January 25, 2007

A New Liz-ard?

Hatched by Dafydd

I just devoured a killer OpEd piece in the Washington Post that reads so brilliant, so clear and concise, and so inarguable that it could have been a Big Lizards post. The author is a former "principal deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs;" she heads the Iran-Syria Operations Group (ISOG), which uses its $80 budget to promote democracy (that is, regime change) in Iran and Syria; and she is married to Phil Perry, the General Counsel of the United States Department of Homeland Security. This gal has gravitas.

In fact, she is even a "Liz-ard," so to speak; her Christian name is Elizabeth, and she goes by Liz... some young gal named Liz Cheney.

I believe she has a famous father, but I don't think I've heard of him.

There are so many great quotes from this piece, I hardly know where to begin. Dang, I sure wish she were a senator, governor, or president! Here are a few excerpts, beginning with, well, the very beginning:

Sen. Hillary Clinton declared this weekend, "I'm in to win." Anyone who has watched her remarkable trajectory can have no doubt that she'll do whatever it takes to win the presidency. I wish she felt the same way about the war.

A few more, just to give you a taste of the joy you'll experience savoring this piece:

We are at war. America faces an existential threat. This is not, as Speaker Nancy Pelosi has claimed, a "situation to be solved." It would be nice if we could wake up tomorrow and say, as Sen. Barack Obama suggested at a Jan. 11 hearing, "Enough is enough." Wishing doesn't make it so. We will have to fight these terrorists to the death somewhere, sometime. We can't negotiate with them or "solve" their jihad. If we quit in Iraq now, we must get ready for a harder, longer, more deadly struggle later....

Beware the polls. In November the American people expressed serious concerns about Iraq (and about Republican corruption and scandals). They did not say that they want us to lose this war. They did not say that they want us to allow Iraq to become a base for al-Qaeda to conduct global terrorist operations. They did not say that they would rather we fight the terrorists here at home. Until you see a poll that asks those questions, don't use election results as an excuse to retreat....

Our soldiers will win if we let them. Read their blogs. Talk to them. They know that free people must fight to defend their freedom. No force on Earth -- especially not an army of terrorists and insurgents -- can defeat our soldiers militarily. American troops will win if we show even one-tenth the courage here at home that they show every day on the battlefield. And by the way, you cannot wish failure on our soldiers' mission and claim, at the same time, to be supporting the troops. It just doesn't compute.

This is a rousing bitch-slapping of Sen. Hillary, but also of Republican Sens. Olympia Snowe (ME, 32%) and Susan Collins (ME, 32%); and it's a bastard-slapping of Republican Sens. Warner, Hagel, Coleman, Brownback, Voinovich, and Smith. All of these Republicans (everyone listed above except Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, 100%) collectively form the Cowards Corps.

I listened to Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN, 63%) on Hugh Hewitt's show yesterday, and I was rather amused that he did not spend one, single minute explicating why it would help the war effort to send our troops into battle accompanied by the announcement that they're sure to be defeated. (St. Crispin's Day, it ain't.) Rather, Coleman spent the entire interview desperately (and laughably) arguing that the Warner amendment does not say the surge won't work.

Doddering octogenarian Sen. John Warner's (R-VA, 88%) resolution calls, instead of the strategic change of course that the president has already selected, that instead we should announce that we'll be withdrawing by 2008, and that instead we should negotiate with Iran and Syria, begging them to "stabilize" Iraq when we leave.

At the most, it forsees a really tiny surgelet, and only in Anbar province to fight Sunni terrorists... to heck with Baghdad, to heck with democratizing Iraq, to heck with everything else. It's about as anti-surge as the Biden-Hagel amendment, except it doesn't use the Vietnamesque word "escalation." Has Coleman even read it?

Perhaps Mrs. Cheney-Perry could telephone the Cowards Corps and personally tell them just how clownish they are being. (She certainly seems to have more testosterone than any of the males in that group. Well, more than Snowe and Collins, too, of course; but that's not as funny.) Not only are they damaging the country, but even worse from their perspective, they're damaging their own political careers: being a cowardly Republican won't help if their constituents actually want a principled, anti-American Democrat.

Speaking of which, Power Liners John Hinderaker and Scott Johnson followed Coleman on Hugh Hewitt's show, and they tried manfully to find some way to harmonize his current antics with his former stand-up attitude on the war. The best Scott could do was suggest that Coleman's "political viability" in Minnesota politics would be damaged if he did not nakedly undermine our troops. (Evidently, the typical Minnesotan is praying that we lose the war, so America will be humbled and broken.)

I would send a message to Mr. Coleman: dear Senator; if the only way you could maintain your political viability would be to sell out your country during a war -- then you have a duty to sacrifice your political career by doing the right thing instead.

I know it's giddy optimism, but I think there really is a chance that some of these Republican senators will come to their senses -- before they put Congress on record saying we're going to lose the war, and it's too late.

