Romney Watch '08'-Dems go looking for dirt

For those of you who don't think Mass. Governor Mitt Romney is a serious presidential candidate, think again. Two Boston papers just reported,here and here, the DNC has already started trying to dig up dirt. "Earlier this month, virtually every agency in state government received public records requests for ''any and all records of communication" involving Willard [Mitt] Romney dating to 1947, the year of his birth. The letters, each dated Dec. 7, are signed by Shauna Daly, who only provided a post office box in Washington, D.C., as her address."

Republicans say that the document requests will cost several tens of thousands of dollars and are planning to bill the DNC for the government provided services. Not surpisingly, the DNC has requested that the fee be waived, because of the "public interest" involved.

Romney Watch '08 - Part IV

The presumed candidacy of Mitt Romney for the Republican Presidential Nomination in 2008 has drawn a lot of attention. It should. Romney's record as governor of Massachusetts has been impressive. It includes reducing budget deficits without raising taxes and well-regarded educational reform. He also supported conservative work against gay marriage, despite running one of the most liberal states in the Union. Prior to his governorship he turned around the sinking ship that was the 2002 Winter Olympics and was a very successful businessman.

He is more photogenic and articulate than the President. His business acumen is arguably better. But there may be a problem- He's a Mormon!

Well, a problem for some, though not us here at RWP (We're Mormon too!). James Taranto picks up the issue where it is most applicable- within Romney's own party:

The trouble is that much of today's anti-Mormon sentiment is found on the religious right, a constituency that looms much larger in the GOP now than it did in 1968, or than it ever has in Massachusetts. Ask a conservative Christian what he thinks of Mormonism, and there's a good chance he'll call it a "cult" or say Mormons "aren't Christian."

Romney has dealt with these issues before, first as a candidate for Senator in 1994, and now as Governor. Says Romney:

As people got to know me . . . they accepted me for who I am, and religious doctrines didn't make much difference to them.
My policies in the public sector are not a mirror image of any church's doctrines. But of course the respect I have for American values flows from the faith that I have.

In my opinion Romney's conservative credentials are solid. The so-called "Mormon Question" is one that I think will resolve itself as we near 2008. Reasonable people will look at his record and be impressed. Anti-Mormon sentiment is largely based on misunderstandings and falsehoods. Time will tell.

Sorry MSM, the public didn't take the bait.

After the WaPo's revelation that the NSA had been eavesdropping on terrorist conversations, the Libs and the MSM were intent on creating an uproar and casting the administration as lawbreakers. Nevermind the fact that that Clinton had done nearly the exact same thing years ago, the libs wanted Bush's head on a platter, and so for the past week or so, all the lib politicians, and their counterparts in the MSM have been "outraged" over the NSA program.

Well, turns out that as expected, the American public doesn't mind much if we listen in on the terrorists, as revealed by a recent Rasmussen poll:

Sixty-four percent (64%) of Americans believe the National Security Agency (NSA) should be allowed to intercept telephone conversations between terrorism suspects in other countries and people living in the United States. A Rasmussen Reports survey found that just 23% disagree.
Sixty-eight percent (68%) of Americans say they are following the NSA story somewhat or very closely.
Just 26% believe President Bush is the first to authorize a program like the one currently in the news.

Bill Bennet sums it up nicely, when he discusses today's WaPo article on the NSA program during his "Morning in America" show:

There you have it: this is the dark and dirty world we live in. Hardly a police state, hardly a truant officer or dog catcher state: we use foreign intelligence to capture and kill al-Qaeda and move detainees around the world; we look at international finanical records, and eavesdrop on suspected terrorists. If anyone told you we did that at a water cooler would you even blink an eye?

Sorry libs, maybe next time you can jump onto a real issue, like actually present your own plan of what to do in Iraq.

Prejudice

In April of this year I learned about Ted Hayes, a Republican from Los Angeles and advocate for the homeless who happens to be black. Mr. Hayes writes in today's Wall Street Journal (subscription required) about how conservative blacks are persecuted by the left.

I cannot post any of the article for copyright reasons, but think the questions he raises are very valid. Like Kofi Annan's ad hominem attack on the reporter who asked tough questions, the attacks on Black Republicans beg the question of why Democrats are afraid of them.

Fair & Balanced?

The Chicago Tribune has published an editorial analyzing the various reasons for the Iraq war proffered by the Bush administration.

I found the editorial even-handed. Moreover, the Trib's conclusion was that they were correct in standing with the President in favor of launching the war.

