Stroke Bait

Do you have any idea how infuriating so-called "moderates" really are? Why the notion of disenfranchising so-called "independents" who think there’s something noble about rank ignorance is becoming so aesthetically appealing to me right now?

The conventional wisdom about last week’s midterm election is that the main reason the Republicans were thrown out of power is because they did not have a "plan" for Iraq.

Take, then, a look at this, and sit down before you do:

More Americans rank Iraq as the top priority of the new Democratic-controlled Congress, but nearly three out of five say the party does not have a plan to deal with the war.

In the aftermath of an anti-Republican wave, the latest Associated Press-Ipsos poll showed lingering uncertainty about the country's direction and the ability of Democrats and President Bush to work together….

While voters in Election Day surveys said corruption and scandal in Congress was one of the most important factors in their vote, the post-election poll showed that 37% of all adults said the war in Iraq should be at the top of the congressional agenda during the next two years. The issue of terrorism, the second most mentioned priority, was ranked highest by 15% of those polled. [emphases added]

I had to wait a full day to post on this, it made me so angry. Shall I count the ways of my frustration?

***If a majority of the country doubts that the Democrats have a plan for Iraq either, why the bloody hell did it elect them to handle it?!?

***After the last six years of Donk political jihad, no voter can possibly be so stupid as to believe that Democrats were given back Congress in order to "work together" with the Bush White House. Nor can they be so idiotic as to think the Democrats would interpret the election results that way. Good Lord, don’t these "centrists" EVER pay attention AT ALL to ANYTHING?!?

***I’ll say this r-e-a-l-l-y s-l-o-w so the "radical middle" can perhaps possibly kinda-sorta understand it: The "issue of terrorism" and the "issue of Iraq" ARE THE SAME !#$%^&* ISSUE!!! Who are we fighting in Iraq? ISLAMIST TERRORISTS!!! What will happen when we leave Iraq? THE ISLAMIST TERRORISTS WILL CONQUER IT, unleashing an unimaginable bloodletting against the Iraqi people who trusted us for a second futile time and moving Iran’s effective western border several hundred miles closer to Israel.

Iran is the ultimate enemy, and we’re not fighting them even as they’ve been battling against us since I was in the ninth grade. Here’s just a brief list of what’s come from the mullahgarchy just this week:

***The International Atomic Energy Agency reports that it has found "unexplained plutonium and highly enriched uranium traces in a nuclear waste facility in Iran," and has asked Iran for an explanation.

***Like they can’t figure out that one for themselves. They just don’t want to, because that would mean, well, fighting Iran. So our dear friend Adolph Ahmadinejad spelled it out for them r-e-a-l-l-y s-l-o-w-l-y:

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday that Iran would soon celebrate completion of its nuclear fuel program and claimed the international community was ready to accept it as a nuclear state.

"Initially, they (the U.S. and its allies) were very angry. The reason was clear: They basically wanted to monopolize nuclear power in order to rule the world and impose their will on nations," Ahmadinejad told a news conference.

"Today, they have finally agreed to live with a nuclear Iran, with an Iran possessing the whole nuclear fuel cycle," he said. He did not elaborate. [emphasis added]

Heh.

***Benjamin Netanyahu, the Likud leader and former (and future) Israeli prime minister, had no problems recognizing the implications:

Likud Party Chairman Binyamin Netanyahu warned delegates attending the United Jewish Communities' General Assembly (UJC-GA) at the Los Angeles Convention Center on Monday that Iran today resembled Germany in 1938.

"Iran is Germany," said Netanyahu, "that is arming itself with atomic bombs and declaring it will destroy the Jewish State."

"Iran's goals are global," he continued, "and we are the first target. Every month that passes Iran comes closer to its goal - be it through the development of a nuclear weapon or the development of the means [to use them].

***And here, ladies and gents, is the proverbial cherry atop the sundae:

[T]he revelation that Iran is working hard to establish a closer relationship with bin Laden's fanatics, who provoked the war against terrorism with the attacks on September 11 2001, is likely to undermine severely Downing Street's attempts to effect a rapprochement. Iran is also suspected of arming insurgent groups in southern Iraq – many of which have links to al-Qa'eda – that have been responsible for many of the roadside bomb attacks against British troops. But intelligence officials have been most alarmed by reports from Iran that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is trying to persuade al-Qa'eda to promote a pro-Iranian activist to a senior position within its leadership. [emphases added]

***Now combine that story with this one:

al Qaeda is trying to acquire the technology that would enable it to use a nuclear device to attack Western targets including Britain, a senior British official said on Monday. 'We know the aspiration is there. We know attempts to gather materials are there, we know that attempts to gather technology are there,' the senior Foreign Office official told reporters. The comments at a briefing came days after the head of Britain's domestic spy agency said Muslim extremists were plotting at least thirty major terrorist attacks in Britain which could involve chemical and nuclear devices."

It’s all one war. If the Democrats don’t have a "plan" for it, in Iraq or anywhere else, why on God’s green Earth did the American electorate give them legislative power over its conduct?

And if only that were true. The truth is, the Democrats DO have a "plan" for the war. Following are a few examples of it:

*** Civil rights activists filed suit Tuesday asking German prosecutors to open a war crimes investigation of outgoing Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and a host of other U.S. officials for their alleged roles in abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison and Guantanamo Bay.

*** From the Limbaugh archive:

Pat "Leaky" Leahy, the incoming judiciary committee chairman has an idea. He wants to give Al-Qaeda habeas corpus rights. He wants to ditch the foreign surveillance legislation the President negotiated before the election, and if he doesn't ditch it, he wants to add a provision that grants al-Qaeda prisoners of war habeas corpus rights. That will of course make everything better. The terrorists will find out we mean them no harm, that they have friends in high places in Washington, DC, who understand their rights and are going to do everything that they can to see to it that their rights to explore for nuclear materials are not discovered by prying, evil spies in the Bush Administration or Republican agencies of our government.

Patrick Leahy has let it be known, he's let the terrorists all over the world know it, that he and his Democrats are their protectors. They will do everything they can to see to it that secret activities undertaken by al-Qaeda are not discovered. In this effort al-Qaeda will understand how compassionate and worldly we are and how we intend them no harm, that this was all Bush's fault, that if Bush hadn't been elected there would have never been any terrorism. "A battle is shaping up between Democrats and the White House over the Military Commissions Act, signed into law last month by President George W. Bush. Senator Patrick Leahy, D-VT, is expected to take over as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and The (Calif.) Daily Journal reports that Leahy is drafting a bill to undo portions of the new law in an effort to restore habeas corpus rights for enemy combatants." That's prisoners, ladies and gentlemen, enemy combatants, terrorist prisoners that we capture.

***And, finally, this, which depressingly isn’t limited to the Dems or even our country, but which they will seize and gallop away in the wrong direction:

"It is a perfectly straightforward and clear strategy. It will only be defeated by an equally clear one: to relieve these pressure points one by one and then, from a position of strength, to talk.

"Offer Iran a clear strategic choice: they help the Middle East peace process, not hinder it; they stop supporting terrorism in Lebanon or Iraq; and they abide by, not flout, their international obligations.

"In that case, a new partnership is possible. Or alternatively they face the consequences of not doing so: isolation."

Those are the foolish words of British Prime Minister Tony "Baloney" Blair, but they’re pandemic by now: the "plan" for Iraq will be to invite Iran in to "help" after we’ve fled.

Can it really be possible that "moderates," "centrists," and the "radical middle" did not know that was what they were voting for last Tuesday? Can they really be that brain-dead?

And is one of the two possible answers really any better than the other one?