Frogs

Golly, sometimes I just can't get over myself. "O-blame-ah". That's so rich. I'm hilarious. How come people keep misunderstanding me? Idiots. Of course nobody else could be expected to be as witty as me. What a ridiculous idea. But still, they could try, couldn't they? Like Charles Krauthammer. He tries ... well, he's not so much about witty as smart. Like me, cuz I'm so smart, too, like I'm witty. Well, fact is -- and don't tell anyone about this -- I steal most of my ideas from Krauthammer.

So there's me, and Krauthammer ... who reminds us of Oblameah's continuing resolve to abandon yet one more commitment, like a bigamist father who goes back to his original family on another continent. Rather than "continue a policy in Iraq that asks everything of our brave men and women in uniform and nothing of Iraqi politicians [... says Obama, it's] time for Iraqis to take responsibility for their future."

We'll pass over in silence his gratuitous and cynical use of the boilerplate 'brave'. We know all about the unspoken qualifiers that must inevitably accompany such a word out of the mouth of a liberal. But Krauthammer takes exception with the entire premise of the the statement. "We know Obama hasn't been to Iraq in more than two years, but does he not read the papers? Does he not know anything about developments on the ground?" Then Krauthammer outlines the situation:

• PM Nouri al-Maliki used the Iraqi army to take back the port city of Basra, squelch the Mahdi Army and oust the Iranian-backed militias.
• The Iraqi army then subdued the entire south, from Basra to Baghdad, prevailing in Najaf, Karbala, Hilla, Kut, Nasiriyah and Diwaniyah.
• Then the Iraqi army took and occupied the mad Mahdi's Sadr City.
• Then the PM flew to Mosul, where he directed the joint forces that drove out al-Qaeda from its last stronghold.
• Politically, the Iraqi parliament passed a de-Baathification law, demonstrating significant movement toward political reconciliation.
• It also enacted other meaningful benchmarks -- "a pension law, an amnesty law, and a provincial elections and powers law. Oil revenues are being distributed to the provinces through the annual budget."
• The Sunni faction, given clear evidence of Maliki's political will, began meaningful "negotiations to join the Shiite-led government."

But what are facts, when there are speeches to be made? A mellifluous baritone makes everything true. Hushabye, little babies.

"Obama promises that upon his inauguration, he will order the Joint Chiefs to bring him a plan for withdrawal from Iraq within 16 months. McCain says that upon his inauguration, he'll ask the Joint Chiefs for a plan for continued and ultimate success." The Dhem surge toward defeat is too obvious to wade through. Who can wade through a quagmire anyway. The path to victory, as Krauthammer sees it, is clear. There are three fronts, against Sunni al-Queda, Shiite militias, and Iran.

Al-Qaeda "chose to turn [Iraq] into the central front in its war against America. That choice turned into an al-Qaeda fiasco: al-Qaeda in Iraq is now on the run and in the midst of stunning and humiliating defeat. As for the Shiite extremists, the Mahdi Army is isolated and at its weakest point in years." And as for the hand in the puppet, Iran "has suffered major setbacks, not just in Basra, but in Iraqi public opinion..."

Krauthammer is almost completely correct. He just neglects that other, fourth, home front, which is somehow a fifth column. The Left. The small-A big-L american Left. The Frogressives, pace Aristophanes. That fractious faction that insists once again on slurping the blowfly of defeat off the lily pad of victory. Working out their father-issues, no doubt. But as every communist knows, you don't beat America on the battlefield. It's the homefront where the Left strikes hardest. Something to do with self-loathing, no doubt. But frogs are after all pretty loathsome. And they just love quagmire.

Wouldn't it be nice if Oblameah's resolve in the matter of cut-and-run were the same as it was to not throw his Grandmama Uncle Mufti from the train and under the bus and into the madhouse and off his committees and out of NAFTA and public campaign financing and divided Jerusalem and talking with terrorists and oh I don't quite remember whatall? Wouldn't it be nice if the Change he keeps intoning about was just about the way he changes his mind? Change We Can Believe In. Yes We Can. Hope, because, because, y'see y'see y'see. Uh.


J