters?
GodHatesTrash February 15th, 2009 8:40 am Bookman’s RightWingnutterbutters:
Struggling with the Andy Derangement Syndrome this morning, GGFreak?
Writing letters and emailing about me to the AJC again, are we?
Taxpayer
February 15th, 2009
8:49 am
Andy,
Don’t try to play your little childish games with me, “young man”. Take it up with Bookman. He’s the one that blocked your use of inappropriate symbols that you applied to the word “Democrat”. Now, try to keep up with this — Bookman is slowly but surely limiting your ability to express yourself in the vile manner that you have grown so accustomed to and I say it is long overdue. Good riddance.
DB, Gwinnettian
February 15th, 2009
8:51 am
So is this another discussion thread where 90% of the participants haven’t bothered to read the linked piece? I see that Mike has, though…
When Ricks states that “Many of those closest to the situation in Iraq ..” have a negative outlook, it implies that many do not. Why are none of these folks quoted?
I imagine if one were to read the book this article’s observations are based upon, one might find the kinds of quotes you seek.
AJC/DNC Management
February 15th, 2009
9:10 am
Taxpayer: Look junior^^, there is a wealth of blog this morning that clearly shows that I am not the only one that is “vile.”
I am, however, the only one who the rules seemed to be enforced upon.
Not that I even care, this is not my blog, but that does not mean that I cannot point out the discrepancy, nor do I have to listen to little toadies like you croak out garbage like 8:30.
Why don’t you run along?
Taxpayer
February 15th, 2009
9:33 am
Jay,
Please note that I had my say correcting Andy, again, and now I will resume my usual mode of ignoring him. By the way, I wish to thank you for your never-ending efforts to actually clean up some of the language on your blog. I’m sure it’s a challenge at times. Finally, I always welcome your feedback regarding anything I happen to post.
AJC/DNC Management
February 15th, 2009
9:39 am
Thank you for “ignoring” me taxpayer, I appreciate it.
~~~~~
The sale of 50 corporate jets in today’s market might fetch you $1 billion if you’re lucky. End all the bonuses on Wall Street and you get real money–another $18 billion. Put the two together and a $1 trillion problem shrinks to a mere $981 billion one. The administration’s hope was that such measures plus the group flogging of the CEOs of the big banks on the Hill last Wednesday would focus the media, Congress, and the public away from the fundamental enormity of the task at hand.-Weekly Standard
Gosh, where have I heard this before, hmmmm, oh yeah, it was me that said it.
hopeand”change”.duh
Wyld Byll Hyltnyr
February 15th, 2009
9:43 am
As much as I hate to agree with Jay, I must. With President Obama in charge and President Bush’s strong hand on the sideline, the outcome in Iraq is, in fact, in doubt. Time will tell if President Obama will snatch defeat from the jaws of the victory that President Bush left him. At any rate, its on President Obama’s head as President Bush handed him the game with our side up by 30 points and five minutes left in the 4th quarter.
GodHatesTrash
February 15th, 2009
9:45 am
Now, now, Bookman’s RightWingnutterbutters, dry your tears. Several of my recent attempts at postings have never appeared, but it has not caused me inconsolable whining and moaning.
I am a man, and an adult. So your mileage may vary.
Seriously, is there really any such thing as a “personal attack” on an anonymous blog?
I am not talking about the colorful and sometimes controversial comments, smears, and baseless innuendo regarding public figures that the blogosphere is famous for, such as the unrelenting attacks on the Clintons that started when blogs were born, and the fantastic and fanatical lies about Obama that are spread by the ignorant and imbecilic. People (and – in the case of Sarah Palin, Zell Miller, Sonny Purdue, et. al – Neanderthals) in the public eye, alas, seem to be fair game.
But it really is impossible to personally attack someone on an anonymous blog.
I wouldn’t know one of you Bookman RightWingnutterbutters from Adam’s housecat even if I knocked on your trailer door. And I certainly not going to look over your shoulder while you hide under your bed posting your maniacal paranoid drivel.
