media lizzy & friends

For many of us, we have been very consistent: we believe Barack Obama is just not ready to be president.  SOme in that camp are Democrats, and committed Hillary supporters.  It’s not just about being a woman.  It’s about fairness and the integrity of the process.  After all, we live in a Representative Republic.  Our process, our Constitution separate us from any other country in the world.  Or in history.

No one should be surprised that many Hillary voters are starting to consider, endorse, and even campaign for John McCain.  We want what is best for our nation.  What is best for the American people.  John McCain is the best qualified, with the best judgement.  It’s time for us to reach across the aisle and support all Americans who support McCain.  It’s the Right thing to do.

—Media Lizzy

Breaking news from the Hillary Clinton campaign… Mark Penn has resigned as Chief Strategist for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.  Some will say it is about time.  Other’s will say it’s only right, given the conflict-of-interest between his role as political consultant with his role as a lobbyist/consultant for the government of Columbia at his firm Penn, Schoen & Berland.

The real truth, at least from my perspective, is a dirty little secret that Mark Penn ain’t the only partisan “strategist” with ties to entities that would pose a “conflict of interest.”  For a very long time, I have recommended folks look at the expenditure reports of the presidential candidates.  The round-robin of shock about Mark Penn is laughable.  A brief glance at the expenditure report + a cursory Google search of the firms found in said report = “Chief Strategist Resigns.”

The intellectual laziness of many interested parties blows my mind.  Inside the Beltway, I can name a half-dozen “lobbyists” who are also “consultants” or “strategists.”  Lobbying pays the bills.  Keeps them in Armani.  And since Jack Abramoff ain’t around, it might as well be the Columbians paying for box seats at the next Nats game.

—Media Lizzy

Statement from Maggie Williams

After the events of the last few days, Mark Penn has asked to give up his role as Chief Strategist of the Clinton Campaign; Mark, and Penn, Schoen and Berland Associates, Inc. will continue to provide polling and advice to the campaign.

Geoff Garin and Howard Wolfson will coordinate the campaign’s strategic message team going forward.

Breaking… Hillary & Bill Clinton have finally released their tax returns.  First look reveals $109 million in  income 2000 – 2007.  Most notably, former President Bill Clinton has received $15 million from a sheik in Dubai – a man who was once tied to child enslavement.  I’m not kidding.

They also donated about ten percent of their total income to charity. And have paid about$33 million in taxes.

 — Media Lizzy

Thanks to Dave over at the AOL Political Machine. And to the folks at MyDD who posted this video. Folks on the Left, be they Obama or Clinton supporters, should know that like so many elections – the 2008 presidential sweepstakes will be about national security. Our country is still at war.

As long as the brave men and women of the US Armed Forces are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan – our nation will remain on a war footing.

And for those of us who choose to face the harsh reality of the world we live in, rather than play ostrich with our national security… this video will serve as a clarion call to the Voting Booth.

—Media Lizzy

 I have a little post-script that bothers me… Pastor Wright refers to “Shanklin” instead of “Shanksville” – maybe he doesn’t remember, maybe he “misspoke” – but rest assured, the families of folks on United 93 know – along with millions of their fellow Americans.

Senator John McCain has little to prove in the foreign policy arena but, as he finishes delivering a speech to the Los Angeles chapter of the World Affairs Council… he reminds me why, as an American, I yearn for a true Statesman as President. While I have significant differences with the Senator – he makes a persuasive argument. he looks presidential. And, given the hostility & the “Revenge Voting” that may occur among Democrat voters this fall – he has captured an opportunity to not be a beneficiary of Democrat anger – but to win them over.

— Media Lizzy

REMARKS BY JOHN MCCAIN TO THE LOS ANGELES WORLD AFFAIRS COUNCIL
EMBARGOED UNTIL DELIVERY
Wednesday, March 26, 2008

ARLINGTON, VA — U.S. Senator John McCain’s will deliver the following remarks as prepared for delivery today at the World Affairs Council in Los Angeles, California:

When I was five years old, a car pulled up in front of our house in New London, Connecticut, and a Navy officer rolled down the window, and shouted at my father that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. My father immediately left for the submarine base where he was stationed. I rarely saw him again for four years. My grandfather, who commanded the fast carrier task force under Admiral Halsey, came home from the war exhausted from the burdens he had borne, and died the next day.

