Every time there's a few weeks of reduced simmer in war news, some pundits start claiming that the administration is "losing direction" or "losing focus" or "getting bogged down" on the war--or just plain losing the war. Just about the time these wobblers start getting the most shrill, the administration rocks them back on their heels.
The administration obviously took the gamble that their war hand would be most strengthened by concentrating on the midterm elections, de-fanging Democrats by spending most of their time "seeking allies" and sending the world the message that the country is united behind the administration. Message sent.
The efforts to win over allies has not been an insincere effort, but, now that the elections are over, watch for the administration to start showing less patience. I'm willing to bet they're going to lean a lot harder on the U.N., and to start making a lot more noises about going with or without U.N. support. Based on what I've read by some military people, they've probably had January in mind all along, since that's when the weather's ideal.
Quick question:
Are all "war wobblers" secret appeasers?
Or is there room for a faction that feels that Bush might be the wobbly one?
Is it possible that Bush could botch the war by NOT fighting it with a "terrible swift sword?"
I heard Gen. McCafferey say he thought the war would amount to a 21 day campaign. If this is realistic then we should be done with Saddam by April 1, 2002.
Right?
What's stopping the Commander in Chief from rolling over the evil bastard once and for all and putting his head on a pike outside his main palace in Tikrit?
The first wobbler I saw was George Will, who, barely a month after the Taliban was wiped off the map, said that something was going horribly awry with the war. (The little bow-tie wearing dipshit.)
Every time there's a few weeks of slow news on the war, the handwringers on the Right come out and say we're losing, everything's fucked, our leaders without direction, blah blah, woof woof.
Then some new Al Quaeda figures are killed or arrested, Bush scores another major diplomatic victory, and everyone chatters about it. Then the cycle begins anew.
For the wobblers, two weeks of slow news = war being lost. Bah. It's getting old.
What did the President say when this all began? That people would need patience, that we wouldn't always know what was going on, but we would always continue forward and always prevail.
So far, the wobbly sissy-marys keep getting embarassed by the President over and over and over again. In a way, it's funny to watch. But the game is too serious for that. Someone needs to point that out to them.
We're winning. Amazingly, we keep getting the UN and the Euroweenies to do our bidding, too. They whine, they bitch, they moan, they carp, and bloviate at length as if Bush and the Americans were crazy dangerous psychopaths. The administration listens to it, nods, politely dissents--then pulls a jiu-jitsu move and everyone falls in line.
That UN resolution was 15-0. Even Syria rolled over--no big surprise though, just more proof that the thug-regimes over there are run by cowards.
Now the handwringers--even guys like Krauthammer--suggest that we'll allow the U.N. to drag this thing out until next summer. Oh, whatever.
Every single time people bet against this President, they lose. I begin to wonder if Dubya doesn't have some sort of Reality Distortion Field that causes people's brain neurons to misfire.
Even when they once in a while begrudgingly look back at something and say, "Well okay, you know, he did that pretty well, didn't he?" it just doesn't change anything. The next Big Moment approaches, and they all go right back to it: he can't handle this, he's not serious enough about it, he's taking the wrong approach, this is taking too long, blah blah woof woof.
But lacking faith in leaders who've proven themselves a dozen times over is wobbly in my book.