The eagerness of our Left to see America defeated in Iraq is shameful, and their refusal to recognize progress in Iraq or the significance of that progress is astounding. Austin Bay puts it well as he explains General Petraeus' testimony to Congress:
But we all know why the complex chart gets ignored and successes are glasses half empty: A presidential election campaign is on, and the Democratic Party has bet its soul on defeat.
"Hear no progress in Iraq, see no progress in Iraq, but most of all speak of no progress in Iraq." Thus Sen. Joe Lieberman, a member of the Armed Service Committee, deftly summed the last two years of Democratic Party posturing as well as the Democrats' talking points in the latest hearings.
At one level, this strategy to create and then exploit defeat leaves me puzzled. It is disgusting that our Left would embrace such a strategy, of course, but the value of it makes me wonder. How does our Left think they can engineer our defeat, use that defeat as an argument for them to gain power, and at the same time avoid responsibility for that defeat? won't our people make them pay just as voters reacted to our Left's success in losing the war in Vietnam?
And then I remember our press corps and I stop wondering why the Left thinks their plan will work. You see, our Left didn't have to sell their souls at all. They and the press are soul-mates. And when we win the war in Iraq despite the best efforts of these two groups, the Left will still have sold their soul yet have nothing to show for it. Heck, we won't even be allowed to question their patriotism!
But the Left is getting ready to make one more effort to lose the war by electing a defeat-friendly government this November. The Left thought they'd gotten one in 2006, but it didn't pan out for them in practice.
Don't ever believe that the Left is weak-willed. They've demonstrated a single-minded devotion to losing despite our progress in Iraq that speaks highly of their tenacity.