Chuck Schumer -- CLUELESS as ever

You gotta hand it to the Democrats that when they suffer from hoof in mouth disease, they go all the way. His statement is up at Generalissimo Duane's site, and you might want to watch it. This is the quote that has my wife slightly miffed this afternoon, and I can't say I blame her:

And let me be clear, the violence in Anbar has gone down despite the surge, not because of the surge. The inability of American soldiers to protect these tribes from al Qaeda said to these tribes we have to fight al Qaeda ourselves. It wasn't that the surge brought peace here. It was that the warlords took peace here, created a temporary peace here. And that is because there was no one else there protecting.

Marcie said it best: "Chuck Schumer should get down on his knees and thank God the military doesn't get to pick and choose who they defend." I agree. He might be in a bit of trouble if that were true.

The idiocy of the Democrats, like Schumer, is astounding. No longer are they content with rewriting history after it's unfolded, but rather they are rewriting it as it IS unfolding. To say that our troops did nothing -- not one damn thing -- since the surge started in protecting the Iraqis and working towards quelling the sectarian violence is pure fantasy. No doubt it will come as a great surprise to the troops that they didn't do anything in Iraq to foment this change. In fact, he's basically saying that because they did nothing that they didn't have to be there, and Iraq would have balanced itself all on it's own.

Idiot. Amateur. Were it not for us working with the tribal leaders, working with the civilians, and working to reform the Iraqi Security Forces Iraq would be ten times worse. It was our efforts -- enumerated in David Petreus's plan for the surge -- that allowed this to come about. The Sunnis and Shi'ites have, and still are, laying down their arms in an effort to give up the violence that had plagued Iraq since the bombing of the al-Askari mosque that began fueling the sectarian violence. They're tired of the infighting. They want a unified country, and they finally realized that we were working towards the same goals. Better to work with us than fight against us, they reasoned, and that's why these "awakenings" are occurring.

Mike Allen was on with Hugh Hewitt this afternoon and stated that with all the reports coming out, there will be plenty for people to "cherry-pick" to support their arguments. It's apparent that this is what Senator Schumer is doing. He is obviously disappointed that the Iraqi government isn't fully up and running despite our own history which shows we were hardly cohesive after we won our independence. Furthermore, we still didn't have a Constitution then, and it was 1788 -- five years AFTER the victory in the Revolutionary War -- that is was finally ratified.

We knew this would be a painstaking process, and comments like this from Schumer shows that he and his colleagues have no faith in the military to do it's job. The military is too corrupt, or inept, or abusive to have done the job they've done. It's disgusting that a sitting US senator would ever denigrate those that have fought, and given the ultimate sacrifice in defense of this nation.

In closing, I'd like to note that we'll be watching the debate tonight, and I'll give our thoughts here when it's done. But if the moderators want to serve up a big, ol' dish of red meat to the candidates, they may want to cite this tonight. If they do, I'll be sure to note it in our wrap-up.

Publius II