In Vietnam, where I formed the closest friendships of my life, some of those friends never came home to the country they loved so well. I detest war. It might not be the worst thing to befall human beings, but it is wretched beyond all description. When nations seek to resolve their differences by force of arms, a million tragedies ensue. The lives of a nation’s finest patriots are sacrificed. Innocent people suffer and die. Commerce is disrupted; economies are damaged; strategic interests shielded by years of patient statecraft are endangered as the exigencies of war and diplomacy conflict. Not the valor with which it is fought nor the nobility of the cause it serves, can glorify war. Whatever gains are secured, it is loss the veteran remembers most keenly. Only a fool or a fraud sentimentalizes the merciless reality of war. However heady the appeal of a call to arms, however just the cause, we should still shed a tear for all that is lost when war claims its wages from us.

I am an idealist, and I believe it is possible in our time to make the world we live in another, better, more peaceful place, where our interests and those of our allies are more secure, and American ideals that are transforming the world, the principles of free people and free markets, advance even farther than they have. But I am, from hard experience and the judgment it informs, a realistic idealist. I know we must work very hard and very creatively to build new foundations for a stable and enduring peace. We cannot wish the world to be a better place than it is. We have enemies for whom no attack is too cruel, and no innocent life safe, and who would, if they could, strike us with the world’s most terrible weapons. There are states that support them, and which might help them acquire those weapons because they share with terrorists the same animating hatred for the West, and will not be placated by fresh appeals to the better angels of their nature. This is the central threat of our time, and we must understand the implications of our decisions on all manner of regional and global challenges could have for our success in defeating it.

President Harry Truman once said of America, “God has created us and brought us to our present position of power and strength for some great purpose.” In his time, that purpose was to contain Communism and build the structures of peace and prosperity that could provide safe passage through the Cold War. Now it is our turn. We face a new set of opportunities, and also new dangers. The developments of science and technology have brought us untold prosperity, eradicated disease, and reduced the suffering of millions. We have a chance in our lifetime to raise the world to a new standard of human existence. Yet these same technologies have produced grave new risks, arming a few zealots with the ability to murder millions of innocents, and producing a global industrialization that can in time threaten our planet.

To meet this challenge requires understanding the world we live in, and the central role the United States must play in shaping it for the future. The United States must lead in the 21st century, just as in Truman’s day. But leadership today means something different than it did in the years after World War II, when Europe and the other democracies were still recovering from the devastation of war and the United States was the only democratic superpower. Today we are not alone. There is the powerful collective voice of the European Union, and there are the great nations of India and Japan, Australia and Brazil, South Korea and South Africa, Turkey and Israel, to name just a few of the leading democracies. There are also the increasingly powerful nations of China and Russia that wield great influence in the international system.

In such a world, where power of all kinds is more widely and evenly distributed, the United States cannot lead by virtue of its power alone. We must be strong politically, economically, and militarily. But we must also lead by attracting others to our cause, by demonstrating once again the virtues of freedom and democracy, by defending the rules of international civilized society and by creating the new international institutions necessary to advance the peace and freedoms we cherish. Perhaps above all, leadership in today’s world means accepting and fulfilling our responsibilities as a great nation.

One of those responsibilities is to be a good and reliable ally to our fellow democracies. We cannot build an enduring peace based on freedom by ourselves, and we do not want to. We have to strengthen our global alliances as the core of a new global compact — a League of Democracies — that can harness the vast influence of the more than one hundred democratic nations around the world to advance our values and defend our shared interests.

At the heart of this new compact must be mutual respect and trust. Recall the words of our founders in the Declaration of Independence, that we pay “decent respect to the opinions of mankind.” Our great power does not mean we can do whatever we want whenever we want, nor should we assume we have all the wisdom and knowledge necessary to succeed. We need to listen to the views and respect the collective will of our democratic allies. When we believe international action is necessary, whether military, economic, or diplomatic, we will try to persuade our friends that we are right. But we, in return, must be willing to be persuaded by them.

America must be a model citizen if we want others to look to us as a model. How we behave at home affects how we are perceived abroad. We must fight the terrorists and at the same time defend the rights that are the foundation of our society. We can’t torture or treat inhumanely suspected terrorists we have captured. I believe we should close Guantanamo and work with our allies to forge a new international understanding on the disposition of dangerous detainees under our control.