Also I like the part where they bash the U.N., calling Bush's criticism of their ineptitude an understatement.

Money for Nothing

The United Nations continues its winning streak with this bit of news about Asian Tsunami Relief. It appears that of the $590 million designated for that purpose, up to a third went to overhead expenses.

This is atrocious. A good charitable organization spends 10% or less on overheard (which includes administrative costs, staff salaries, and other expenses). The remarkable inefficiency of the United Nations should demonstrate why it is not an effective organization through which to prosecute the national security agenda of the United States.

Of course, the United States government is no model of efficiency. Whenever people talk about nationalized healthcare, I cringe at the thought of what Congress and the state and federal bureaucracies would do with it. I think one set of red tape (the American kind) is quite enough.

Oil for Blood

Earlier this week, Kofi "Reform is not Our Job" Annan got very mad at a London Times reporter that asked questions about certain UN impropriety. He called the reporter an embarrassment to his colleagues and his profession. Based on the information unearthed by Paul Volcker's inquiry, summarized here:

...the cumulative management performance of the Secretary-General fell short of the standards that the United Nations Organization should strive to maintain.

Claudia Rosett provides the following translation:

Backed up by thousands of pages produced by a $35 million 18-month investigation, that is perhaps a way of diplomatically suggesting that Annan himself is — how to put this? — an embarrassment to his colleagues and his profession?

As a child, I had respect and admiration for the UN. It seemed such a noble concept, but Annan's behavior confirms what I have learned as an adult- the United Nations is unable to fulfill even the most basic tasks without corruption and incompetence. As Rosett suggest, Annan's angry response suggests the questions still outnumber the answers.

Honor the Fallen

Peggy Noonan is one of my favorite writers. Today her piece is especially powerful in that it focuses on the work of others. She mentions a special effort by the Rocky Mountain News and Time to look at how the families of the fallen are informed.

This is one of the most moving stories I have read, and the multimedia presentation prepared by the News is a must-see. Whatever your feelings about the Iraq War, you cannot deny the power of this reporting. This is one time the mainstream media gets it just right.

Please visit the site and watch the presentation. Semper Fi.

One 2005 Report Card

Pete du Pont is the former governer of Delaware and runs a Dallas-based thinktank. In his monthly OpinionJournal piece, he provides a handy review of some the over- and underachievers in global politics. Some highlights from the winners:

• The good news is that the American economy is doing very well: 10 consecutive quarters of 4% annualized economic growth, which helped create 1.8 million new jobs this year and four million in the past two years. The tax cuts of the Bush administration are one of the reasons for this success, for they stimulate economic growth, and that growth produced a 14.6% increase in federal tax revenues in 2005. Even liberals should be happy, for the percentage of income taxes paid by the top 1% of taxpayers has grown from 19.3% in 1980 (before the Reagan tax cuts) to 27% in 1988 and 34% currently.
• The war for freedom in Iraq is progressing too. Iraqis held their third purple-thumb election last week, electing a legislature following a transitional assembly in January and approving their constitution in October. Ten million people voted in an election that even the New York Times called "an overwhelming and heartening triumph." The Iraqi economy is stable and growing. Per capita income is now more that $1,000, double what it was in 2003.
• The people of France and the Netherlands get top grades for voting down the nearly incomprehensible European Union constitution. Its adoption would have insured that socialist Europe never recovered from its economic doldrums. Over the past 25 years the European Union has added just four million new jobs while the U.S. has added 57 million.

And some of the losers:

• The Republican Congress--House and Senate--has dismally failed to control the growth of government...One would think the president would have used his veto power to control the spending surge, but he hasn't used it at all. (The last president to serve a full term without issuing a veto was John Quincy Adams.) For starters he should have vetoed the highway bill, which contained 6,373 pork projects costing $24 billion.
• Senate and House "moderates" are part of the problem too. Maine's Sen. Olympia Snowe opposes extending the tax cuts that have stimulated our economy, and Rhode Island's Sen. Lincoln Chafee opposes oil refinery construction on abandoned military bases (which would increase our fuel supplies) and tax cuts. In the House it is the 25 Republican moderates who have opposed most spending reductions and tried to block ANWR oil drilling in Alaska.
• ...the worst failing grade for the year goes to the United Nations and Kofi Annan. Paul Volker's report on the Oil for Food scandal concluded that $10 billion worth of Iraqi oil was illegally smuggled to adjacent nations...So Dennis Kozlowski stole $600 million from Tyco and got eight to 25 years in jail, while Kofi Annan supervised more than $10 billion in Oil for Food theft and will stay in his job since, in his own words, "the business of the United Nations is not reform."

