Liberal ‘netroots’ Democrats such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (d) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (d) are in big trouble. Why? Because there are some rational, reasoning liberals coming up for air from the foul stench of liberal vitriol. Michael O’Hanlon and Ken Pollack of the Brookings Institute (no evil conservative think-tank here), are serious students of national security but are not hyper, foaming-at-the-mouth partisans.
Although critics of the war, they have bravely and rightly broken ranks with the Pelosi / Reid Democrat ‘netroots’ goal of American defeat in Iraq solely for cheap domestic political points against their nemesis, President Bush. They opined in The New York Times, of all places, and understand that America’s defeat in Iraq at the hands of al Qaeda and Iranian-backed thugs would have a very negative impact for America. What O’Hanlon and Pollack conclude – “There is enough good happening on the battlefields of Iraq today that Congress should plan on sustaining the effort at least into 2008” – is not what Bush-hating Democrats wanted to hear from some of their own. As a result, dutiful as ever to their liberal masters, some main-stream media types have launched a fratricidal attack on O’Hanlon and Pollack.
The O’Hanlon/Pollack op-ed is important. It forces media, even such outlets as CNN, to discuss the possibility that the war in Iraq might yet be won, much to the detriment of Democrats who have gone over the cliff of ‘defeat at all costs’!
