Independent Senator calls for truce in Washington

Independent Senator Joe Lieberman wrote a great piece for the WSJ on Sunday:

Congress thus faces a choice in the weeks and months ahead. Will we allow our actions to be driven by the changing conditions on the ground in Iraq--or by the unchanging political and ideological positions long ago staked out in Washington? What ultimately matters more to us: the real fight over there, or the political fight over here?

Highlighting the political grandstanding on behalf of your former compatriats is not going to earn you high praise from them.

If we stopped the legislative maneuvering and looked to Baghdad, we would see what the new security strategy actually entails and how dramatically it differs from previous efforts. For the first time in the Iraqi capital, the focus of the U.S. military is not just training indigenous forces or chasing down insurgents, but ensuring basic security--meaning an end, at last, to the large-scale sectarian slaughter and ethnic cleansing that has paralyzed Iraq for the past year.

I've heard all along from the Dems that this is the same old strategy. Petraeus stated as much, but just a week later, Hillary misrepresented it in her call for dialog.

But the fact is that we are in a different place in Iraq today from even just a month ago--with a new strategy, a new commander, and more troops on the ground. We are now in a stronger position to ensure basic security--and with that, we are in a stronger position to marginalize the extremists and strengthen the moderates; a stronger position to foster the economic activity that will drain the insurgency and militias of public support; and a stronger position to press the Iraqi government to make the tough decisions that everyone acknowledges are necessary for progress.

But we must not make another terrible mistake now. Many of the worst errors in Iraq arose precisely because the Bush administration best-cased what would happen after Saddam was overthrown. Now many opponents of the war are making the very same best-case mistake--assuming we can pull back in the midst of a critical battle with impunity, even arguing that our retreat will reduce the terrorism and sectarian violence in Iraq.

Yes, at least he can admit that mistakes were made. If only the administration had done so publically earlier than after they lost Congress. The Democrats "we're the cause of the problem" self-blame induced retreat strategy is not likely to work. At least Joe knows it.

LA Times: prints refuted statement as headline

So, what's new?

Sunday the LA fishwrap had this as a headline: "U.S. has an Iran attack plan, report says"

Despite the Bush administration's position that it has no plans to go to war with Iran, a Pentagon panel has been created to plan a bombing attack that could be implemented within 24 hours of getting the go-ahead from the president, the New Yorker magazine reported in its latest issue.

so says an unidentified former U.S. intelligence official to Seymour Hersh. However, the last paragraph contradicts their own headline:

Pentagon officials say they maintain contingency plans for dozens of potential conflicts around the world and that all are subject to regular review.

Journalists fail to understand that planning is an ongoing, important process. Often involving a great deal of self discovery. We've been doing this for decades now. In fact, if we ever decided to not examine our defences from an unconstrained perspective, we'd be doing ourselves a disservice. I'd venture that if we had done extensive planning of the Iraq conflict involving several post-invasion scenarios, we'd have been better off.

Jim Talent hits a home run

Former Representative, Senator and chairman of the Seapower Subcommittee on the SASC, Jim Talent has got it all right. Long, but worth the read.

I must have done poorly in nursery school

Iron Shrink does a good job again debunking some bad research science apparently aimed at tagging conservatives as unintelligent. Here's what liberals are:

bright, distinctive, having a wide range of interests, being aesthetically responsive to the world about them.

And here's what conservatives are:

uncomfortable with uncertainty, conventional, traditionally sex-typed, constricted in their behaviors, judging self against conformist standards, and moralistic.

All of this can be predicted by reports on how 3 year olds in Berkeley, CA were perceived by their caretakers.

Appeal for Courage

Appeal for Courage is an active duty sponsored appeal for redress to Congress. They document the DoD directives that authorize it as a means to communicate to elected officials in support of the chain of command and the military mission.

I signed.

Nurburgring lap videos

BMW has a new ad out that highlights the Nurburgring in an X5 SUV. The 13.1 mile long track is fascinating. The first video is of a Honda S2000 prototype, the second is an Opel Astra touring car but with a nice map with curve names.

Hillary thinks we've already lost

Why else should she demand that we pull out our troops starting by June. Don't watch on while you're eating.

"The Iraq Troop Protection and Reduction Act" - well I guess "Abandon Iraq to Chaos Act" just doesn't have the same condescending ring to it (too much realism, too).

She's harder on the Iraq government then her husband was on North Korea in '94. "Real benchmarks with real consequences." That would have been nice against KJI, not the language you should use for the leader of a fragile democracy that continues to need our help with security.

Bush is not fighting to escalate the war. He's changing strategy. Her version of ending the war is just quitting.