A nice summation.

Throw enough and one will stick?

That seems to describe the rationale behind the Democrat's failure to come up with a cohesive view on Iraq. As this interview with Nancy Pelosi illustrates (from the Washington Post):

There is no one Democratic voice . . . and there is no one Democratic position

Huh? I agree that a political party can have disagreement, but to avoid any concrete position as if it were a badge of honor is foolish. Senator Rahm Emanuel doesn't think the water is murky enough yet, as this statement shows:

As for Iraq policy, at the right time, we'll have a position.

When is the right time? Closer to the elections? So the Dems can call a race that is almost finished? This takes Kerry-style waffling to a whole new level. Why declare a position that may require a flip-flop when you can avoid declaring anything at all?

Pretty pathetic. For more on this inspiring issue, see these past posts:

http://rightwingpundit.blogspot.com/2005/12/we-cant-winbut-we-can-redeploythen-win.html
http://spotd.blogspot.com/2005/11/our-ideas-are-so-good-theyre-secret.html

I love Arnold

Check out Arnold's response to the moral judges in his hometown.

"In all likelihood, during my term as governor, I will have to make similar and equally difficult decisions," Schwarzenegger said in the letter. "To spare the responsible politicians of the city of Graz further concern, I withdraw from them as of this day the right to use my name in association with the Liebenauer Stadium."
In the letter, Schwarzenegger also said he would no longer permit the use of his name "to advertise or promote the city of Graz in any way" and would return the city's "ring of honor."
The ring was given to him in a ceremony in Graz in 1999. At the time, Schwarzenegger said he considered it "a token of sincere friendship between my hometown and me."
"Since, however, the official Graz appears to no longer accept me as one of their own, this ring has lost its meaning and value to me. It is already in the mail," the governor
wrote.

I am not too big a fan of the governator. But what a great response!

Romney Watch '08'

Here's an interesting article from National Review discussing Governor Mitt Romney and how the "mormon factor" might affect his presidential aspiriations. It is a decent article.

Here's a nice little quote:
"Evangelicals admire the governor but find Mormonism to be a strange and baffling abberation of the historic Christian faith."

Of course having a prophet and twelve apostles and revelation and temples his really an "abberation of the historic" church.

Civilian Deaths

From instapundit (via Ann Althouse via the nytimes)
Statistics

What liberal bias?

Research out of UCLA attempts to objectively determine the political bias of several news organizations. I'm still a little skeptical on their methods (probably cause I'm not familiar with congressional speeches other than the incoherent demonizing Kennedy ones), but the results are interesting. I am also impressed that they count drugdereport as a news source, since thats where I go for my news.

I guess Kennedy isn't the only demonizer. And whats up with the photo? Are the folks at reuters making claims about Reid's divinity, or supporting claims of his ethics?

Protectionism Shmotectionism

This entry by Andrew Roth in The Club for Growth blog shows how protectionism is bad for American industry. These tactics, particularly in today's age of Wal-Mart villification are counterproductive and send mixed signals to the developing world.

Friday Morning Bloggy Goodness

Here's a short round-up of this morning's blogworthy events.

You ask, what's Sen .Joe Biden doing when he's not criticizing the war in Iraq? He's making suprise visits to the country and getting photo ops of his purple-stained finger.

The guys at powerline are bashing The New York Times for having the audacity to "be the arbiter of what will and will not help the terrorists and thus impair our national security" by choosing to publish the "eavesdropping" story. They argue that under the Plame precedent, these leaking intelligence officials should be investigated.

John Kerry "jokes" that if the dems win the house, they can then impeach the President. I know, they only say he was joking, but I was listening to Air America this morning and immediatly after criticizing republicans for getting riled up about this "joke" they then say that of course he should be impeached.

Gregg Gutfeld riles things up over at the Huffington Post, noting that Santa is just an old fat white guy.

Unfortunately, Iraq security forces actually caught, and then accidentally released Al-Queda in Iraq leader, Al Zarqawi.

And of course, Victor Davis Hanson offers his valuable insight on the Iraqi elections.

