David

Karki

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April 7, 2008

Iraq Hearings: The Execrable Speaker Pelosi

This week, General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker are scheduled to testify before Congress with an update on the situation in Iraq, as required by that same body as part of the last funding bill. Given the outstanding progress since the surge (12 of 18 benchmarks met, substantial progress on five more and only one stalled), they ought to be greeted with a hero's welcome representing the gratitude of a nation for a job well done.

Instead, Speaker Nancy Pelosi has in essence already called Petraeus a liar and demonstrated that she for one has no intention of listening to what either man has to say.  And that for her part, the event will be nothing more than a dog-and-pony show, wherein liberal politicians grandstand for TV cameras by demagoguing honorable men to the delight of their Bush-hating base, in which case, we'd all be better off if she simply canceled them. That would at least be the honest thing to do.

Pelosi warned Petraeus and Crocker “not to put a shine on events” in Iraq. “I hope we don't hear any glorification of what happened in Basra,” she said, and questioned how the cease-fire was achieved, saying “the terms were probably dictated by Iran.”

Fact is, the events in Basra were simply the long-overdue taming of Moqtada al-Sadr and his Shia militia. They were left to wreak havoc for far longer than they ought to have been. And now that the hammer is finally being brought down on them, to the credit of Prime Minister al-Maliki and the Iraqi defense forces, it only stands to reason that their resistance would cause a temporary small spike in violence. It will quickly pass as they are defeated and come to see that their best course of action is to participate in the new Iraq being built – the alternative being, of course, annihilation.

But Pelosi doesn't even have this amount of common sense. Instead, she has declared Basra prima facie evidence of defeat and failure, made a not-so-subtle insinuation that Petraeus is coming here intent on lying if he says anything else, and insulted and denigrated both Iraqi security forces and the entire U.S. military by suggesting that the only reason this ended was because we caved in to Iran, who then ordered Sadr and his forces to stand down. (Well, at least she's finally acknowledging Iran's infiltration, not that she's willing to do anything about it – except retreat, of course – which forces one to wonder why, if such a cave-in actually happened, she'd have any problem with it.)

In years past, this sort of calumny would have been met with charges of sedition or treason, and very possibly a challenge to a duel for having insulted a good man's honor. In more recent years, it might have resulted in one's resignation in shame or certainly a loss of one's leadership post. And no matter when, there would have been widespread outrage at such a thing coming from the mouth of one holding the second-most-powerful office in the country. Because, in years past, the Speaker of the House was expected to and did know better than that.

But no longer. Today, Pelosi spews her venomous bilge and it's scarcely noticed. I'm not sure who this puts in the worse light – her for spewing it or us for failing to notice it and respond accordingly.

And what's more, I don't think her remarks are really driven by anything in Iraq. Certainly, the content itself inherently demonstrates a total disconnect with, disregard for and denial of the facts and reality. So what drives this?

I think Pelosi still has her mind on Florida 2000 instead of Iraq 2008. As far as the hard left is concerned, and Pelosi is a charter member thereof, President Bush was never legitimately elected. As such, everything he does must be reflexively opposed to the hilt. His administration should never have existed, and therefore must be erased from the history books even before they can be written. And Iraq has become the main issue in which this attitude manifests itself.

What's unnerving about this is that if liberals are still reacting in such knee-jerk fashion some eight years after the fact, they're probably never going to get over it. They have become so used to being sore losers and angry that “they wuz robbed!” that they are now comfortable with it. Many of them probably can no longer remember ever having felt any other way. President Bush has become Moby Dick to their Captain Ahab – which is to say, a debilitating obsession.

This in itself might not be a big thing, except that we're talking about someone who is third in line to the presidency. We indulge at our own peril the idea that such a person can continue this way without, at some point, inflicting some serious damage on the nation as a result.

The sooner the execrable Speaker Pelosi adds the word “former” to the front of her title, the better off we all shall be.

© 2008 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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