With the symptoms and root cause of Bush Derangement Syndrome ending in a month, and the GOP moderates gellin’ behind Obama on foreign policy… is a consensus of Victory in Iraq possible? And will bipartisanship on the Global War On Terror be reborn?
For the past several years, Iraq has divided and polarized our parties, our policymakers and our people. The debate over the war has often been disfigured by politics and partisanship, precluding the national consensus so important to American security in a dangerous world. President-elect Barack Obama has the opportunity to end this destructive dynamic and rebuild a bipartisan consensus on American foreign policy, including the way forward in Iraq. In naming talented, principled and pragmatic leaders to his national security cabinet, the president-elect has already demonstrated that he wants to set aside foreign policy politics as usual.
Now the very capable leadership team of Defense Secretary Bob Gates, Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton and Gen. Jim Jones, the incoming national security adviser, can apply their bipartisan credentials to help the president-elect forge an Iraq policy that will garner the support of Democrats and Republicans alike.
This outcome is not yet guaranteed, even with all the success we have seen over the previous two years in Iraq. That is what makes it all the more important that Republicans and Democrats put aside the differences over Iraq that have divided us in the past. The president-elect has the chance to repair this breach in our politics by adopting a set of policies, resting on the best judgments of our commanders and diplomats on the ground, that all of us — Democrats and Republicans alike — will be able to support. We have high hopes that he will do so.
Only time will tell.
-Bruce (GayPatriot)
Errr… not sure about the “root cause” part. The root causes of BDS, in my book, were:
– Culture wars. Bush represented traditional values: pro-military, pro-life and pro-responsibility. That’s why the aging-hippie Left hated him so viscerally and intensely (as opposed to merely disagreeing with his policies).
– Many BDS sufferers were just plain deranged to begin with. I’m thinking here of the Cindy Sheehan / Code Pink types.
Neither of those goes away. They’re merely having their own day in power, as we are all subsumed in the New Age of (alleged) Obamunity.
I certainly hope Iraq is resolved acceptably now that Afghanistan is going south.
http://www.vdare.com/buchanan/081218_war.htm
Obama got elected and gas prices went down. Obama got elected and a squirrel ate $1000 worth of hoses and wiring in my SUV as a global warming warning. Obama got elected and immediately no landmark buildings in NYC were destroyed by terrorists. Obama got elected and people became more thoughtful about how to spend their money. Obama got elected and many illegal aliens went back home. Obama got elected and precipitation came to areas that have been arid for centuries. Obama got elected and caused a great cooing and swooning in the cranky MSM.
Anything is possible with Obama. You just have to look at it in the right way.
There’s still time! Bush can still make himself The Supreme Dictator! Wake up people!
Yeah. Right. At least for some people a teensy sense of normalcy is creeping back in. One person who’s been hyper-critical actually said he’s come to “respect” Bush and gave examples of what he has come to respect about him. I was dumbstruck.
On the other hand, as has happened with Reagan, there are people who’ll never let go of their derangement.
I like this: “[It is] important that Republicans and Democrats put aside the differences over Iraq that have divided us in the past.”
Sure, somehow that’s important, NOW. BTW, that was one of the biggest Bush mistakes, IMO, trying to get along when it was unnecessary to do so.
I found it interesting that a poll of members of MoveOn.org, to determine issues most important to them, has the Iraq War down to 4th place.
The only people who ever prevented bipartisan consensus on Iraq were the hyper partisan democrats. So it is solely in their power to stop their partisanship and support victory.