One Marine's Story

When I was a missionary in San Diego, I spent every Sunday for 8 months at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot. I saw a little of what boot camp is like for the Marine recruits. Although my experience did not move me to join up, a former Wall Street Journal Reporter's experience did. Matt Pottinger left his job to join the Marine Corps, and his reasons are striking:

A year ago, I was at my sister's house using her husband's laptop when I came across a video of an American in Iraq being beheaded by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The details are beyond description here; let's just say it was obscene. At first I admit I felt a touch of the terror they wanted me to feel, but then I felt the anger they didn't. We often talk about how our policies are radicalizing young men in the Middle East to become our enemies, but rarely do we talk about how their actions are radicalizing us. In a brief moment of revulsion, sitting there in that living room, I became their blowback.
Of course, a single emotional moment does not justify a career change, and that's not what happened to me. The next day I went to lunch at the Council on Foreign Relations where I happened to meet a Marine Corps colonel who'd just come back from Iraq. He gave me a no-nonsense assessment of what was happening there, but what got to me most was his description of how the Marines behaved and how they looked after each other in a hostile world. That struck me as a metaphor for how America should be in the world at large, and it also appealed to me on a personal level. At one point I said half-jokingly that, being 31 years old, it was a shame I was too old to serve. He sat back for a second and said, "I think I've still gotcha."

He continues:

In a way, I see the Marines as a microcosm of America at its best. Their focus isn't on weapons and tactics, but on leadership. That's the whole point of the Marines. They care about each other in good times and bad, they've always had to fight for their existence--even Harry Truman saw them as nothing more than the "Navy's police force"--and they have the strength of their traditions. Their future, like the country's, is worth fighting for. I hope to be part of the effort.

Please read the whole thing. This is why we will win. People like Matt Pottinger and those that inspired him.

Iraqi Voter tells it straight

This is a great little video of a 77 year-old Iraqi voter telling the Anti-War left where they can go (from The Political Teen).

Romney Watch '08' Part II

It looks like J-Red's entry from July is growing closer to reality. According to the Boston Globe, Mitt Romney will not seek reelection in '06 in order to pursue the Republican presidential candidacy in '08. This is good news.

My wife asked me if there was anybody I was hoping would run. I threw out Rice and Giuliani as interesting candidates, having completely forgotten Mitt. I am chagrined by the oversight, and he is my candidate (at least right now). He has a strong political pedigree, is photogenic, unquestionably smart, media-savvy, and was the governor of one of the most liberal states in the Union.

Romney-Rice is not a bad ticket.

Hurry, act now!

Hey guys,

I've got a huge supply of all these left over t-shirts, so let me know if you want a discount.

The Wages of Sin...

There is a man in California on death row named Stanley Tookie Williams. In 1979, he killed four people in two separate robberies. He co-founded the violent gang the Crips. He might be a footnote among the many people executed since the death penalty was reinstituted, were it not for some who think he deserves mercy.

Rather than repeat arguments, which have failed in court, that Williams is innocent, his lawyers are making an appeal that he is worth more alive than dead because of his work in urging youths to avoid gangs.
"Our petition is not based on innocence," said Peter Fleming, one of Williams' attorneys. "Our petition is based upon rehabilitation of Stanley personally, but it is at least as importantly based on the value of Stanley Williams to the at-risk children in this country."

Others think that Williams merits no special concern:

California prosecutors and prison officials call Williams a poor candidate for clemency, let along any prize, because he has not admitted to the murders and still has gang ties.

For Williams to receive clemency for his crimes, he needs to admit them. He never has, therefore he has not shown remorse or regret. So he has been "rehabilitated," and said rehabilitation merits clemency? I think no. If Williams' anti-gang message has resonated, won't his death for gang-related killings resonate even more? I think so. The law of the state must be carried out, good works or not, and the consequence of his actions fully realized. Irrevocable crime sometimes needs irrevocable punishment. Let his 'matyrdom' preach the final anti-gang message.

----------------------------

Update: Williams was denied clemency and will be executed tonight. The objections of his supporters doesn't move me in the least.

Nothing good comes for free

Todays piece by Peggy Noonan brings up some interesting points about immigration, specifically, the illegal kind. Noonan begins by writing about the wonder of what can be done here in America, where in 2 generations famlies go from sleeping outside on benches to writing speeches for the President. The kind of success this demonstrates stems from certain values, values she fears may be absent in many of today's illegal immigrants.

This is what I fear about our elites in government and media, who will decide our immigration policy. It is that they will ignore the human questions and focus instead, as they have in the past, only on economic questions (we need the workers) and political ones (we need the Latino vote). They think that's the big picture. It's not. What goes on in the human heart is the big picture.

By human heart Noonan refers to the following:

They knew citizenship was not something cheaply held but something bestowed by a great nation.
Did the fact that they had to earn it make joining America even more precious?
Yes. Of course.