So – can we stop the crybaby stuff?
(You RightWingnutterbutters may not have figured this out yet, but GodHatesTrash is NOT my given name.)
TnGelding
February 15th, 2009
9:53 am
If Ricks’ account is accurate, there is a serious breakdown in discipline in the Army, with commanders in Iraq freelancing at every level. No wonder the first 4 years were so disaastrous. Wonder who had the duty of telling the “war president” that Petraeus had begun bribing the Sunni tribal chiefs to change sides and what his initial reaction was?
Taxpayer
February 15th, 2009
9:59 am
…Republicans are relishing the opportunity to make a big statement. Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Tex.) suggested last week that the party is learning from the disruptive tactics of the Taliban, and the GOP these days does have the bravado of an insurgent band…Republicans learning politics from the Taliban…What will they shock and awe we the people with next! By the way, it sure looks like Good Ole Boy — handshake with Saddam — Rumsfeld and the defacto Republican party leader, Limbaugh, are pretty much in charge of the minority party.
TnGelding
February 15th, 2009
10:11 am
Maybe the problem was that the orders coming down were too vague and indecisive. Ricks was on with Charlie Rose Friday night. Be sure and catch the rerun tomorrow at noon or the video when it is posted on his Web site.
AJC/DNC Management
February 15th, 2009
10:17 am
“This morning, the Ministry of Finance held a comprehensive meeting chaired by Minister Baqir Jabr al-Zubeidi and attended by representatives of the World Bank, the UK Department for International Development (DFID), the U.S. Treasury, the European Union (EU), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), as well as the embassies of the United States, Britain, Australia, and Denmark,” according to a ministerial statement received by Aswat al-Iraq news agency.
During the meeting, the minister highlighted the significance of the project at a time where he said his ministry is seeing remarkable developments in all fields.-IraqUpdates
Gee, I wonder why lib “news” paper reporters seem to be the only ones that think that Iraq is “lost.”
Chad Harris
February 15th, 2009
10:19 am
Charley Rose doesn’t post the videos on his website. Bloomberg charges for transcripts available with a couple weeks’ or more gap.
Maybe the wingnutters should realize neither PETraeus nor Crocker were for Junya going in and they made it clear at that time. Advise isn’t something W understood and he got this country into an irreversible mess.
GodHatesTrash
February 15th, 2009
10:22 am
Tn, the orders were simple and direct. Take over the country, and await the parades. Kiss the ladies in their burkas, and smell the roses.
That was the plan the Bush administration masterminds came up with.
mm
February 15th, 2009
10:23 am
Let the wingnuts bask in their delusional glory. Now they want to blame Obama for losing a war we never won in the first place.
If you think they are whining now, wait until the indictments and convictions start pouring in concerning the Iraq war.
Yep, we have the pride of the GOP on this blog, swastikas and all.
deegee
February 15th, 2009
10:24 am
The Iraqis will decide when the Americans will leave. The U.S. Security agreement that was signed in January says we will be out of Iraqi urban areas by July, 2009. We will be out of Iraq all together by the end of 2011. It what the Iraqis wanted, not the Bush administration. The strategic framework agreement that was a part of the overall security agreement is a beginning not an end to our relationship with Iraq. The U.S. will have to wait and see what direction the people of Iraq will take. It’s far from over.
TnGelding
February 15th, 2009
10:25 am
Chad Harris
February 15th, 2009
10:19 am
I beg your pardon:
http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/10075
Taxpayer
February 15th, 2009
10:26 am
Chad,
It’s not entirely irreversible. We’ll be spending 100s of billion more in cleaning up after Bush and his administration but we’ll eventually be able to leave the place and let the people of the region choose their own fate rather than us trying to play world leader and dictate to them what they must do.
TnGelding
February 15th, 2009
10:29 am
deegee
February 15th, 2009
10:24 am
That’s not what Petraeus and Odierno are planning.
getalife
February 15th, 2009
10:29 am
The taliban (not the gop) called for a 10 day cease fire. This is an opportunity to get out. The generals in Iraq should speed up withdrawal or be fired.
