BCT Editorial – 5/7/07

This page was last updated on May 12, 2007.

Costly milestone; Editorial; Beaver County Times; May 7, 2007.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject editorial.

“In the midst of the attention given last week to President Bush’s veto of the $124 billion Iraq spending bill because of a timetable for withdrawal the Democrats had put in the measure, an important milestone was overlooked.”

[RWC] There were actually two reasons President Bush vetoed that bill. The second was the $24 billion of completely unrelated pork Democrats added to the bill in order to buy enough votes for passage. At it was, the bill passed in the House by the bare minimum of 218 votes.

Does anyone believe it was an honest oversight the editorial failed to note that fact?

“The cost of the invasion and occupation of Iraq will soon surpass $500 billion.

“As McClatchy Newspapers noted, that’s about 10 times more than the Bush administration anticipated before the war started four years ago.

“But that $500 billion pales in comparison to the number of Americans in the military who have been killed, wounded and maimed. No price can be put on their losses.”

[RWC] I might believe the Times cared about “number of Americans in the military who have been killed, wounded and maimed” were it not for its cowardly and purely political position on “the surge.” As a reminder, though the Times believes the surge will fail, it believes the surge should proceed.

“The United States is going to be paying for Bush’s costly mistakes in Iraq, and in more ways than one.”

[RWC] Here’s another question. How much have we spent on the War on Poverty that we’ve been losing for 40+ years?