There is such a thing as international good citizenship. We need to be good stewards of our planet and join with other nations to help preserve our common home. The risks of global warming have no borders. We and the other nations of the world must get serious about substantially reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the coming years or we will hand off a much-diminished world to our grandchildren. We need a successor to the Kyoto Treaty, a cap-and-trade system that delivers the necessary environmental impact in an economically responsible manner. We Americans must lead by example and encourage the participation of the rest of the world, including most importantly, the developing economic powerhouses of China and India.

Four and a half decades ago, John Kennedy described the people of Latin America as our “firm and ancient friends, united by history and experience and by our determination to advance the values of American civilization.” With globalization, our hemisphere has grown closer, more integrated, and more interdependent. Latin America today is increasingly vital to the fortunes of the United States. Americans north and south share a common geography and a common destiny. The countries of Latin America are the natural partners of the United States, and our northern neighbor Canada.

Relations with our southern neighbors must be governed by mutual respect, not by an imperial impulse or by anti-American demagoguery. The promise of North, Central, and South American life is too great for that. I believe the Americas can and must be the model for a new 21st century relationship between North and South. Ours can be the first completely democratic hemisphere, where trade is free across all borders, where the rule of law and the power of free markets advance the security and prosperity of all.

Power in the world today is moving east; the Asia-Pacific region is on the rise. Together with our democratic partner of many decades, Japan, we can grasp the opportunities present in the unfolding world and this century can become safe — both American and Asian, both prosperous and free. Asia has made enormous strides in recent decades. Its economic achievements are well known; less known is that more people live under democratic rule in Asia than in any other region of the world.

Dealing with a rising China will be a central challenge for the next American president. Recent prosperity in China has brought more people out of poverty faster than during any other time in human history. China’s newfound power implies responsibilities. China could bolster its claim that it is “peacefully rising” by being more transparent about its significant military buildup, by working with the world to isolate pariah states such as Burma, Sudan and Zimbabwe, and by ceasing its efforts to establish regional forums and economic arrangements designed to exclude America from Asia.

China and the United States are not destined to be adversaries. We have numerous overlapping interests and hope to see our relationship evolve in a manner that benefits both countries and, in turn, the Asia-Pacific region and the world. But until China moves toward political liberalization, our relationship will be based on periodically shared interests rather than the bedrock of shared values.

The United States did not single-handedly win the Cold War; the transatlantic alliance did, in concert with partners around the world. The bonds we share with Europe in terms of history, values, and interests are unique. Americans should welcome the rise of a strong, confident European Union as we continue to support a strong NATO. The future of the transatlantic relationship lies in confronting the challenges of the twenty-first century worldwide: developing a common energy policy, creating a transatlantic common market tying our economies more closely together, addressing the dangers posed by a revanchist Russia, and institutionalizing our cooperation on issues such as climate change, foreign assistance, and democracy promotion.

We should start by ensuring that the G-8, the group of eight highly industrialized states, becomes again a club of leading market democracies: it should include Brazil and India but exclude Russia. Rather than tolerate Russia’s nuclear blackmail or cyber attacks, Western nations should make clear that the solidarity of NATO, from the Baltic to the Black Sea, is indivisible and that the organization’s doors remain open to all democracies committed to the defense of freedom.

While Africa’s problems — poverty, corruption, disease, and instability — are well known, we must refocus on the bright promise offered by many countries on that continent. We must strongly engage on a political, economic, and security level with friendly governments across Africa, but insist on improvements in transparency and the rule of law. Many African nations will not reach their true potential without external assistance to combat entrenched problems, such as HIV/AIDS, that afflict Africans disproportionately. I will establish the goal of eradicating malaria on the continent — the number one killer of African children under the age of five. In addition to saving millions of lives in the world’s poorest regions, such a campaign would do much to add luster to America’s image in the world.

We also share an obligation with the world’s other great powers to halt and reverse the proliferation of nuclear weapons. The United States and the international community must work together and do all in our power to contain and reverse North Korea’s nuclear weapons program and to prevent Iran — a nation whose President has repeatedly expressed a desire to wipe Israel from the face of the earth — from obtaining a nuclear weapon. We should work to reduce nuclear arsenals all around the world, starting with our own. Forty years ago, the five declared nuclear powers came together in support of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and pledged to end the arms race and move toward nuclear disarmament. The time has come to renew that commitment. We do not need all the weapons currently in our arsenal. The United States should lead a global effort at nuclear disarmament consistent with our vital interests and the cause of peace.

