Surprise, Surprise, Surprise!

Yesterday, our friendly warmonger Bill Kristol chastised any and all who opposed the surge. Kristol believes it is working, and to give in now would be a "insane, irrational panic."

Let me be clear: The president ordered the "surge," which only recently came to full strength and whose major operation has been going on for less than a month. If he were not to give it a chance to work, he would properly be viewed as a feckless, irresolute president, incapable of seeing his own strategy through a couple of months of controversy before abandoning it. He will have asked our soldiers to go on the offensive, assuming greater risk of casualties--and then, even though the offensive is working better than expected, will have pulled the plug on their efforts.

(snip)

The best strategy for the president is to hold firm. There is every reason to believe that he can survive the current calamity-Janes of the Republican party (does anyone really imagine that a veto-proof majority will form in the Senate this week or next?). This nonsense will pass, Congress will go on recess, and Petraeus will have a chance to continue to produce results--and the president and his allies will have a chance to gain political ground here at home. Why on earth pull the plug now? Why give in to an insane, irrational panic that will destroy the Bush administration and most likely sweep the Republican party to ruin? The president still has a chance to emerge from this as a visionary who could see what the left could not--but not if he gives in to them. There is no safety in the position some in the Bush administration are running towards.

Now I know this will come as a shock, but the same day, a report came out showing that the Iraqi government has failed to meet almost every criteria, every benchmark for success that the U.S. has laid out.

Iraq Missing Reform Targets, Report Says
By ANNE FLAHERTY and ANNE
GEARAN,
AP
Posted: 2007-07-10 06:45:02
Filed Under: Iraq
WASHINGTON (July 10) -- A progress report on Iraq will conclude that the U.S.-backed government in Baghdad has not met any of its targets for political, economic and other reforms, speeding up the Bush administration's reckoning on what to do next, a U.S. official said Monday.

The "pivot point" for addressing the matter will no longer be Sept. 15, as initially envisioned, when a full report on Bush's so-called "surge" plan is due, but instead will come this week when the interim mid-July assessment is released, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the draft is still under discussion.

So the question is - at what point does Kristol's credibility disappear? He's put on TV shows, introduced as an expert (the same man who, btw, was once known as Dan Quayle's brain. Talk about being damned with faint praise.). But he's not just wrong, he's comically wrong, ignoring just about every fact on the ground. Maybe he ought to be ignored for a while, or at least until he returns to planet earth, instead of the alternate universe he seems to occupy at this time.

Cliff Note: Sorry to rudely bust in on BC's post, but I just had to add something. To paraphrase Jack Nicholson from A Few Good Men, I suggest you pick up a weapon and stand a post, Mr. Kristol, or for the love of God, please STFU about war and peace, one of many things you know NOTHING ABOUT.