The Time Machine

Time for another edition of The Time Machine!

The date was July 17, 2003. The polls indicated that Iraq was a political winner for the Deserter. The republicans arrogantly believed they could parlay their warmongering into success in the 2004 presidential election. The democrats were lost, timidly avoiding the subject of Iraq and trying to ignore Howard Dean's courageous assault on our nation's War of Shame.

Goldstein was under seige from his wingnut friends, who were still basking in the glow of the Deserter's "Mission Accomplished" party in the Pacific. One of Goldstein's wingnuttiest friends ventured that "Iraq (and security) is a losing issue for the demos."

Goldstein, yet again prescient, responded thusly:

Let's all remember this one. I am offering even money right now that the Deserter's fly-boy grandstanding on the aircraft carrier will appear in at least one commercial for a democratic candidate for president. By the time 2004 rolls around the Deserter will wish he was Michael Dukakis in a tank and an oversized helmet.

Just think about it. Gen. Abizaid confirmed today that we are fighting a "guerilla war" in Iraq, more than two months after the Deserter declared victory and took a fighter jet taxi out to a big circle jerk in the pacific. Abizaid's statement is the first official confirmation that resistance is not episodic, but organized. There is increasing reason to believe that the resistance is being conducted on behalf of Saddam and the Baath party. We don't know where Saddam is, or where is alleged WMDs are. We did not destroy the Republican Guard. We did not disarm them. Just think how silly the exulting over the "fall of Bahgdad" looks now. Just as we were declaring victory, Saddam was initiating the real war, the guerilla war for which they are suited and we are not, for which they have the patience and we do not. As I've said before, the "fall of Baghdad" was nothing more than a deft strategic shift for Saddam, from a war of confrontation he could not win to a war of attrition we will not win.

As the U.S. casualties mount, and eventually exceed the casualties incurred prior to the Deserter's Top Gun stunt (and it is a certainty that they will), Iraq will hang around the Deserter's neck like a rotting corpse.

My wingnut friends are still waiting for their belly laugh at the expense of those who doubted Saddam's WMD capability. I'd be having my laugh today, at the expense of those who were crowing about the "fall of Baghdad" last May, claiming the Iraqi people welcomed our liberation of their country, predicting democracy for Iraq, wet dreaming of Syria and Iran falling at our feet, and predicting the unearthing of vast caches of WMDs - except for the fact that the consequence of the Deserter's Folly is the daily extinction of another young, American life.

Iraq is the democrats' issue - lock, stock and barrel.