We can’t afford war anymore.
Enough.
getalife
February 15th, 2009
10:36 am
“Federal authorities examining the early, chaotic days of the $125 billion American-led effort to rebuild Iraq have significantly broadened their inquiry to include senior American military officers who oversaw the program, according to interviews with senior government officials and court documents.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/world/middleeast/15iraq.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=all
Busted.
Chad Harris
February 15th, 2009
10:40 am
Taxpayer –I don’t see us drawing down the troops significantly during Obama’s 8 years and this is consistent with what Tom Ricks is saying in his book. I project we’ll have at least 85,000 to 100,000 in 2012 and the Wingnutter candidate whoever the dead man walking is, will be repepeating the same dead themes and memes as McLoser and Ditzness crowed that got them stomped in 2008.
We are still spending in reality about $20 billion per month on Iraq alone. There is an article in the NYT yesterday about two Colonels whose bank accounts have been subpoenaed who are pending indictment for theft.
I answered Dave R. as to my medical stats and I stand by them. Dave R. wherever you are, try reading JAMA every week as I do. While you don’t get it in your mailbox, you can get a summary on their website. My figures are accurate and there are thousands of blind and orthopedic permanant wheelchair riders coming out of Iraq as well.
TN Gelding–I sure appreciate your references to Charlie Rose. There are some very worthwhile interviews on that show and Duke Law school is a good background, but I just drilled your link and Charlie’s site and I don’t see anything like the full half hour or sometimes hour interviews for every 5 nights a week on there, and I don’t see Ricks’ interview on there yet either. Ricks’ full interview was posted on MTPress’ site last week and he was with Gregory (who is as bad as Russert was) for about 20 minutes.
I think this characterizes the Bookman Wingnutters perfectly:
They Sure Showed That Obama
The only unity in the Rethug party is in their opposition to anything the Dems and Obama try.
“This barrage did shave a few points off the stimulus’s popularity in polls, but its approval rating still remained above 50 percent in all (Gallup, CNN, Pew, CBS) but one of them (Rasmussen, the sole poll the G.O.P. cites). Perhaps the stimulus held its own because the public, in defiance of Washington’s condescending assumption, was smart enough to figure out that the government can’t create jobs without spending and that Bush-era Republicans have no moral authority to lecture about deficits. Some Americans may even have ancestors saved from penury by the New Deal.
Here’s a third moral: Overdosing on this culture can be fatal. Because Republicans are isolated in that parallel universe and believe all the noise in its echo chamber, they are now as out of touch with reality as the “inevitable” Clinton campaign was before it got clobbered in Iowa. The G.O.P. doesn’t recognize that it emerged from the stimulus battle even worse off than when it started. That obliviousness gives the president the opening to win more ambitious policy victories than last week’s. Having checked the box on attempted bipartisanship, Obama can now move in for the kill.
A useful template for the current political dynamic can be found in one of the McCain campaign’s more memorable pratfalls. Last fall, it was the Beltway mantra that Obama was doomed with all those working-class Rust Belt Democrats who’d flocked to Hillary in the primaries. The beefy, beer-drinking, deer-hunting white guys — incessantly interviewed in bars and diners — would never buy the skinny black intellectual. Nor would the “dead-ender” Hillary women. The McCain camp not only bought into this received wisdom, but bet the bank on it, pouring resources into states like Michigan and Wisconsin before abandoning them and doubling down on Pennsylvania in the stretch. The sucker-punched McCain lost all three states by percentages in the double digits.
The stimulus opponents, egged on by all the media murmurings about Obama “losing control,” also thought they had a sure thing. Their TV advantage added to their complacency. As the liberal blog ThinkProgress reported, G.O.P. members of Congress wildly outnumbered Democrats as guests on all cable news networks, not just Fox News, in the three days of intense debate about the House stimulus bill. They started pounding in their slogans relentlessly. The bill was not a stimulus package but an orgy of pork spending. The ensuing deficit would amount to “generational theft.” F.D.R.’s New Deal had been an abject failure.”
