Memo to the Dean: The war is lost!

Dear Mr Broder,

As a life-long Democrat, please allow me to inform you that I am not the least bit embarrassed by Senator Reid's admission that the war in Iraq is lost. I am never embarrassed when a politician of any party speaks the truth.

The war isn't just now lost.  It isn't being lost.  It has always been lost.  It was lost from the moment President Bush decided he could get rid of Saddam Hussein and a completely formed, competent, honest, democratic, non-sectarian Iraqi government, accepted and respected by all the people of Iraq, would magically appear overnight to take charge of the country in Saddam's place.

It was lost from the moment the President decided he could have his magic war on the cheap, without committing either the money or the troops necessary to the task.

It was lost from the moment he decided that he would get to have his magic war by lying to the American people about why we had to go to war, how long the war would take, how easy it would be, and what little price we would have to pay in money, time, reputation, blood, and grief.

If you don't accept any of those moments as the moment when the war was lost, then let me propose another, slightly more recent moment, but still a moment that pre-dates Seantor Reid's remarks by over a year.

The war was lost the moment the majority of the American people realized that the President had lied to them, that he and his advisers did not have any idea how to fight let alone win their magic war, and that the President's only definition of "victory" is that he gets to leave office without having to admit that he lied about the war and mismanaged it and in fact lost it.

Actually, I'm not sure that it's correct to use words like "victory" and "lost" when talking about a war that was apparently waged for no other reasons than to stroke a childish President's vanity and allow a corrupt Vice-President's friends to plunder another country.

There is never any victory to be had in disgracing the United States and we the People cannot be said to have lost the private freebooting adventure of a gang of reckless, dishonest, incompetent men.

So, no, I am not embarrassed by Senator Reid.  As someone who came of political age during Watergate and a one-time admirer of the Washington Post, I am embarrassed to hear that one of the Post's most distinguished journalists is making stuff up about what the American people think, about what Democrats feel, about what Senator Reid has done and said, all in order to protect his own ego and vanity from the truth of the disaster President Bush has made in Iraq, a disaster he was able to perpetrate with the help of his apologists in the Media, such as you, sir.

Senator Reid owes no one an apology.  You owe him one, and you owe us one.

Sincerely,

Lance Mannion

Comments

[Jennifer]

I'd add my signature to that.

[Raenelle]

That was great. Better than sex. Yes, it was.

[Mike Schilling]

Of course the war is lost. We all know that, including most of the people attacking Senator Reid. But saying so isn't (and I'm giving this phrase its precise meaning) politically correct.

[Dave]

Amen.

[Vir Modestus]

This can't be said often enough. The main point of the right wing seems to be denying the war is lost already so that they can blame the losing of the war, not on Bush who deserves the blame, but on the Democratic president who (we can hope) will follow to clean up the mess. All the spluttering of the wingnuts to the contrary won't change the facts, and it is up to us to remind them of it, daily, in words as eloquent as yours.

[KC45s]

I know, I know. This isn't a brilliant question. But would it be so hard for a few of the Broder-level pundits to spend, oh, a year outside of the D.C./NYC axis to see and hear what the other 99.9% of the country thinks? You know, go to a few new cocktail parties, interview a few Midwestern or Dakotan or Californian cab drivers for wisdom, hear some o' that Dubuque common sense day in and day out rather than as a one-day anthropological visit to a diner while driving to the Iowa caucauses?

It can't be that hard. Rent a condo. Get some office space. A small town or medium-sized city--Fargo, Bellingham, Madison--would be best, but if they gotta have that pate and good wine, okay, take a room in one of the big cities. Doesn't Gene Lyons write his column from Nowhere, Arkansas? It can be done.

I know, I know. It's not an original thought. Bloggers and critics dream of the day the Broders et al. get out of the self-contained ecosystem of opinion and worldview they live in. But, I mean, if Nicholas Kristof can spend half his life in Darfur, can't Joe Klein get to know a few people in Louisville?

I know, I know. They operate with Bill Cosby's old warning in mind. Every Saturday, at the start of Fat Albert, Bill would say, "And if you're not careful, you may learn something."

[Linkmeister]

KC, failing that, we could descend on Georgetown and Silver Spring with pitchforks.

[denisdekat]

I think a better way to frame this is "Bush lost this war" rather than "this war is lost"...

:D

[sfmike]

This was never a war. It was an invasion. And who says "we" are losing? The New Iraq Oil Law is about to be passed by the Iraqi legislature (after being drawn up by a right-wing consultant group in Washington, DC) giving their previously nationalized oil industry to the multinationals. It's the only thing that's been important to most of these criminals all along.

As for Mr. Broder and the other journalistic enablers, they should be booed and ridiculed by every American who comes within spitting distance of them for the rest of their careers. They are beneath contempt.

[denisdekat]

"The New Iraq Oil Law is about to be passed by the Iraqi legislature (after being drawn up by a right-wing consultant group in Washington, DC) giving their previously nationalized oil industry to the multinationals."

You got any links SFmike? How is the weather in SF? I moved recently and miss it terribly...

[jahf]

Our enterprise in Iraq is not a war. It is a lynching, and a rape. It is a rape of not one, but of two countries. (It is left as an exercise to the reader to determine which two.) This is the fundamental character of America's so-called war in Iraq, one that won't change, whether U.S. troops utterly succeed in crushing the Iraqi rebellion against the U.S. occupation, or are pulled out today.

[sfmike]

Dear denisdekat: Here's a link from a freelance writer out of San Francisco, Ben Terrall, in an article he wrote for "Counterpunch" recently. He's quite persuasive and unhysterical about the awful truth of the New Iraq Oil Law.

http://www.counterpunch.com/terrall04212007.html

And the weather is exquisite in San Francisco. Sorry.

[denisdekat]

TYVM SFmike, glad to hear the weather is delightful :) SF deserves no less...

[ciocia]

You know, in a few months writers like Broder will be ripping politicians a new one for not being honest with the American people about some issue or another. This is a textbook example of the worst that can happen--a sanctimonious devoutly middle of the roader will roast you over the coals for it. But outside the beltway, where I live, nobody is talking about what Reid said. They consider it too banal a truth.

[Barry]

Broder ain't a middle of the roader; he's a servant of power.