General @ Tuesday August 23, 2005 12:45 pm by WunderKraut

Here’s A Quarter, Go Buy An Idea

Eugene Robinson has a snarky op-ed in today’s Washington Post about the Vietnam analogy the Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel raised this past weekend.

The entire point of his op-ed, as far as I can tell is to paint a bleak picture of Iraq and all things surrounding it.

…since the president’s policy amounts to the belief that if he concentrates really hard — and stays in shape by regularly doing the Tour de Crawford on his mountain bike — he’ll be able to summon a miracle.
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So one result of invading Iraq, which had no weapons of mass destruction, was to drive its Shiite majority closer to Iran, which is doing its best to build a nuclear bomb. Gee, that really worked out.
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Only 26 percent echoed the president’s view that U.S. troops should remain “as long as it takes.”
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We didn’t even get any oil out of the deal. Remember how much of the war’s cost was going to be repaid by a generous new Athenian-style government from its bountiful oil revenues?… How much did you pay the last time you filled up?
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but even the Democrats can’t blow this one — a Republican president mired in an unpopular war with no end in sight and no real plan for an exit.

Nice, real nice. Read the entire thing and notice that it lacks one critical piece. So, now that we are “mired” down in Iraq, what should we do? He is very clever at pointing out all the places where Bush has failed, but what is his point? To make Bush look bad? Ok, done. But now what? What was the point behind writing this op-ed?

As I wrote earlier today, the Left does not have a solution. Everything is bad and messed up, but they never say what they would do. If you cornered them, you might, might get it out of them that we should tuck our tail between our legs and run for home. But what would that get us? (see previous post here)

He is right, things are tough, the terrorists are tough, the oil is not flowing, the costs are rising, but not seeing this thing through is the worse possible thing you could do. Bush is open for criticism. I even have a few bones to pick with him, but I also am an adult and as an adult I am big enough to realize the stakes in Iraq. It is time for the Left to grow up and instead of pointing fingers, give solutions that work. In your mind everything is screwed up because of Bush. Fine. But what will you do now?

The truth of the matter is that they do not want to propose any workable solutions because if they do and Bush does them and they work, Bush looks better. If that is what is keeping them from helping, it is the height of childish pettiness.

5 Responses to “Here’s A Quarter, Go Buy An Idea”

  1. on 23 Aug 2005 at 12:51 pm   WunderKraut.com » So They Want Another Vietnam?

    [...] Update: I have another post up that builds on the ideas in this one. You can read it here. ______________________________ [...]

  2. on 23 Aug 2005 at 12:53 pm   Crotalus

    This is a response to your last paragraph:

    Maybe this is stating the obvious, but I really don’t believe that they do not want to propose any workable solutions for fear that Bush would use them; I think they just don’t have any. It’s like Kerry when he campaigned, no real plan, just point out where the other guy falls short. Kinda reminds me of that Roosevelt quote about the critic and the man in the arena…

  3. on 23 Aug 2005 at 1:02 pm   WunderKraut

    You may be right. Maybe I give them too much credit. For those out there unfamiliar with that awesome Teddy Roosevelt quote you mention:

    “It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”

    I came across this quote over at Willisms.

  4. on 23 Aug 2005 at 6:27 pm   Walter E. Wallis

    What the left would do is take us back to the comfortable time when no one worried about anything because we could always talk it out.

  5. on 17 Oct 2005 at 9:32 am   WunderKraut.com » That’s What I Have Been Trying To Say

    [...] They Want Another Vietnam? Here’s a Quarter Note To Gary Heart Trackback· [...]