Oh, dear.
John Kerry just told the folks at the CFR that we need to start pulling out at least 100,000 of our troops from Iraq:
Kerry had previously said 20,000 troops should leave Iraq following next week's elections, but Thursday's comments appear to be the first in which he has set a specific target for the end of 2006.
"I believe you could get at least 100,000 out over that period of time," he said during a question and answer session following his speech.
Oh, no! He's not following Joe Lieberman's version of message discipline! In fact, he's sounding a lot like those awful guys John Murtha and Howard Dean! Quick, somebody tell Harry Reid -- or the unnamed "Democratic sources" in the Roll Call piece that claim to know what Reid's thinking -- to tell Kerry to shut the hell up! Will Michael Reagan issue a death threat against Kerry, just like he did against Dean? And will certain folks keep playing "Blame the Victim"?
(More after the bump.)
Kerry actually set forth
some pretty nifty things in his speech:
We have to understand that the hostility to America and to our values that feeds the jihadist threat is the product of many decades of repressed debate within the Middle East. We've become the convenient excuse for the failures of the rulers, and the convenient target for the frustrations of the ruled.
And frankly, we've made that possible by signaling Arab regimes we don't much care what they do so long as they keep the oil flowing and the prices low. That attitude must not only end; it must be reversed. Energy independence is not just a domestic priority for our country. It's also essential to our national security, because our reliance on their oil limits our ability to move them towards needed reforms and props up decaying and sometimes corrupt regimes, including those that support terrorist groups. Any long-term strategy for winning the war on terror must therefore include a determined effort to reduce our dependence on petroleum. So many opportunities to do that are staring us in the face, but none have been seized with the urgency our security demands.
And these efforts have to be international in nature, linked to the rapid emergence of new energy technologies, in order to ensure that growing economies like China and India don't just replace us as the enablers of Middle East autocrats.
I'm wondering when the FOX News crowd will invite Lieberman, Biden and/or Hillary on to bash Kerry the way FOX has been having people bash Murtha and Dean? When will we hear Holy Joe get all unctuous again about people picking on and undermining Our Sacred War President? Counting down... five, four, three, two, one....