Our Humpty Dumpty political class

Dallas Blog | William Murchison:

“You don't 'solve' a war problem by voting primly to disapprove of the commander-in-chief's latest strategy for ending said war. All that the Democrats aimed at was making their designated arch-foe, George W. Bush, look as incompetent as possible. ... Our exalted representatives get more joy, it seems, from punching the president in the eye than they would from working out with him, patiently, patriotically, some approach to ending the war that honors American and Iraqi sacrifices alike, and that sooths in some measure the nation's frazzled nerves.”

Ed Cognoski responds:

Don't blame Congress for the President's failing. That Congress felt the need to pass a resolution expressing disapproval of President Bush's 'surge' is proof that the President himself failed to work out with Congress, "patiently, patriotically, some approach to ending the war that honors American and Iraqi sacrifices alike, and that sooths in some measure the nation's frazzled nerves."

This President used the Republican Congress as a rubber stamp for four years to prosecute his failed war policy. Even when Congress meekly questioned some of the President's more egregious violations of Constitutional safeguards, the President issued signing statements saying he was exempt from Congressional oversight of or meddling with Executive Branch decisions in areas like habeus corpus, domestic spying, torture, etc.

The voters sent a wake-up call in 2006 by electing Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate. A bipartisan Iraq Study Group issued recommendations calling for a phased withdrawal from Iraq and opening of negotiations with Iran and Syria. The President ignored the voters, ignored the Iraq Study Group, and ignored the new Democratic Congress in his failed "stay the course" strategy, now augmented by a "surge" in troops.

Yet die-hard conservatives like William Murchison would have you believe that it is Congress who deserves the blame for not "patiently, patriotically" working out some bipartisan approach with the President. Not since George Orwell's 1984 have we heard such obfuscation of the truth.