Accidental Blogger

Lying, misleading, misrepresenting, swiftboating – the right wing Republicans know all the fine arts of dirty politics.  It is now clear that they are also adept at heisting, pilfering and plagiarizing.  After weeks and months of calling Murtha, Kerry and other Democrats who have suggested a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq cowardly cut and run artists, the Republicans are planning for exactly that – a gradual troop withdrawal from Iraq.  Except this time it is called shrewd military strategy.  Are the Dems in an uproar?  If they are, I haven’t heard much. Instead what I am hearing is the steady hum of tried and tested right wing wedge issues like flag burning and gay marriage. Just in time for the run up to November’s elections.  The inimitable Molly Ivins hits the nail squarely on its head.

"And then along comes Cut’n’Run Casey. We spend all last week listening to cut’n’run Democrats talking about their cut’n’run strategy for Iraq, and the only issue is whether they want to cut’n’run by the end of this year or to cut’n’run by the end of next year, and oh, by the way, did I mention that Republicans had been choreographed to refer to the Democrats’ plans as cut’n’run?

As Vice President Dick ("Last Throes") Cheney said Thursday, redeployment of our troops would be “the worst possible thing we could do. … No matter how you carve it—you can call it anything you want—but basically it is packing it in, going home, persuading and convincing and validating the theory that the Americans don’t have the stomach for this fight.”

Then right in the middle of Cut’n’Run Week, the top American commander in Iraq, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., held a classified briefing at the Pentagon and revealed his plan to reduce the 14 combat brigades now in Iraq to five or six. And here’s the best part: Rather than wait till the end of this year or, heaven forefend, next year, Casey wants to start moving those troops out in September, just before whatever it is that happens in early November. They don’t call him George W. Jr. for nothing.

One has to admit, the party never ends with the Bush administration. The only question about Cut’n’Run Week is whether they meant to punctuate a weeklong festival of referring to Democrats as the party of “retreat” and “the white flag” with this rather abrupt announcement of their own cut’n’run program. Was it an error of timing?

I say no. I say Karl Rove doesn’t make timing mistakes. This administration thoroughly believes the media and the people have a collective recollection of no more than one day. Five days of cut’n’run, one day off and BAM, you get your own cut’n’run plan out there…. "