Kristol on Iraq: Do Dems Want This To Succeed or Not? [Video]

NewsBusters | Mark Finkelstein

[governsleastgovernsbest]

I'd say Bill Kristol nailed it on this morning's Fox News Sunday. And while his comments were directed at Democrats, they're equally applicable to the MSM IMHO, making them NB-worthy.

Kristol: "People are being too complacent or forgiving to the Democrats: 'Oh, it's politics; one of them has a non-binding resolution and another one has a cap.' It's all totally irresponsible. It's just unbelievable. The president is sending over a new commander, he's sending over troops, and the Democratic congress, either in a pseudo-binding way or a non-binding way is saying: 'it won't work -- forget it! You troops, you're going over there on a pointless missions. You Iraqis who might side with us, forget it, we're going to pull the plug." It's so irresponsible . . . You really wonder: do they want it to work or not? I really wonder that. . . Do they want this to succeed or not?"

View video here.NPR's Juan Williams tried his best: "I think everybody wants to succeed who believes in the idea that we are over there and our people are at stake. I don't think there's any question about that. I think that's sort of a rhetorical tool on your part. But your analysis seems to be totally ahistorical. It's as if mistakes haven't been made repeatedlhy as if people don't feel they have been misled down this path. There has been tremendous support for this president and for this war effort, and it has come to naught and it has come to a bad place."

Brit Hume got in a final, telling rejoinder: "Juan, serious people recognize one thing, and we are short of serious people nowadays. Which is that is that wars get into bad places and even winning conflicts do. And you talk about an 'ahistorical' view. Strikes me that the view you are espousing is very much that. You look at any major war that has been fought over a period of time and the winning side has had terrible moments and stretches of time when it appeared that victory might not be possible . . . What you have from the Democrats is the idea, as Nancy Pelosi put it, this isn't a war to be won, this is a conflict to be resolved. And their answer is retreat. You call it redeployment. It's a euphemism, Juan! It's retreat."

Substitute "MSM" for Democrat, and see if the exchange doesn't work quite nicely as a depiction of liberal media thinking on the war.

Mark was in Iraq in November. Contact him at mark@gunhill.net

[governsleastgovernsbest]

Do-Dems-Want-Us-to-Win? ping to Today show list.

[TADSLOS]

Retreat equals victory in '08. That's all that counts to liberals. They count our war dead with crocodile tears as they add the voter multiple to each one. These are vile, wicked and small people. They deserve to be crushed.

[Pharmboy]

Brit Hume is an American Treasure. His remarks on why people do not like Hillary were terrific also.

[jammer]

Well, that's a pretty good summary, if somewhat selective. The point that I was astounded by, however, was Kristol saying, "a war we are losing."

[sphinx]

The dems don't care one way or the other about Iraq. They want Bush to fail. If failure in Iraq advances that agenda, they want failure in Iraq. Provided, of course, that failure is seen as Bush's fault.

The problem with the U.S. defeat in Vietnam, in their view, was that the public perception very quickly boomeranged against the left. So the dems now want to engineer failure without having their fingerprints on it. They want Bush to cut and run to save themselves from having to go on the record on binding legislation.

This is what happens when a political party has no agenda higher than partisanship.

[EyeGuy]

Really Bill, when did you discover this? Yesterday? Last week?

Typical of an insider media elitist, Kristol is at least 3 years late in expressing this observation.

The Beltway "experts" lag FR yet again.

[BW2221]

Kristol would have far more credibility had he not aligned himself with a buffoon like Fred Barnes. Barnes even looks like a buffoon.

[magellan]

Juan debating Kristol and Hume on politics is like me debating Richard Feynman and Albert Einstein on physics.

[grobdriver]

Brit Hume is an American Treasure

And Juan Williams is a national embarassment.
I get so agitated when this A-hole opens his mouth that I have to mute the TV.

[hophead]

I liked the comment he had about a new commander in Iraq. It basically was, the dems have been crying about the existing mission and plan is a failed policy. Now they are saying since Bush replaced a commander who said we don't need more troops, he is not taking the advice of the "boots on the ground". Kristol said, with some sarcasm, Bush replaced that commander BECAUSE he is trying a new tact. It is further PROOF that it does not matter what Bush does, the Dems will not approve. Just look at the reversal of many Dems when 6 months ago they were calling for more troops. Now they don't.

[jrooney]

To hell with Krostol. This isiot played his staring role in slamming the GOP for the past year. He is one in a long list that convinced some voters to stay home or cross party lines and vote donk. THis dumbass should have thought about the implications of his words because he assisted Pelosi to the gavel, thus steering Congress when we at war against the most dangerous enemy we have ever faced! I will never trust the whiney pathetic Kristol again. He is a punk of the highest order.

[jwparkerjr]

re: as if people don't feel they have been misled down this path

Even if I were to choose to disregard FreeRep's policies on abuse, attacks, bad language, name calling, etc. I could never find the words to express how tired I am of hearing the BS about someone "misleading" someone!

If anyone was misled it was President Bush and the fine military forces of the US. And the ones doing the misleading were the Dems and the Left wing! They are the ones who agreed we had to do something about Iraq and when given the choices voted, with a few exceptions, to give the President the say-so in what would be done and how it would be done. Excuse me, it wasn't the President who agreed to something and then moved to jerk the rug out from under our cause!!

The misleading in all of this was the people who stood to be counted as for the operation, but apparantly never intended to stand behind their vote!

Misleading is when you tell someone you are on their side and will back them when the chips are down and then after they've made plans and commitments based on your assurances back out. Misleading saying one thing, knowing full well you plan to do something else.

Yes, there was misleading all right, loads of it. But it comes from the very people who have the audacity to stand up now and tell us they were "mislead."

This whole thing just shows me once more how dangerous it is to take the word of someone, person or party, who has stabbed you in the back before. Remember the "no new taxes" debacle.

It is not a case of misleading when you do what you say you are going to do, based on an accepted set of circumstances at the time, and it turns out other than you had said it would.

Misleading is telling someone you're on their side, then doing everything in your power to make sure they don't succeed, all the while whining about being misled.

Argh....

[subterfuge]

This is a rhetorical question right?

Of course they don't want "it" to work. That would fly in the face of every criticism of the hated Bush, the Republicans, the hated "right wing Christian hate-mongers" and put Iraqis on the path to sustaining freedom and joining the modern world. No democrat wants that outside Zell Miller and Joe Lieberman.

[Hoosier-Daddy]

I don't understand why they keep Juan on there, other than to try to bring balance. When Brit debates him, it's like genius debating the 'it takes a village' idiot.

[FReepapalooza]

Dems = Traitors

That's the ONLY word for them.

As for Juan Williams, he's nothing but a Dem sock puppet.

[Hoosier-Daddy]

Until they no longer control the Media, truth will never see the light of day. I wish Freerepublic was on cable.

[ikez78]

The polls of Democrats already show that they don't want us to succeed. This question should be getting asked every day and Dems should be forced to explain their positions.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1769838/posts

[governsleastgovernsbest]

LOL. Anyone who cites Feynman - one of my all-time heroes - gets extra credit in my book!

[elhombrelibre]

Is it any wonder that the Left hates FOX NEWS when it's new anchors, like Hume and Kristol, are so brutally honest about the Democrats? This is a fine example of why FOX NEWS is indispensable, honest, iconoclastic, accurate, and absolutely necessary in today's world. When was the last time you heard anyone in the MSM state the blatantly obvious that much of the Democratic Party is cheering for our enemies and jeering the Commander in Chief and the military?