BCT Editorial – 1/4/07

This page was last updated on January 4, 2007.

Blame game; Editorial; Beaver County Times; January 4, 2007.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject editorial.

“No need for Democrats to drudge [sic] up what went wrong regarding Iraq

[RWC] I assume the author meant to write “dredge,” but wrote “drudge” as a Freudian slip.

“The incoming chairman of the House Intelligence Committee says he wants to focus on the future instead of dwelling on the past.

“U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, told The Associated Press that as committee chairman he would rather figure out how to stabilize Iraq and bring the troops home than get bogged down investigating what went wrong.”

[RWC] As a reminder, Rep. Reyes is the guy who recently failed a simple Congressional Quarterly quiz about the Middle East. When asked if al-Qaida was Shia or Sunni, Rep. Reyes incorrectly answered Shiite. When asked if he knew who Hezbollah was, Rep. Reyes didn’t answer.

This is the man Democrats made chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

“Americans across the political spectrum should welcome that approach. What Reyes and his colleagues do today cannot change the past. However, they can affect the future.”

[RWC] I disagree. For about four years Democrats and the press have been telling us about all the alleged nefarious deeds of the Bush administration. They’ve also asserted the Bush administration misled us.

“A major problem with trying to figure out what went wrong in Iraq is that it would bog the nation down in an ideological domestic war of words that can’t be won by either side. There are simply too many what-ifs to assign definitive blame.”

[RWC] “[I]t would bog the nation down in an ideological domestic war of words that can’t be won by either side.” Translation: “We can’t win a fair trial.”

“If anything, it was a systemic failure that ranged from the politicization of intelligence gathering and reporting by the Bush White House to the refusal of many congressional Democrats to perform their constitutional duty and question President Bush’s rush to war.”

[RWC] “[P]oliticization of intelligence gathering and reporting by the Bush White House?” Where’s the proof? At least two bipartisan reviews of pre-war intelligence concluded the Bush administration neither influenced intelligence gathering nor misrepresented the findings. A British intelligence review came to the same conclusion.

“[T]he refusal of many congressional Democrats to perform their constitutional duty and question President Bush’s rush to war?” Translation: “Too many Democrats in Congress didn’t see things our way.” As I’ve noted in previous critiques, Democrats like John Kerry and John Edwards spoke more forcefully about Iraq’s potential threat than did President Bush.

What constitutes a “rush” to the Times?

“The question the United States must address now is how it can withdraw American military forces from Iraq without further destabilizing that nation and the rest of the Middle East.”

[RWC] Note the editorial didn’t mention U.S. national security in the above paragraph. Stability alone in the Middle East doesn’t necessarily work in our favor. It has to be the right kind of stability.

“There are no easy answers to that question. Painful, difficult decisions will have to be made, and even the right decision will have significant negatives.

“We hope other Democratic leaders take the same approach as Reyes. Indeed, they don’t have to affix blame because it is a moot point. The American people have already done that. The results of the general election in November, which saw Democrats regain control of Congress for the first time since 1993, and Bush’s dismal approval ratings are proof of that.

“The American people want leaders who will govern responsibly. Democrats can show Americans they are up to the task by focusing on the future instead of dwelling on the past.”

[RWC] What doesn’t the Times want the people to learn?