If we are successful in pulling together a global coalition for peace and freedom — if we lead by shouldering our international responsibilities and pointing the way to a better and safer future for humanity, I believe we will gain tangible benefits as a nation.

It will strengthen us to confront the transcendent challenge of our time: the threat of radical Islamic terrorism. This challenge is transcendent not because it is the only one we face. There are many dangers in today’s world, and our foreign policy must be agile and effective at dealing with all of them. But the threat posed by the terrorists is unique. They alone devote all their energies and indeed their very lives to murdering innocent men, women, and children. They alone seek nuclear weapons and other tools of mass destruction not to defend themselves or to enhance their prestige or to give them a stronger hand in world affairs but to use against us wherever and whenever they can. Any president who does not regard this threat as transcending all others does not deserve to sit in the White House, for he or she does not take seriously enough the first and most basic duty a president has — to protect the lives of the American people.

We learned through the tragic experience of September 11 that passive defense alone cannot protect us. We must protect our borders. But we must also have an aggressive strategy of confronting and rooting out the terrorists wherever they seek to operate, and deny them bases in failed or failing states. Today al Qaeda and other terrorist networks operate across the globe, seeking out opportunities in Southeast Asia, Central Asia, Africa, and in the Middle East.

Prevailing in this struggle will require far more than military force. It will require the use of all elements of our national power: public diplomacy; development assistance; law enforcement training; expansion of economic opportunity; and robust intelligence capabilities. I have called for major changes in how our government faces the challenge of radical Islamic extremism by much greater resources for and integration of civilian efforts to prevent conflict and to address post-conflict challenges. Our goal must be to win the “hearts and minds” of the vast majority of moderate Muslims who do not want their future controlled by a minority of violent extremists. In this struggle, scholarships will be far more important than smart bombs.

We also need to build the international structures for a durable peace in which the radical extremists are gradually eclipsed by the more powerful forces of freedom and tolerance. Our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan are critical in this respect and cannot be viewed in isolation from our broader strategy. In the troubled and often dangerous region they occupy, these two nations can either be sources of extremism and instability or they can in time become pillars of stability, tolerance, and democracy.

For decades in the greater Middle East, we had a strategy of relying on autocrats to provide order and stability. We relied on the Shah of Iran, the autocratic rulers of Egypt, the generals of Pakistan, the Saudi royal family, and even, for a time, on Saddam Hussein. In the late 1970s that strategy began to unravel. The Shah was overthrown by the radical Islamic revolution that now rules in Tehran. The ensuing ferment in the Muslim world produced increasing instability. The autocrats clamped down with ever greater repression, while also surreptitiously aiding Islamic radicalism abroad in the hopes that they would not become its victims. It was a toxic and explosive mixture. The oppression of the autocrats blended with the radical Islamists’ dogmatic theology to produce a perfect storm of intolerance and hatred.

We can no longer delude ourselves that relying on these out-dated autocracies is the safest bet. They no longer provide lasting stability, only the illusion of it. We must not act rashly or demand change overnight. But neither can we pretend the status quo is sustainable, stable, or in our interests. Change is occurring whether we want it or not. The only question for us is whether we shape this change in ways that benefit humanity or let our enemies seize it for their hateful purposes. We must help expand the power and reach of freedom, using all our many strengths as a free people. This is not just idealism. It is the truest kind of realism. It is the democracies of the world that will provide the pillars upon which we can and must build an enduring peace.

If you look at the great arc that extends from the Middle East through Central Asia and the Asian subcontinent all the way to Southeast Asia, you can see those pillars of democracy stretching across the entire expanse, from Turkey and Israel to India and Indonesia. Iraq and Afghanistan lie at the heart of that region. And whether they eventually become stable democracies themselves, or are allowed to sink back into chaos and extremism, will determine not only the fate of that critical part of the world, but our fate, as well.

That is the broad strategic perspective through which to view our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many people ask, how should we define success? Success in Iraq and Afghanistan is the establishment of peaceful, stable, prosperous, democratic states that pose no threat to neighbors and contribute to the defeat of terrorists. It is the triumph of religious tolerance over violent radicalism.