(For comparison's sake, here is how King Henry Vth of England sent off his troops on St. Crispin's Day -- with himself at the head of them... at least according to that Shakespeare fellow; click the "Slither on.")

From King Henry the Vth, Act IV, Scene 3:

KING HENRY V
This day is called the feast of Crispian:
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian:'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispin's day.'
Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day: then shall our names.
Familiar in his mouth as household words
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, January 25, 2007, at the time of 4:13 PM

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» An interesting take on the War in Iraq from Not Exactly Rocket Science
From a former diplomat specializing in the area.  The writer begins:"Sen. Hillary Clinton declared this weekend, "I'm in to win." Anyone who has watched her remarkable trajectory can have no doubt that she'll do whatever it takes to win the... [Read More]

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» Congressional Resolutions vs. Presidential Resolution from Big Lizards
In contrast to the vapid congressional resolutions of irresolution floating around the Dome today -- which can only hurt the war effort -- this sort of talk can only help: George W. Bush on Friday sought to deny widespread rumours... [Read More]

Tracked on January 26, 2007 7:28 PM

Comments

The following hissed in response by: charlotte

Are we so over-civilized as to no longer value the necessary war, the good warrior, and the glory of victory?

The above hissed in response by: charlotte [TypeKey Profile Page] at January 25, 2007 4:44 PM

The following hissed in response by: Rudolph Carrera

Unfortunately, it does seem that way. But no matter, we have enough brave and sane folks who will carry the country to victory. They always do.

The above hissed in response by: Rudolph Carrera [TypeKey Profile Page] at January 25, 2007 5:02 PM

The following hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh

Rudolph Carrera:

But no matter, we have enough brave and sane folks who will carry the country to victory. They always do.

Well, with one glaring exception in 1974, when they were not allowed to do so. That is what worries me.

Dafydd

The above hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh [TypeKey Profile Page] at January 25, 2007 5:07 PM

The following hissed in response by: SallyVee

Dafydd, you must be out of the RW blog-o-chipper loop. Doncha know we're supposed to be targeting Alex Pelosi and Dakota Fanning this week? I'm worried people might read stuff like this, plus your (and Sachi's) past few days of most enlightening & uplifting pieces, and start to think there is a remnant of worthy civilian opponents equal to the hoards of defeatists.

P.S. I'm sending a copy of this plus a few comments of my own to the entire "coward corps." Thank you, most sincerely.

The above hissed in response by: SallyVee [TypeKey Profile Page] at January 25, 2007 6:08 PM

The following hissed in response by: Terrye

Hey, I agree.

The above hissed in response by: Terrye [TypeKey Profile Page] at January 26, 2007 2:48 AM

The following hissed in response by: Trickish knave

I think Kyle Reese unknowingly characterized the Islamic Insurgent:

That Terminator is out there. It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead!
I don't know much about Liz Cheney sans her personal life always being called into question by asshats like Wolfe Blitzer but after reading her pimp slapping of Hillary I think I am feeling a bit of a sophmoric crush.

It is beyond my spatial capacity to understand why Americans want us to fail in Iraq. Some want us to win, some to lose and some don't even know enough to spark a picovolt of energy across a synapse. Thankfully, the polls show Americans hopping over the tall fence to look into the neighbors yard to get their ball back. The minority stands there looking at the fence wishing they had their ball and the undecided went back inside to watch t.v.

It is almost a shame Kerry won't be running if only to give us someone to get a good laugh from.

The above hissed in response by: Trickish knave [TypeKey Profile Page] at January 26, 2007 10:25 AM

The following hissed in response by: Rod

If a bus full of the "Cowards Corps" went over a cliff and all but the driver died I would have mixed emotions. The gutless wonders of the GOP.

I must be part lizard as both my wife and daughter have Elizabeth as their middle names. But my daughter is called Betsy by her clansmen.
I never noticed the scales before! Ithought that was just a part of being old.

The above hissed in response by: Rod [TypeKey Profile Page] at January 26, 2007 10:51 AM

The following hissed in response by: Big D

"It is beyond my spatial capacity to understand why Americans want us to fail in Iraq."

Simple. It is the same reason the Lilliputians strapped down Gulliver. The U.S. is so great that it must be humbled, lest it actually do some good in the world.

"Look around you. Take a good look at the men and women that stand next to you. Remember their faces. For one day you will tell your children and your grandchildren that you served with such men and women that the universe has never seen. And together, you accomplished a feat that will be told and retold down through the ages and find immortality as only the gods once knew." Battlestar Galactica's Cripien moment.

The above hissed in response by: Big D [TypeKey Profile Page] at January 26, 2007 11:00 AM

The following hissed in response by: Dick E

The lady's got brass. I like her!

The above hissed in response by: Dick E [TypeKey Profile Page] at January 26, 2007 12:16 PM

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