She continues

Again: What does it mean when your first act is to break the laws of your new country? What does it mean when you know you are implicitly supported in lawbreaking by that nation's ruling elite? What does it mean when you know your new country doesn't even enforce its own laws? What does it mean when you don't even have to become an American once you join America?

We need change in immigration law and practice. I do think that we need some way to take the 10-20 million illegals that currently reside here and bring them into the system, not as citizens or people on the citizen-track, but as contributing, tax-paying workers. If they want to become citizens they would need to go through the normal and official channels, possibly even returning to their native land in order to do so.
We also need greater border security. There is nothing inhumane about a wall or fence. Nations have always had the right to delineate territory and defend it. A more effective border barrier and greater supervision of that border are other necessary steps.

Somebody. Please tell me this is a joke.

For all of you looking for a great gag/white elephant gift, I recommend the following book:

"Why Mommy is a Democrat"

Don't forget to read the sample pages. And of course, five percent of the proceeds go to supporting democratic candidates!

We can't win...but we can redeploy...then win?

I cannot express in clean language the level of contempt that I feel for Howard Dean. On a regular basis he has knowlingly misrespresented facts and spread outright lies. Now he says the following (emphasis added):

The "idea that we're going to win the war in Iraq is an idea which is just plain wrong."
I've seen this before in my life. This is the same situation we had in Vietnam. Everybody then kept saying, 'just another year, just stay the course, we'll have a victory.' Well, we didn't have a victory, and this policy cost the lives of an additional 25,000 troops because we were too stubborn to recognize what was happening."
The White House wants us to have a permanent commitment to Iraq. This is an Iraqi problem. President Bush got rid of Saddam Hussein and that was a great thing, but that could have been done in a very different way.

So Iraq is unwinnable. Therefore we should leave, right? Despite what he just said, Dean doesn't think so:

I think we need a strategic redeployment over a period of two years. Bring the 80,000 National Guard and Reserve troops home immediately. They don't belong in a conflict like this anyway. We ought to have a redeployment to Afghanistan of 20,000 troops, we don't have enough troops to do the job there and its a place where we are welcome. And we need a force in the Middle East, not in Iraq but in a friendly neighboring country to fight (terrorist leader Musab) Zarqawi, who came to Iraq after this invasion. We've got to get the target off the backs of American troops.

So Iraq is unwinnable, but we should keep a force nearby to fight Zarqawi. The force should not be in Iraq, where Zarqawi is, but in a "friendly neighboring country." What country does he have in mind? How does moving where the American forces are stationed take the target off their backs? Maybe he'll tell us in 2006 when the Democrat Miracle Plan is unveiled. Until then it seems we will have to be content with the contradictions that Dean purveys.

Oil & Water

Israel and Iran just don't mix. Today the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed that if Iran carried out its threats to resume operations at nuclear facilities, they would likely have atomic weapons withing several months. Last October, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the "democratically" elected president of Iran, claimed that Israel should be wiped off the map. In statements published today, former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that a pre-emptive strike on Iran may be appropriate, alluding to Menachem Begin's attack on Iraq's nascent nuclear weapons program over twenty years ago. He plans to make pre-emption a major issue in Israel's upcoming election. Oil and water.
Where does this leave the U.S.? During the months preceding the U.S. war in Iraq, I had an enlightening conversation with a BYU political science professor. I have particular respect for this professor, whose extensive knowledge of national security issues is complemented by an ability to look at those issues in unorthodox ways. The outcome of the conversation was this:

• The U.S. attack on Iraq was necessary if they were trying to obtain nuclear weapons. The U.S. has long defended Israel. A nuclear attack on Israel by Iraq would lead many to demand that the U.S. defend its ally. Saddam's history of using civilians as shields and other methods of "death-evasion" made a nuclear retaliation untenable politically- we simply don't have the will. A nuclear Iraq, knowing that we lacked the will to respond in a nuclear fashion, might feel emboldened, not just to attack Israel, but perhaps some target even more sensitive to the U.S. The American people would not be able to to stomach retaliatory attacks that would undoubtedly lead to many civilian deaths. Our nuclear capacity did not offer us the ability to deter Iraq in a way that offered protection to America and its interests. Therefore it was in our interests to make sure that Iraq did not develop nuclear weapons, a course that might potentially save more lives than inaction, not just here, but in the rest of the world.