Those who argue that our goals in Iraq are unachievable are wrong, just as they were wrong a year ago when they declared the war in Iraq already lost. Since June 2007 sectarian and ethnic violence in Iraq has been reduced by 90 percent. Overall civilian deaths have been reduced by more than 70 percent. Deaths of coalition forces have fallen by 70 percent. The dramatic reduction in violence has opened the way for a return to something approaching normal political and economic life for the average Iraqi. People are going back to work. Markets are open. Oil revenues are climbing. Inflation is down. Iraq’s economy is expected to grown by roughly 7 percent in 2008. Political reconciliation is occurring across Iraq at the local and provincial grassroots level. Sunni and Shi’a chased from their homes by terrorist and sectarian violence are returning. Political progress at the national level has been far too slow, but there is progress.

Critics say that the “surge” of troops isn’t a solution in itself, that we must make progress toward Iraqi self-sufficiency. I agree. Iraqis themselves must increasingly take responsibility for their own security, and they must become responsible political actors. It does not follow from this, however, that we should now recklessly retreat from Iraq regardless of the consequences. We must take the course of prudence and responsibility, and help Iraqis move closer to the day when they no longer need our help.

That is the route of responsible statesmanship. We have incurred a moral responsibility in Iraq. It would be an unconscionable act of betrayal, a stain on our character as a great nation, if we were to walk away from the Iraqi people and consign them to the horrendous violence, ethnic cleansing, and possibly genocide that would follow a reckless, irresponsible, and premature withdrawal. Our critics say America needs to repair its image in the world. How can they argue at the same time for the morally reprehensible abandonment of our responsibilities in Iraq?

Those who claim we should withdraw from Iraq in order to fight Al Qaeda more effectively elsewhere are making a dangerous mistake. Whether they were there before is immaterial, al Qaeda is in Iraq now, as it is in the borderlands between Pakistan and Afghanistan, in Somalia, and in Indonesia. If we withdraw prematurely from Iraq, al Qaeda in Iraq will survive, proclaim victory and continue to provoke sectarian tensions that, while they have been subdued by the success of the surge, still exist, as various factions of Sunni and Shi’a have yet to move beyond their ancient hatreds, and are ripe for provocation by al Qaeda. Civil war in Iraq could easily descend into genocide, and destabilize the entire region as neighboring powers come to the aid of their favored factions. I believe a reckless and premature withdrawal would be a terrible defeat for our security interests and our values. Iran will also view our premature withdrawal as a victory, and the biggest state supporter of terrorists, a country with nuclear ambitions and a stated desire to destroy the State of Israel, will see its influence in the Middle East grow significantly. These consequences of our defeat would threaten us for years, and those who argue for it, as both Democratic candidates do, are arguing for a course that would eventually draw us into a wider and more difficult war that would entail far greater dangers and sacrifices than we have suffered to date. I do not argue against withdrawal, any more than I argued several years ago for the change in tactics and additional forces that are now succeeding in Iraq, because I am somehow indifferent to war and the suffering it inflicts on too many American families. I hold my position because I hate war, and I know very well and very personally how grievous its wages are. But I know, too, that we must sometimes pay those wages to avoid paying even higher ones later.

I run for President because I want to keep the country I love and have served all my life safe, and to rise to the challenges of our times, as generations before us rose to theirs. I run for President because I know it is incumbent on America, more than any other nation on earth, to lead in building the foundations for a stable and enduring peace, a peace built on the strength of our commitment to it, on the transformative ideals on which we were founded, on our ability to see around the corner of history, and on our courage and wisdom to make hard choices. I run because I believe, as strongly as I ever have, that it is within our power to make in our time another, better world than we inherited.

UPDATE: A State Department worker in training breached Hillary Clinton’s file last summer. One common contractor breached Senator Obama & McCain’s passport files. An additional contractor looked at Senator Obama’s files, as I understand it. A major investigation, with a focus on transparency, is now underway – staff of the Senators are being briefed – and all information will be provided to the Congressional Oversight committees.

According to multiple news sources, the passport files of Senators & Presidential candidates Hillary Clinton, John McCain, and Barack Obama have ALL been breached.  I fail to see how the “imprudent curiosity” angle is a sufficient explanation for the breaches.  This is just the sort of episode that makes Americans very concerned about their privacy.  This is the sort of moment where Libertarians say, “I told you so.”

