Fantastic piece, "Power Outage"!
p>Your conclusion that the Democrats are solely driven by regaining power is exactly my conclusion. They don't care how many American soldiers lives they cost by undermining our war effort as long as it improves their odds of regaining power. In fact, their breath is bated waiting for the 1,000th American death, which they will (privately celebrate and) publicly lament in hopes of harming Bush. John Kerry has a history of undermining foreign wars and costing American lives. Let hope he is not rewarded with the presidency the way Massachusetts rewarded him with his Senate seat for his (treasonous?) actions. br> -- Charles Lloyd /p>I agree 100% with your article. I would only hasten to add that should the Dems lose this election cycle it might be either their undoing as a party or at least a long walk in the Mojave till they find a Moses to lead them back.
The Dems have to know that if Bush wins, the troop redeployment will go forward. The redeployment has consequences of which the Dems surely must be aware. One being, had Bush pulled the trigger on the redeployment year one of his administration, Kerry would not now be suggesting engagement with the French and Germans. For how could those two erstwhile "allies" be able to commit troops to Iraq? They would be fully committed to their own countries' defense with none to spare for dalliances abroad. Hence a rapid pullout scenario would not be possible politically or otherwise.
The EU's rapid deployment force will remain largely at home after the realignment. For the Democrats it is a political bomb. Try as they might, they will be unable to use diplomacy as a means to achieve their aims in this arena. Should any saber rattling occur near the EU sphere in the near term we might just find them a bit more compliant. The Germans are already making noises of their concerns over Iranian nukes. With no Pershings to provide a reaction umbrella they might get down right vocal.
p>My only question is what took you so long, Mr. President?