How Do You Solve a Problem Like the Liberals?

They just don't get it.

1. Politicians: Responding to President Bush's speech last Wednesday, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi severed any connection with truth:
   
   
   • Democracy
     
     Congresswoman Pelosi:

     democracy is not the reason that President Bush gave for invading Iraq more than 1,000 days ago.

     President Bush October 7, 2002:

     The lives of Iraqi citizens would improve dramatically if Saddam Hussein were no longer in power, just as the lives of Afghanistan's citizens improved after the Taliban. The dictator of Iraq is a student of Stalin, using murder as a tool of terror and control, within his own cabinet, within his own army, and even within his own family.
     
     On Saddam Hussein's orders, opponents have been decapitated, wives and mothers of political opponents have been systematically raped as a method of intimidation, and political prisoners have been forced to watch their own children being tortured.
     
     America believes that all people are entitled to hope and human rights, to the non-negotiable demands of human dignity. People everywhere prefer freedom to slavery; prosperity to squalor; self-government to the rule of terror and torture. America is a friend to the people of Iraq. Our demands are directed only at the regime that enslaves them and threatens us. When these demands are met, the first and greatest benefit will come to Iraqi men, women and children. The oppression of Kurds, Assyrians, Turkomans, Shi'a, Sunnis and others will be lifted. The long captivity of Iraq will end, and an era of new hope will begin.

     President Bush, January 28, 2003:

     The dictator who is assembling the world's most dangerous weapons has already used them on whole villages -- leaving thousands of his own citizens dead, blind, or disfigured. Iraqi refugees tell us how forced confessions are obtained -- by torturing children while their parents are made to watch. International human rights groups have catalogued other methods used in the torture chambers of Iraq: electric shock, burning with hot irons, dripping acid on the skin, mutilation with electric drills, cutting out tongues, and rape. If this is not evil, then evil has no meaning.
     
     And tonight I have a message for the brave and oppressed people of Iraq: Your enemy is not surrounding your country -- your enemy is ruling your country. And the day he and his regime are removed from power will be the day of your liberation.

   • Imminence
     
     Congresswoman Pelosi:

     President Bush asserted that Saddam Hussein presented an imminent threat to the security of the United States.

     President Bush said exactly the opposite on June 1, 2002:

     We must adapt the concept of imminent threat to the capabilities and objectives of today’s adversaries. . . The United States has long maintained the option of preemptive actions to counter a sufficient threat to our national security. The greater the threat, the greater is the risk of inaction— and the more compelling the case for taking anticipatory action to defend ourselves, even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemy’s attack. To forestall or prevent such hostile acts by our adversaries, the United States will, if necessary, act preemptively.

     President Bush repeated the message on January 28, 2003:

     Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option.

   • An Alternative
     
     Congresswomen Pelosi, December 14, 2005:

     There are ways for the United States to make Iraq more stable that do not require 160,000 U. S. troops in Iraq and which would make the American people safer and the Middle East more secure.

     Congresswomen Polosi, December 16, 2005:

     House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said yesterday that Democrats should not seek a unified position on an exit strategy in Iraq, calling the war a matter of individual conscience and saying differing positions within the caucus are a source of strength for the party.
     
     Pelosi said Democrats will produce an issue agenda for the 2006 elections but it will not include a position on Iraq. There is consensus within the party that President Bush has mismanaged the war and that a new course is needed, but House Democrats should be free to take individual positions, she sad.
     
     "There is no one Democratic voice . . . and there is no one Democratic position," Pelosi said in an interview with Washington Post reporters and editors.

   • In sum, Pelosi's stuck on stupid, forgetting Layne's law: the Internet means "we can fact-check your ass."


2. Media: The MSM is no better. You see (yawn), December 15th was no biggie, with the NY Times and WaPo flirting with radio silence--CNN led with the weather! Outside of ABC and John Burns' fair reporting, the press played it down. Most in the media ignore the spread of freedom throughout the mid-East, prompted by progress in Iraq. Only a cock-sure cheerleader could call Robert Fisk--a biased, anti-American, anti-civilization hack with an unbroken record of error--"gutsy."



3. Activists: Grassroots lefties mostly adopted the "see-, speak- and hear-no-evil" defense: "move along, just an election, nothing to see." Once upon a time, lefties would "pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty." But nobility was the first casualty of the war on certainty--and today's "progressives" barely pretend to care. You see, time stopped somewhere between the Tet offensive and Nixon's resignation, freezing their villain Rolodex since. Recasting today's threats into Dow Chemical and the campus dean isn't easy. Most trivialize, ignore and dismiss contrary data. The devious move the goalposts, apparently assuming conservative bloggers are too busy day-trading Halliburton shares to check Google.

Conclusion: Steer clear of the asylum, says Leon at RedState.Org:

It is long past time for the naysayers and quagmirists to get a grip on reality. In the first place, Iraq is not going to be a place that has no attacks for quite some time, if ever. That is simply the nature of being a democracy in the Middle East that is friendly to the United States - you are going to have a target on your back. Israel, for instance, faces terrorist attacks on a regular basis - and only an ignorant fool would suggest that Israel is either a) incapable of defending themselves or b) has been a failure as a country over the last several decades.

Today's anti-war left is making a sad spectacle of themselves indeed. They have apparently conceived of a world in which soldiers do not die in war, and democratic, pro-Western countries in the Middle East don't face terrorist attacks. They are now using this uptopian world of make-believe as a cudgel to beat the administration with, hoping desperately that the American public never catches on, and that they can defeat the general optimism of the American public, who are justifiably proud of the job our military has done in Iraq, and hopeful for the citizens of Iraq and its new government, by reminding them that people are dying in war and that our enemies have the temerity to attack our troops. Apparently, any war involving the death of troops, or an enemy that fights back, is ipso facto a failure because it does not live up to the utopia they have constructed.

(via Officer's Club, Austin Bay, USS Neverdock)