I did a piece earlier called "When The Tide Turns and the Rats Jump Off The Ship", the ship being the far left liberals and their rhetoric about Iraq being lost and the rats being the liberal MSM, knowing that progress is being made in Iraq, the MSM, has managed to now keep one foot on each side of the debate because they feel the tides-a-turning.
I am not the only one noticing and it looks like those that have willingly stranded themselves on that sinking ship are getting mighty peeved at the rats for jumping.
Here are a few headlines from memeorandum to show you my point:
We have The Horses Ass, ummmm, I mean Mouth, sorry, Horses Mouth with the head line "Aarrgghh! False New Media Meme Claims That War Critics Across The Board See Progress In Iraq":
Okay, this is getting serious. The media carnival about alleged war critics Michael O'Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack "suddenly" expressing optimism about the surge is now threatening to balloon into something much larger than those two, a meme much more grotesque and Frankenstein-like. Call it a Franken-meme.
[...]
The second piece of evidence: "Leading anti-war Democrat Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania predicted that U.S. commanders will begin drawing down troop levels early next year and that Congress can be more flexible in setting a fixed deadline for ending the U.S. occupation."
[...]
The only piece of evidence here that comes remotely close to supporting the AP's thesis is that Dem Senator Dick Durbin recently said that the troops were "making some measurable progress, but it's slow going" and that the troops were showing "some progress towards security."
[...]
The AP isn't the only big news org that's playing this phony game, by the way. Today's Washington Post ran a piece on Anthony Cordesman's report demonstrating real pessimism about our prospects for success in Iraq. The piece strongly stressed Cordesman's view that we could conceivably succeed in Iraq if this, that or the other fluke took place -- without noting that Cordesman himself said he differed with O'Hanlon and Pollack's assessments of the situation in Iraq. Just a stunning omission. Even better, WaPo described Cordesman's "optimism about the war" -- even though he wrote: "From my perspective, the U.S. now has only uncertain, high risk options in Iraq." That strike you as optimistic?
Then his update actually sent me into a fit of giggles:
And Atrios says: "Sometimes it's enough to make one a conspiracy theorist." This really gets at exactly what's so damn dispiriting about this.
Little grey men and area 51 and Elvis is alive folks, it is ALL a big conspiracy (Click for Twilight Zone music)
He forgot to mention Keith Ellison and Jerry McNerney's trip to Iraq and what they had to say.
So, being the helpful type, I will add it in here for him. By the way, THAT one was reported by USA Today.
Next we move on to Think Progress, head line "In A Three Minute Monologue, Matthews Gushes Over Bush’s ‘Great Neo-Conservative Mind’:
Immediately following President Bush’s press conference today, MSNBC’s Chris Matthews spent three unbroken minutes fawning over the president’s “powerful rendition” of his “philosophy” without uttering a single critical word. “I thought in listening to the president, I was listening to one of the great neoconservative minds,” gushed Matthews.
[...]
Matthews’ monologue is unsurprising, however, given his long record of hero worship for Bush and his supposedly “powerful” presidency:
– “We’re proud of our president. Americans love having a guy as president, a guy who has a little swagger, who’s physical.” [5/1/03]
– “Sometimes it glimmers with this man, our president, that kind of sunny nobility.” [10/25/05]
– “I like him. Everybody sort of likes the president, except for the real whack-jobs, maybe on the left.” [11/28/05]
– “A little bit of Lincoln there, I think,” referring to Bush finally admitting that telling Iraqi insurgents to “bring it on” in 2003 “sent the wrong signal to people.” [5/25/06]
It isn't only the media that is getting slammed by those stranded on that "Iraq is lost" ship though, nope, the Democratic politicians are getting the brunt of the far left liberal craziness they help create.
This next quote is from Firedoglake:
We dirty fucking hippies always get dismissed or condescended to as paranoids when we suggest that the influence of the military industrial complex in these situations is just a wee bit extreme, then Mike Gravel shows up sweating and hollering about it like some guy pounding bourbon in the corner of a bar that everyone is trying to ignore and seals the deal. But as Big Tent Democrat says:
Rep. Sanchez, you just said you were going to vote for the war, so that a California company will get a defense contract. 395 Californians have died in Iraq. Loretta Sanchez can put a price on their lives - 2 billion dollars. Not to mention the damage to the interests of the nation.
Matt Stoller has a post on OpenLeft today which argues that Congress is effectively in the hands of a working Republican majority, thanks to the efforts of Blue Dogs (of which Loretta Sanchez is one). Matt suggests that they are “essentially threatening a revolt against Pelosi if she tries to impose real discipline.” Ergo we get FISA, we get the Millitary Commissions Act, we get mo’ war.
Yup, that one is rational, huh?
I said the other day that good news from Iraq is bad news for the Democrats and that the Democrats in the house were starting to panic, but I must amend that statement now, from the desperate attempts I am seeing from the far left liberal bloggers to try to distort, distract or completely spin the good news as they attack anyone that dares utter good news about Iraq, I must add them into that mix.
The stink of fear and desperation is on them like a bad cologne.
They banked everything they had on America's failure in Iraq, they never left room for the possibility that by changing strategies consistently until we found one that would work, we might just see success in Iraq.
If we continue to see more good news from Iraq, we should be hearing the heads of the retreat and defeat crowd explode all across the country.
In my opinion, it will be no big loss.
.
