I just read
talkingpointsmemo and was blown away by a quote from reader RR comparing Iraq to driving off a cliff. I think this simple analogy is the perfect answer for all Democrats when asked what their plan for Iraq is.
The analogy is
simple
Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld were in the front seat.
They drove the Iraq car off a cliff.
Then they turned to the Dems in the back seat.
And said the Dems couldn't complain unless they could come up with a plan of their own.
The tragedy is that there is no rational hope for a plan (any plan) that will work well. When you've driven the car off the cliff, your range of options is quite limited. We're in the hands of gravity at this point.
This is clear and to the point, Bush got us into this mess, there is no easy way out, Democrats can soften the blow, but don't expect us to fix this mess, ask Bush why he didn't have a freaking plan before he drove off the cliff.
Republicans like to claim that we can't waste our time looking back at how we got into this mess, we need to focus on what we should do now. With Iraq the main issue in the election, their main defense is that Democrats don't have a clear plan for Iraq either.
The problems with this argument are that
1) The same people that got us into the quagmire in the first place are not qualified to get us out,
2) If we don't hold anyone accountable we can't prevent this type of thing in the future.
3) The poor decisions and incompetence of the Bush Administration have left us with no good options.
So far, Democrats have fumbled making these arguments. This analogy makes the clear case that how we got into Iraq is intimately tied to the present circmstances and pins the blame directly where it belongs, on George Bush.