The revelation that Iraq possessed no active nuclear program did not weaken the rationale behind this argument for the war. We had no way of knowing what Saddan did or did not have.

Now we have Iran. The higher degree of transparency provides greater surety that Iran is close to fabricating nuclear weapons. This would seem to make the above scenario even more likely. The behavior of the American left demonstrates that some lack the will to finish a conventional, non-nuclear war. What does this show an increasingly combative Iran? What will Iran's leaders do when faced with the capability to strike at their greatest enemy in devastating fashion? Much will depend on how we prosecute the war in Iraq. I think you know what I mean.

_____________________

By the way, thanks to Bear & J-Red for inviting me to join their Right Wing Blog Party. I look forward to stirring the pot.

Why lawyers get a bad rap.

Yet another reason to villify attorneys.

Quote of the Day

Here's a great quote from Lincoln:

"Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military are saboteurs and should be arrested, exiled or hanged."

Now obviously, I'm not calling for actions to be taken against the likes of Kennedy, Pelosi and the rest of the tinfoil hat wearers, but I think it is imperative that they realize how destructive their actions can be. The democrats are in a very odd position. If the war goes well, then that is good for America, the world, and tangentially, the GOP, but is not necessarilly good for the democrats. If however, the war is a disatreous failure, then that is bad for the U.S., the rest of the world, and the GOP, yet advances the democrats politically. So, if the dems wish to advance their political agenda they would hope for utter failure in Iraq, but if they wish to advance U.S. interests, they would hope for resounding success in Iraq.

Do you have any doubts about what their secret hopes and wishes are?

Lowdogg joins up

This post is to welcome Lowdogg to RWP. (It's a belated welcome, since he took no time at all to make his first post. He also got a comment on his first post...but I'm not jealous!)
Here's a fun fact about Lowdogg: Lowdogg isn't his real name. He's a cuban patriot (meaning his ancestry is cuban and he's an American patriot) who hails from the sunny, occasionally soggy state of Florida. If he were a pig, and spoke latin, he might introduce himself as Ojay Owerylay.
Lowdogg and I lived on the same floor freshman year, and I remember spending time sitting in the back of his SUV (the trunk) being driven around. Interestingly, for the next few years of school, I sat in the trunk of J-red's SUV as he gave rides.
What can we all learn from this? That the Bear really needed to get a car.
Anyway, Ojay should bring an interesting perspective to the blog, not to mention filling the gaps that J-red and I occasionally leave.

--Update--
I forgot to mention, Ojay has a website http://www.spotd.net/
I'll add the link to the sidebar when I remember how.

The Only Sane Democrat?

On Tuesday The Wall Street Journal published a piece by Joe Lieberman entitled "Our Troops Must Stay." He writies convincingly of the progress being made by U.S. forces in Iraq as part of the broader War on Terror. He correctly describes the conflict there as a war of 27 million versus 10 thousand, the former being the Iraqi citizenry and the latter the terrorists. Iraqi leaders are conscious of their current situation:

None of these remarkable changes would have happened without the coalition forces led by the U.S. And, I am convinced, almost all of the progress in Iraq and throughout the Middle East will be lost if those forces are withdrawn faster than the Iraqi military is capable of securing the country.
The leaders of Iraq's duly elected government understand this, and they asked me for reassurance about America's commitment. The question is whether the American people and enough of their representatives in Congress from both parties understand this. I am disappointed by Democrats who are more focused on how President Bush took America into the war in Iraq almost three years ago, and by Republicans who are more worried about whether the war will bring them down in next November's elections, than they are concerned about how we continue the progress in Iraq in the months and years ahead.

Lieberman also notes the effect of the Iraq situation on its neighbors, including Lebanon. How sad that Iraq's leaders cannot be sure of our commitment. We are making progress and adapting as necessary. The Democratic party does a disservice to our country when they demand immediate troop withdrawl. Lieberman may be the only one in his party that understands this fully. Read the whole article.

--Update:Bear--
From Foxnews:
The liberal activist group MoveOn.org says it's prepared to back a Democratic challenger to Senator Joe Lieberman in the 2006 primary because of the Connecticut Democrat's continued support for the war in Iraq. MoveOn Washington director Tom Matzzie tells the Hartford Courant that the No. 1 question his Connecticut members ask him is "What are we going to do about Joe Lieberman?" Matzzie says if those 50,000 members ask, MoveOn will work to defeat Lieberman over the war issue, adding, "Just like he didn't realize his presidential ambitions were in trouble, he doesn't understand the war in Iraq isn't going anywhere."