Change? Not On Your Life...Same Old Lefty Doom & Gloom

By LINDA CHAVEZ

"Iraqi troops were able to move into Sadr City and restore order there, allowing civil society to function, precisely because Maliki's Shiite-dominated government is making significant strides in political reconciliation with Sunnis.

So why can't Obama acknowledge this improvement? Because he's invested too much in the Iraqis - and America - failing.

Now, Gen. David Petraeus, who currently leads US forces in Iraq but has been nominated to take over the entire US Central Command, says that things are going so well in Iraq that the US will be able to withdraw more troops from there in the fall. But this type of good news is bad news to Sen. Obama, and most Democrats.

Obama and his fellow Democrats are stuck in a time warp. The Democratic candidates - Hillary Clinton only slightly less so than Obama - have been counting on military and political failure in Iraq. When things started improving with the surge in US troops and the so-called Sunni Awakening last year, they couldn't retool their messages to take account of the improved situation.

It's not so surprising that much of the Democratic Congressional leadership would fall into this trap. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi are, after all, baby boomers who came of age during Vietnam. Iraq was always Vietnam redux for them. But Obama claims he represents a new generation, new ideas - in his words, "change."

But he certainly hasn't let the facts change his opinion about what is going on in Iraq or what the United States should do in response. Like a broken record, he just keeps repeating the same old tune.

If he really were a new kind of politician, he'd cheer what's happening in Iraq, compliment Prime Minister Maliki for his strides and rethink his promise to undercut the progress by a precipitous withdrawal of all American troops.

In his stubborn refusal to admit things have changed in Iraq, Obama is looking more and more like a throwback to the Vietnam protesters who actively promoted America's defeat in order to prove they were right in their opposition to the Vietnam War. He may not be old enough to remember firsthand the shouts of "Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh," or the Viet Cong flags hoisted at anti-war rallies of that era.

But the sentiment that the enemy must win in order for American policy to be thoroughly repudiated seems to hover just beneath the surface of his gloomy assessment of Iraq. Obama's pessimism is simply old school anti-Americanism dressed up in patriotic rhetoric."

The only thing different about Barack Obama versus oldtime socialists like Carter and Dukakis and McGovern, is his skin color. Oh, and while all of the above are stark-raving lunatics, no one ever questioned their intelligence. The ability to learn, even if said learning becomes so heavily skewed to the left as to almost leave the margin. Poor Obo is as dumb as a box of claw hammers, conservative talk-show host phony praise notwithstanding. Which is one of the reasons I give kudos to Limbaugh. As soon as it was brought to his attention how mentally challenged our very own Hussein was, he began calling a spade a spade.