August 22, 2007

8/22: A Perfect Statement On Iraq

As Congress prepares for Gen. David Petraeus' presentation to Congress, the four WH '08 Dems in the Senate can learn some valuable lessons on how to talk about the war from reaction to comments they made to the VFW convo. Judging from reaction to Hillary Clinton's remarks, the most important thing to remember is that nothing the Bush admin. ever does in Iraq should be described as "working" whether it's the surge or some other "tactics." Barack Obama had the best line on the new situation in Iraq: "My assessment is that if we put additional 30,000 of our outstanding troops into Baghdad, that that's going to quell some of the violence short-term. I don't think there's ever been any doubt about that." The genius of the statement is that it seems to acknowledge a quelling of some violence, but a close reading shows Obama is only speaking in hypotheticals ('if'). He never says whether he believes Bush's increase of troops is having any positive effects.

The Iraq war is still the biggest issue for the netroots. If Clinton wants to keep them from uniting against her, she is going to have to remember that no good can ever come from saying anything remotely positive about a Bush policy.

Posted by Conn Carroll at August 22, 2007 12:40 PM