Give 'em Hell Harry (Reid)

On Thursday, Harry Reid said what can only be thought, but never uttered: “The war is lost.”

Reid was echoing comments he’d made to the (p)resident while chewing the fat at the White House on Wednesday. It’s what the 2006 elections were all about; informing the president the party is over.

Dan Froomkin, of the “Washington Post,” asked in his Thursday column/blog, “Could this have been the first time Bush has come face to face with someone willing to confront him so bluntly on the signature issue of his presidency? We don’t know.”

And he works at the White House every day.

Reid recounted for reporters what transpired between the mucky-mucks meeting in the Oval Office. He said that he told Mr. Bush to avoid becoming another Lyndon Johnson, “who did not want a war loss on his watch.”

The frat boy president, “bristled,” and “rejected the comparison,” according to others present too fearful to identify themselves.

Reid later told reporters, “I believe myself that the secretary of state, secretary of defense and – you have to make your own decisions as to what the president knows – that this war is lost and the surge is not accomplishing anything as indicated by the extreme violence in Iraq.”

(r)epublicans were shocked, SHOCKED, that Reid would stoop so low as to utter the truth before a people not used to, or worthy, of such honesty.

“I can’t begin to imagine how our troops in the field, who are risking their lives every day, are going to react when they get back to base and hear that the Democrat leader of the United States Senate has declared the war lost,” mooed Sen. Bitch McConnell (r-Kentucky).

That’s because McConnell has no imagination or he could envision those weary, extended-tour troops muttering, “Good. Now we can get the hell out of here.”

Rep. Peter Hoekstra wanted to know where Reid’s plan for winning the war was, as if the Senate majority leader could walk on water or turn it into wine.

Hoekstra conveniently forgot how, just a few days ago, it was revealed the administration couldn’t find a sucker to be its new “War Czar.”

One candidate, a retired Marine general named Jack Sheehan said, “The very fundamental issue is, they don’t know where the hell they’re going. So rather than go over there, develop an ulcer and eventually leave, I said, ‘No thanks,’.”

Can’t imagine what the troops returning to base thought when they heard that.

So it’s a nice by-product of the Democrats’ majority status that Bush has to eat some humble pie, but that is as far as it goes for now because, in the end, we are a country with a bad war habit.

Another “New York Times” article suggests the Dems are ready to cave in their war of wills with King George and hand over another $120 billion worth of funding to be coupled with “non-binding” timetables for withdrawal.

Which is to say they've been rail-Roved again with that line about “endangering our troops in the field” to which a proper brief response was never concocted.

the scribe liked: “The president is endangering the troops by keeping them in the field now that the American people have decided to end the war.”

If you’re going to say it’s lost, then you have to stop paying for it. (for real)

Rep. Hank Johson (D-Georgia) admits the Dems are in a fix and must prove they can govern, so we’ll all have to get in line.

the scribe can live with that. He remembers long ago, in 2000, traipsing from cocktail party to cocktail party trying to drum up support for Al Gore. Folks were disgruntled that Clinton had not cured AIDS, taken everybody’s guns away, set aside the other half of Utah as national park, and generated abortion-on-demand vouchers.

They could not see a difference between “Gush and Bore” and were going to vote for Saint Ralph the Raider. The difference came into focus over time, while the saint grew blurry.

So we’ll have to take what we can get here, which is another, rather safe, expression of opposition to the president’s personal project in Iraq, and clench our teeth while guys and gals continue filling body bags.

But, buck up, buckeroos! You are not alone in your anguish and anger. We recently did a post on the secession movement afoot in the enlightened State of Vermont.

Here’s another piece about their senate, following directions from multiple and democratic town councils, calling for the impeachment of the (p)resident and vice decadent prick cheney, saying their actions “raise serious questions of constitutionality.”

Little by little.