This President Can't Do Anything Wrong!

From 8/14/06 Fox News' Your World with Neil Cavuto:
CAVUTO: All right. Well, first, the cease-fire -- now the credit. Many critics were betting that President Bush would fail the test on the Israel and Hezbollah conflict, not my next guest. Jonathan Tobin says that this president's handling of the Mideast is the best this generation has seen by far. He's executive editor of The Jewish Exponent. So, this president is better on the Middle East than Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton? Explain.
TOBIN: I think it's pretty easy to see why. Unlike President Carter and certainly President Clinton, who is the immediate past example, President Bush has gotten rid of some of the failed policies of the past, which, whenever there has been a crisis involving Israel and its Arab enemies, has -- the instinct has always been to appease the Arabs and try and pressure Israel not to take a military advantage or not to defend itself fully.
What we've seen in the last month is an example of President Bush having Israel's back. If Israel's military efforts in the last month have not resulted in a resounding victory, and like most Americans, Jewish and non-Jewish, I've been certainly rooting for them -- and it doesn't look as if it's been a resounding victory. But the responsibility of that doesn't lie on President Bush. He gave Israel the green light it needed to do what it thought it needed to do and hasn't tried to play the same game that -- with -- as President Clinton did with Yasser Arafat, inviting him to the White House constantly and trying to raise the ante for Israel. That's just not the way it's gone.

In another interesting media forum -we get this perspective:
Olbermann: The Nexus of Politics and Terror
By: John Amato on Monday, August 14th, 2006 at 8:37 PM - PDT

Keith runs down the timeline from 2002 until the latest UK plot regarding the politicization of terror. Remember when Tom Ridge explained how the administration signaled terror alerts that he didn’t think should have been used?

Video-WMP Video-QT-mp4 (link fixed)
(32 mg file 12 minutes-)
The piece speaks for itself.

Finally, I'd like to offer this interesting piece in the Atlanta Journal Constitution:

GOP's words against Dems point right back by CYNTHIA TUCKER
Published on: 08/13/06

There they go again.

Hoping for a reprise of the 2002 and 2004 elections, when they rolled over Democrats by claiming they were soft on terrorism, leading Republicans are once again portraying the invasion of Iraq as brilliant, denouncing their critics as traitors and claiming anything less than enthusiastic support for "staying the course" is tantamount to saddling up with al-Qaida.

Recently, GOP heavyweights used the victory of anti-war political novice Ned Lamont over three-term incumbent U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) in last week's Democratic primary — Lieberman remains a staunch defender of the war — to portray the Democrats as a bunch of America-hating wimps. With so many Republican incumbents struggling to distance themselves from President Bush and the war, you'd think the GOP leadership would have a qualm or two about that strategy. But if you only know one tune, you sing it.

According to Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman, Lieberman's loss means "defeatism and isolation are now Democratic Party orthodoxy."

Vice President Dick Cheney even suggested Lieberman's defeat might encourage "al-Qaida types," according to The New York Times.

Al-Qaida types? They've been closely watching the outcome of the contest between Lamont and Lieberman, seeking encouragement? You've got to be kidding.

First off, the vast majority of Texans couldn't tell you who won the race between Lamont and Lieberman, much less the rank-and-file of al-Qaida. Second, jihadists seem to be getting all the encouragement they need from a heavy-handed American presence in Iraq; an Iran emboldened by Iraq's breakdown; and a disproportionate Israeli response to Hezbollah in Lebanon. The mujahedeen couldn't care less about Connecticut.

Instead of poring over polls in New England, a group of young suicide bombers apparently spent the last several months plotting to blow up several aircraft in mid-air as the planes headed from Great Britain to the United States. The plotters, arrested by British authorities, have no apparent connection to Iraq or Saddam Hussein, by the way. But they do seem enamored of Osama bin Laden, whom U.S. authorities have still not managed to find.

Still, Cheney and his ilk — the vice president utters a pronouncement at least once a week that ought to qualify him for 72 hours' observation in a mental facility — continue to denounce Democrats as weak-kneed pacifists because it worked for them before. In 2002, then U.S. Rep. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) defeated incumbent Sen. Max Cleland (D-Ga.) — a Vietnam triple amputee — by questioning his "courage." Chambliss ran an ad linking Cleland to Osama and Saddam. (Incidentally, Chambliss, who walks with the brisk stride of a fit man, escaped service in Vietnam with a medical exemption for a bad knee.) Similarly, Bush defeated John Kerry two years ago by constantly resurrecting the searing memory of Sept. 11 and questioning Kerry's toughness against terrorism.

This time around, the GOP leadership is going to have a much more difficult time painting Democrats as cut-and-run, bed-wetting pantywaists, because Republicans want to leave Iraq, too. In June, Republicans staged a for-the-cameras debate on the floor of the House, where they insisted U.S. troops must "stay the course." U.S. Rep. Gil Gutknecht (R-Minn.) upbraided any who thought otherwise: "Members, now is not the time to go wobbly," he declared.

But last month, Gutknecht returned from a visit to Iraq with a bleak assessment of the war and called for at least a partial withdrawal of U.S. troops. "Baghdad is worse today than it was three years ago," he said, adding, "All of the information we receive sometimes from the Pentagon and the State Department isn't always true."

Really?

The voters had already figured that out. According to a poll conducted for CNN this month by Opinion Research Corp., 60 percent of Americans now oppose the war in Iraq, the highest number since the invasion began in March 2003. Sixty-one percent favor the withdrawal of some U.S. troops by the end of the year.

Last Thursday, Bush used the news of the thwarted plot as a "stark reminder that this nation is at war with Islamic fascists." That is certainly true. But the president forfeited the moral authority to lead that war when he misled the American people about Saddam Hussein and his connection to those Islamic fascists, especially al-Qaida. The war he led us into has set off shockwaves throughout the Middle East that will roil the region for years to come.

The damage is already done — even if we start withdrawing U.S. troops tomorrow.