TnGelding
February 15th, 2009
10:45 am
Chad Harris
February 15th, 2009
10:40 am
It should be available some time tomorrow.
Chad Harris
February 15th, 2009
10:48 am
That’s great news Tn. I try to DVR Charlie every night. I should set it. If I can watch what I miss or gets knocked off my DVR real estate so much the better. Thanks for the headsup.
Chad Harris
February 15th, 2009
10:56 am
Ricks Interview Video on MTP and Axelrod Interview Up Soon
mm
February 15th, 2009
10:58 am
Chad,
That article certainly exposes the “liberal” media. If the wingnuts don’t wake up and stop spewing their talking points, 2010 will be worse for them than 2008.
David Tothill
February 15th, 2009
11:33 am
Mr. Bookman, I just responded to an old post of yours from October. I wanted to make sure you saw my response so I clicked on todays topic. Luckily, liberals don’t change so the second part of my reply still holds true.
Here it is…
“First, unless you know some sort of distorted, liberal math then no, you cannot lower taxes on someone who pays no taxes. Secondly, if you do not pay taxes you do not have a right to say how the money should be spent. Do I tell you how to spend money in your home? No. That’s because I didn’t contribute to your household income. Lastly, it doesn’t count to say you pay taxes, but then get a refund higher than what you contributed.
Oh, one last point… I notice this more and more from liberals: they have a tendency to resort to spewing hatred, name-calling, misrepresentations, insinuations, flat out lies, twisting and turning of words, and avoiding the topic altogether by going off on some other tangent to divert attention away from the argument they know they cannot win.”
Read OBJECTIVELY through today’s posts to prove my point. Oh, more more thing. When the Democrats took control of both houses it based partly on their campaign promise to bring the troops home. Hmmmm. Now Barack also claimed that. Hmmmm. And now you and others feel the war is only half over and it will be impossible to bring our troops home. You liberals could have been honest from the get-go and told the SAmerican people that. Oh, but wait, thats not what they wanted to hear. So, is it okay to lie to get elected as long as you told the people what they wanted to hear? For shame.
Tank
February 15th, 2009
11:41 am
Let me see. Democrats and the current administration set salary caps on executive pay. My guess is you will be hard pressed to find someone to step up to the plate for the pay cap salary. Investors will bail, company stock will tank and the “government” will step in to “manage and subsidize” the company. May as well call it nationalization of private industry.
Let’s recap: national health care (socialized health care), subsidies to those struggling to stay in a home they shouldn’t have purchased anyway, government dictating what is played on talk radio as opposed to listeners and advertisers, print media in the administration’s pocket, significant restrictions on gun ownership by law abiding citizens, nationalization of private industry, etc., etc., etc.
I am anxiously awaiting Obama and the Democrat’s Five Year Plan.
“From each according to their ability, to each according to their need,” Karl Marx – German economist & Communist political philosopher (1818 – 1883).
Chad Harris
February 15th, 2009
11:55 am
Mr. Tothill–
We had eight years of your economic architecture that failed miserably, and 12 years of Phil Gramm as Senate Finance Chairman. What your economic architecture of tax cuts for the wealthy yielded was the worst economic crisis in the history of htis country, and it will eclipse the “Great Depression” when it is played out because the current packages will not be near enough to undo Bush’s, Gramm’s, Paulson’s and you betcha goshdarnit damage that Geithner and his homeboys contributed to while Geithner oversaw the NY Fed.
And in his own column of screwups, Alan Greenspan aka Mr. Andrea Mitchell.
Never Say You’re Sorry
Midori
February 15th, 2009
12:06 pm
Taxxpayer,
I could kiss you for that 8:49.
Good riddance to bad garbage.
Midori
February 15th, 2009
12:20 pm
I’ve yet to figure out how to post a link yet, but you guys just HAVE to see this SNL opening skit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVLEPDG082o