Passport files are very, very complete: travel records, contacts in the US and abroad, Social Security Number, birth date, family information, actual home address…. it’s very private information – and should not be accessed. This is about more than privacy – it is about situational ethics & public employees with political agendas.

—Media Lizzy

The DNC, the presidential campaigns of Barack Obama & Hillary Clinton, as well as their Code Pink protester friends and the MoveOn.org crowd have been pretty successful in convincing the American people that the Iraq War was either “illegal” or “unjust” or fueled by lies and vengeance. At times they were aided by Bush administration blunders and the spectre of civil war between Sunni & Shi’a in Iraq.

No one is entitled to their own set of facts. The “surge” has produced real results.  According to a recent poll conducted by the research folks at Pew, 53% of Americans support staying in Iraq until it is stabilized.  While I remain critical of Secretary of State Condi Rice’s abilities, and am gravely disappointed in former CPA Administrator Paul Bremer – the truth is that General David Petraeus may be the most capable General and Diplomat of his generation.

—Media Lizzy

Below is information from the White House, & the MNF.

Five Years Later: New Strategy Improving Security In Iraq

Today, President Bush spoke at the Pentagon to mark the fifth anniversary of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The past five years have been a critical time in history. U.S. troops should be proud of their partnership with Iraqis and the progress in Iraq.

Ø The battle in Iraq is noble, necessary, and just.

Ø Defeating the enemy in Iraq will make it less likely we will face this enemy here at home. The terrorists who murder the innocent in the streets of Baghdad also want to murder the innocent in the streets of American cities.

Ø Because we acted against Saddam Hussein, the world is better and America is safer. Because we acted, Saddam Hussein no longer fills fields with the remains of innocent men, women, and children, invades his neighbors, pays the families of suicide bombers, or defies the will of the United Nations. Saddam’s torture chambers, rape rooms, and children’s prisons have been closed for good.

The “Surge” Strategy Has Produced Dramatic Results In Iraq

The U.S. is carrying out a new strategy in Iraq based on providing population security. In late 2006, the U.S. reviewed its strategy and gave our troops a new mission under General Petraeus’ command centered on:

· Working with Iraq’s security forces to protect the Iraqi people.

· Pursuing the enemy in its strongholds.

· Denying sanctuary to the terrorists.

The surge is working. Since all the surge forces began operating in mid-2007:

· Overall violence in Iraq is significantly down.

· Civilian deaths are down.

· Sectarian killings are down.

· Attacks on American forces are down.

· Coalition forces have captured or killed thousands of extremists in Iraq, including hundreds of key al Qaeda leaders and operatives.

· We have begun bringing some of our troops home as a “return on success.”

More than 90,000 concerned local citizens are now helping to protect their communities from terrorists, insurgents, and extremists. The “Awakening” movement began in Anbar in 2006, when Sunni tribal leaders grew tired of al Qaeda’s brutality and started a popular uprising. As this effort succeeded, it inspired other Iraqis to take up the fight.

Ø To take advantage of this opportunity, we sent 4,000 additional Marines to help these brave Iraqis drive al Qaeda from the province.

Ø The government in Baghdad has stepped forward with a surge of its own by adding more than 100,000 new Iraqi soldiers and police during the past year. Iraqi troops have fought bravely, and thousands have given their lives in this struggle.

As we have fought al Qaeda, Coalition and Iraqi forces have also taken the fight to Shia extremist groups – many of them backed, financed, and armed by Iran. A year ago these groups were on the rise. Today, these groups are increasingly isolated, and Iraqis of all faiths are putting their lives on the line to stop these extremists from hijacking Iraq’s democracy.

The U.S. has doubled the number of provincial reconstruction teams in Iraq. Teams of civilian experts are serving in all 18 Iraqi provinces, and they are helping to strengthen responsible leaders, build up local economies, and bring Iraqis together so that reconciliation can happen from the ground up.

The Stakes In Iraq Are Great

The surge has opened the door to a major strategic victory in the broader war on terror. In Iraq, we are witnessing the first large-scale Arab uprising against Osama bin Laden, his grim ideology, and his terror network.

Ø The terrorist movement feeds on the appearance of inevitability and claims to rise on the tide of history, but the accomplishments of the surge are exposing this myth.

Ø Defeating al Qaeda in Iraq will show that men and women who love liberty can defeat the terrorists.

