Saxby sure has Iraq’ed himself
Thu Mar 01, 2007 at 12:40:59 PM PDT
On my little old ga blog, I keep something I started called the Saxby Files. The Saxby Files are a place I trying to capture the most obscene quotes, votes, and notes that flow from the Saxby Chambliss operation. As I went to do an update after a long stretch of neglect, it became pretty clear I couldn’t even get past Iraq before my head began to smolder...
When you go down the road of documenting Sen. Chambliss’s own words, the first thing you recognize is that he now speaks "Senate". The concept of plain speech has left him, if he ever really possessed it in the first place, and what you get now is a calculated and pre-packaged rhetorical breeze that sounds very milquetoast when you first hear it.
It’s really hard to find anything Saxby has said that is not already a part of the assimilated borg speak of Republican talking points that we all have grown accustomed of hearing.
When you begin to stretch those comments over time though, you begin to see how fake, dishonest, and downright insulting Saxby has been when speaking to Georgians about Iraq.
The baseline for that examination should start with an embrace of something Saxby said just a few short weeks ago:
"In politics you can't wake up every morning and stick your finger in the wind. You've got to make decisions that you think are the right policy decisions, and a lot of times they are not politically the most popular decisions to make," he said, according to the AP.
Ok. So Saxby has set a pretty high bar that "finger in the wind" governing is bad, and sometimes you take an unpopular position when it is the right thing to do. Which in concept is great, and I applaud his sense of principle.
The problem is that Saxby doesn't live by his own lofty standard. In fact, he is not even close to it.
Saxby and the Iraq war provide a clear example. Over the last 6-8 months, which included an election that was in part a repudiation of the war, Saxby has done some pretty impressive weather vane watching. Saxby’s view on Iraq has spun around like that metal chicken to mitigate the damage his views on Iraq may cause.
Observe:
Statement by Saxby Chambliss – June 22, 2006
"I've been to Iraq four times now, and every time I go I'm more impressed with the training and the ability of the Iraqi army to assume control and protect Iraqis from outside influences. I'm more impressed with the training and the ability of the security forces inside of Iraq to protect the Iraqi citizens from domestic insurrection. And I'm more impressed with the leadership in Iraq when I see the unity of the government taking place over there, which is so critically important to that country moving ahead.
"Now is the time to give all of our support to the American military and to the Iraqi people when we are moving in a positive direction and we have positive signs on the ground of how we're winning that war. It's not the time to stand on the street corner and say that we're going to be leaving Iraq next week, next month, next year. That is absolutely the wrong message to send to the world and it's a wrong message to send to the terrorists."(emphasis mine)
Last summer, Saxby by his own account, believed strongly that we were 1) "winning" in Iraq and that positive signs proved it , and 2) we needed to stay the course. He used the word "impressed" 3 freaking times in 1 small paragraph to reflect his positive view of Iraq! Read it again and store it away in your memory banks.
This was right out of the Bush playbook at the time, and Saxby had embraced the borg talking point of the day. No "cuting and running", we are "winning", stay the course, and we are on the verge of finding a whole stable of ponies...
Fast forward 6 months to after the election...
The ISG report comes out. The wind changes and his finger starts twitching. Now we begin to see the first subtle shift in the Saxsters view of Iraq. Again, from his own statement at the time:
December 6th Press Statement
The study group discounted several options that have been recommended by various voices and critics. For example, they do not recommend a substantial increase in U.S. forces in Iraq, dividing Iraq into 3 separate units, or withdrawing precipitously. I agree with the study group on each of these points.
Can that be any clearer? When the ISG report hits, Saxby doesn’t believe in or support the "surge". Immediately after the election Saxby sticks that finger in the air and senses a breeze... No more additional troops in Iraq.
Well, now Saxby has a new problem. Politics is a tough business, and he just can't bring himself to stick to a position not tied to the President. How can Saxby appear to be skeptical, but still retain his position in the borg hive?
January 12, just 1 month later, again in Saxby’s own words:
"...I made it clear that my support of any increase in troops is conditional upon those troops having a specific mission, and upon the completion of that mission those troops should be redeployed."
Saxby is trying to thread the needle, and he stays there for nearly a whole month. Saxby now will support the surge, but only if there is a defined plan and exit strategy for it.
On February 7th?
The damn bursts and Saxby reveals the lie he has perpetrated on our state and country. In voting against an appointment for General Casey’s, he let’s slip the following:
"Gen. Casey has been the top commander on the ground in Iraq, and frankly under his leadership we haven't done so well in the last two and a half years," Chambliss said in a phone interview after the vote. "I just don't think the operation has gone very well under his leadership." (emphasis mine)
So much for all that "winning" and "impressive progress" you told us about 8 months ago. Aside from the fact that Saxby loves shitting on troops for his own screwup of helping putting us there, it looks like he has been carrying water for the President for months, if not years. For the last 2 and a half years Saxby has been unsatisfied with the Iraq mission, despite his own lies to the contrary.
Georgians should be outraged that Saxby’s political weather vane wouldn’t allow him to be honest about Iraq, even though by his own standard "you can't wake up every morning and stick your finger in the wind". His lack of honesty covers up his lack of courage to speak truth to power. Saxby is a fraud and a coward if you take him at his own word.
So, where is Saxby these days? After all he seems to move once every 3 weeks or so now. Looks like a new goal post has been set:
"Here's my deadline," Chambliss told reporters in Atlanta. Petraeus is commander of all U.S. forces in Iraq.
"General Petraeus says 'Give me a chance to make this work ... and if it doesn't work I promise you I will come back to you and say despite all of my efforts this is not going to work,'" Chambliss said.
"At that point in time I am prepared to make the right decision for this country and I don't know yet what that will be."
Forget about all the talk about the clear goals and redeployment when the job is done. Hell, just 2 weeks ago he said this:
While Chambliss resisted setting a timeline for success, he said he expects to see progress quickly.
"I don't know if it will be 90 days or 120 days," he said. "I don't think it's fair to pick that date right now."
Do I really need to continue? Saxby is just a bundle of mess on Iraq. Period. It is precisely for the very reason he disavows; it's a tough call for him and he is trying please as many people as possible.
It is either that, or he is just incredibly stupid. After all this, after looking back in hindsight, he recently had this bit of genius to say last week.:
"I don't know what was wrong with our strategy or who was responsible for it," Chambliss was quoted as saying in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Saxby is an incompenent, clueless, and gutless coward. He is incapable of acting from a core conviction, and further, wouldn't even know where to begin if he had one. He should be ashamed of lying to us, and we should be ashamed of letting him do it.
It's interesting and sad how we have grown accustomed, through our cynical view of politicians, to barely twitch when one of them lies in such an overt and transparent way.
(Cross-Posted at Peach Pulpit)
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