Thanks Frank Rich, I Needed That

As usual, Frank Rich is right. Although his Op/Ed piece this morning (“The Vietnamization of Bush's Vacation”) is an indictment of the Bush administration and its “hallucinatory loop of delusion” re Iraq, Rich is unsparing in his denunciation of the Democrats as well. By my count, Rich enumerated six ways the Democrats have fallen down on the job. And we Democrats must never forget our own culpability in the debacle in Iraq. Our sin has been to stand by and let it happen. Frank Rich is far from a Cindy Sheehan supporter. He admits she has been a catalyst that forced the people in the US to talk about the Iraq quagmire and to focus on the fact that we need to have a plan for getting out and that it needs to be sooner rather than later. But Rich is one of the few anti-Bush writers who is daring to say Camp Casey is now a circus and it's become counter-productive. Rich says that: 1) The Democrats have offered no alternative to the extremes of Bush's cant of “staying the course” or Sheehan's demand that we get out of Iraq now. 2) Russell Feingold is the only Dem “with a clue” re Iraq when he proposed that the US should have “a target date” for withdrawal and not a deadline. 3) Hillary Clinton who presumably will run for Prez in 2008 dropped the ball when a suicide bomber killed 27 children in Baghdad and Ms Clinton's response was to hold a press conference about protecting American children from the violence of video games. 4) The Dems policy of doing nothing in order to inherit the earth is not only immoral it's unpatriotic. 5) The Dems have been too cowardly to admit they made a grievous error three years ago when they bought the Republican lies and rubber-stamped the Iraq war. And this craven policy cane about at the time in order to win midterm elections. 6) The Republican polls are tanking but so are the Dems. And the Dems have no plans to rehabilitate themselves because they assume the Repubs will blink first. When Frank Rich is right, he's right. And we Democrats should listen and learn.