Al Qaeda terrorists in Mosul will suffer the same fate al Qaeda did elsewhere in Iraq. American and Iraqi forces have driven the terrorists from many of the sanctuaries they once held and will relentlessly pursue those who have now gathered in and around Mosul.

The challenge in the period ahead is to consolidate the gains we have made and seal the extremists’ defeat.

· Over the last five years, we have learned what happens when we pull our forces back too fast: terrorists and extremists step in, and establish safe havens where they can spread chaos and carnage.

· General Petraeus has warned that too fast a drawdown could result in such an unraveling again.

· Any further drawdown will be based on conditions on the ground and the recommendations of our commanders and must not jeopardize the hard-fought gains our troops and civilians have made over the past year.

While no one would argue that this war has not come at a high cost in lives and treasure, those costs are necessary when we consider the cost of a strategic victory for our enemies in Iraq.

· Allowing our enemies to prevail in Iraq could lead to chaos.

· Al Qaeda would regain its lost sanctuaries and establish new ones – fomenting violence and terror that could spread beyond Iraq’s borders.

· An emboldened al Qaeda with access to Iraq’s oil resources could pursue its ambitions to acquire weapons of mass destruction to attack America and other free nations.

Political Progress Is Taking Place In Iraq

Millions of Iraqis have risked their lives to secure a democratic future for their nation, and America will not abandon them in their time of need. The vast majority of Iraq’s citizens want to live in peace, and they are showing their courage every day.

· In October 2005, Iraqi voters approved a new permanent constitution.

· In December 2005, nearly 12 million Iraqis braved car bombers and assassins to choose a permanent government in free elections under the new constitution.

On February 3, 2008, Iraq’s Presidency Council issued the Accountability and Justice Law, which will allow thousands of former Ba’athists to return to government jobs.

On February 13, 2008, the Council of Representatives passed two key pieces of legislation.

· Amnesty Law:

• The Government of Iraq’s General Amnesty Law represents a benchmark in facilitating political reconciliation and the rule of law in Iraq. The General Amnesty Law addresses the scope of eligibility for amnesty for Iraqis in Iraqi detention facilities, whether they have been brought to trial or not. The law exempts from this amnesty those who have committed specific serious crimes, such as premeditated murder or kidnapping, and those who are subject to the death penalty.

· Fiscal Budget:

• The $48 billion Iraqi budget represents a 17 percent increase in spending over last year’s budget, with a 23 percent increase in security expenditures. Capital funds allocated to the 15 provinces will increase over 50 percent, from $2.1 billion to $3.3 billion, reflecting the improved budget execution performance by provinces in 2007.

The Iraqi government passed a pension law in late 2007.

The central government of Iraq continues to distribute oil revenue to provinces, even though the proposed oil law is still being negotiated.

The central government of Iraq reached its 2007 target of $30.2 billion in budget revenue one month before the end of the year.

The Government of Iraq recently completed early repayment of its outstanding obligations to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and reached a new Stand-By Arrangement with the IMF.

MSNBC is reporting that schedules from Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s time as First Lady of the United States will be released tomorrow by the National Archives.

The story is just breaking… but here’s my take: it’s conveniently timed to blunt the effect of the Obama speech.  It’s classic “BAM! Back to the campaign!” politics.  Steal the story – bury the story – or kill the story.  Never allow your opponent a moment in the sun without disrupting the mirage on the horizon.

MSNBC’s Political Director Chuck Todd is reporting that Florida Democrats will NOT hold a re-vote, or second primary for Hillary Clinton & Barack Obama.

My take: Tell Al Gore that Florida does not matter.  How can the Democrats disenfranchising Florida voters?

Developing…

Or, as he is referred to in an indictment, “Client Number 9.”

UPDATE: Aides Say They Expect Spitzer to Resign

On yesterday’s show, it was raw. Not only did we discuss the potential impact and ponder a Clinton riding to the rescue in New York… Media Lizzy made a few rather – edgy – statements regarding public figures and their sexual appetites.

Should staff schedule time for the boss to have sex? And, in recalling the Jack Ryan scandal – Lizzy makes it clear that Ryan & his wife’s consensual adventures in a Paris sex club should have never cost him the GOP nomination for the US Senate in Illinois in 2004. (Maybe then, Obama would have had a real fight – and he would have been vetted to everyone’s satisfaction)

Just sayin’ – sex scandals make for some very interesting discussions. Click HERE to hear all the juicy details.