Sunday, February 20, 2005
Facts Trump Rhetoric
Austin Bay blogs that the (successful) Iraqi election is a fact that is becoming ever more difficult for the left to wipe away. He writes, paraphrasing Daniel Patrick Moynihan, that "they can have their opinions but they cannot have their own facts. The Iraqi election put a fact in place."
Whereas the mainstream media keeps up the siren of the "police blotter perspective" (i.e., burning cars, murdered Iraqis, etc., etc.), the real story is an Iraq that is actually "functioning quite well." This last quote is not Bay's - it's Hillary Rodham Clinton's!
HRC is a very shrewd pol, and she has been handed on a silver platter the opportunity to capture the hearts and minds of vast swaths of a sick Democratic party, merely by appearing reasonable. But it could be too that the facts are just too plain to keep up the quagmire charade.
Bay goes on:
With Clinton and John McCain touring Iraq, AP files this:
Austin Bay then posts a comment from one of his readers:
Whereas the mainstream media keeps up the siren of the "police blotter perspective" (i.e., burning cars, murdered Iraqis, etc., etc.), the real story is an Iraq that is actually "functioning quite well." This last quote is not Bay's - it's Hillary Rodham Clinton's!
HRC is a very shrewd pol, and she has been handed on a silver platter the opportunity to capture the hearts and minds of vast swaths of a sick Democratic party, merely by appearing reasonable. But it could be too that the facts are just too plain to keep up the quagmire charade.
Bay goes on:
In the past three weeks I’ve seen a number of foreign policy editorialists become sudden fathers– success has many fathers. But track back on their columns you’ll find many of them they had the police blotter perspective, usually offered with a “quagmire” chaser and disdain for President Bush.
Don’t expect Jacques Chirac and Ted Kennedy to apologize for their defeatism– Chirac’s a crook, Kennedy a perpetual cad. But do take note that Senator Hillary Clinton now thinks Iraq is “functioning quite well.”
With Clinton and John McCain touring Iraq, AP files this:
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - As 55 people died in Iraq on Saturday, the holiest day on the Shiite Muslim religious calendar, Sen. Hillary Clinton said that much of Iraq was “functioning quite well” and that the rash of suicide attacks was a sign that the insurgency was failing.
Clinton, a New York Democrat, said insurgents intent on destabilizing the country had failed to disrupt Iraq’s landmark Jan. 30 elections.
“The concerted effort to disrupt the elections was an abject failure. Not one polling place was shut down or overrun,” Clinton told reporters inside the U.S.-protected Green Zone, a sprawling complex of sandbagged buildings surrounded by blast walls and tanks. The zone is home to the Iraqi government and the U.S. Embassy…
…The fact that you have these suicide bombers now, wreaking such hatred and violence while people pray, is to me, an indication of their failure,” Clinton said.
Austin Bay then posts a comment from one of his readers:
Guys, guys … it doesn’t matter what Hillary really thinks or what her record is. What matters is that a politician who is the soul of opportunism, and one who has the ear of the MSM (and, frankly, is much brighter than Kerry or Kennedy), is calling Iraq a success. When politicians like HRC start flocking to Iraq to bask in the light of its success, then you know that the corner has been turned. Consider this a sign of better times to come.
# posted by mds : 1:38 PM
