Sunday, June 25, 2006

Can we use their talking points against them?

So, during the past week or so, when Republicans were calling John Murtha a coward, there were accusations of treason, and any discussion that didn't involve "staying the course" in Iraq was, by definition, "cutting and running", it turns out that the Republicans had a plan to withdraw troops from Iraq the whole time.

When Bush was first elected, it was sometimes said that he was going to run the country like our national CEO. I suppose that was to bring up his business background and make him sound actually competent. It never struck me as a good idea, what with him running every country company1 he's ever been in charge of into the ground. Not to mention the charges of insider trading. But that's a discussion for another day.

My point is that, when you're a CEO, you don't run your company with your gut. You actually look at numbers. You make plans, set goals, and have targets. Why, then, is doing the same thing in Iraq "cutting and running?" No one ever suggested pulling all American troops out next Thursday. But saying that we should have a goal of having X numbers of Iraqis trained by the end of the year, so we can pull out Y number of troops is cowardice?

The Democrats should co-opt the Republican talking points on this one. No Democrat should mention the plan to pull these troops out of Iraq without accusing Bush of "cutting and running." I just doubt that's going to happen.

1 Interesting typo, no? I swear it wasn't intentional. But it was so Freudian, I decided to leave it in place.

No comments: