Avoiding Accountability

Retreat of the anti-war Democrats

Another good one from Pat Buchanan who, like me, was opposed to the invasion of Iraq in the first place. He is once again highlighting the hypocrisy of the democrats on this issue, who have spent much of the past several years criticizing being "misled" into voting for the war and then criticizing the way Bush has handled the war.

Now that they are in power in Congress they continue to prove that they are truly the party without ideas. This is because their basis for any vote continues to come from whatever they think will keep them in office. They voted for the war not because Bush "lied" to them (they had the same information available from which to draw their own conclusions), but because they were afraid that if the war succeeded they wouldn't be able to take credit or that their lack of support might be used to portray them negatively. So much for having principles.

Now that the democrats finally have power and have the ability to end the war or put more pressure to bring the troops back, they are still stuck with the idea of criticizing being their #1 aim and goal. Being a critic is easy because you can never fail. If they actually made decisions based on what they believe (or what they said they believed last year) then they could change current U.S. policy on the issue. Instead, they have decided that it is much safer to criticize and pretend they have no control over the situation rather than carry out their promises and risk the consequences.

They even attempted to undermine General Petraeus' credibility before his report was released this week in order to keep up the criticism without actually offering any ideas. The point isn't whether things are going good or bad to them, the point is that no matter what happens Bush's policies are wrong. One day, they may come up with their own. In the meantime they will sit back and claim that all of the wasted lives and money are Bush's fault entirely and that they are merely reluctant passengers along for the ride. It would be interesting if we could one of the dems on the spot and have them elaborate a detailed strategy, implement it, and see what happens. That is, of course, impossible, but an interesting thought.