Just a reminder for those GOP partisans, intent upon using national security for their political gain. This isn't a political game. This is a war. And today, once again, it's
not going so well.
BAGHDAD, Iraq - The largest Sunni Arab bloc in parliament said Sunday it was suspending its participation in the legislature until a kidnapped colleague was released, dealing a blow to efforts to involve the disaffected minority in the political process....
Adnan al-Dulaimi, head of the Sunni Iraqi Accordance Front, called on other lawmakers to join the boycott, saying security officials bore responsibility for Saturday's abduction of legislator Tayseer al-Mashhadani and seven bodyguards....
Al-Mashhadani was seized after her convoy was stopped by gunmen at a checkpoint in a Shiite area of eastern Baghdad, just a few miles from where a huge car bomb struck an outdoor market, killing at least 66 people and wounding about 100.
That was the deadliest attack since the new national unity government took office six weeks ago, and it was one of the biggest this year....
On Sunday, moderate Shiite legislator Iyad Jamal al-Din escaped an assassination attempt after a roadside bomb missed his convoy but wounded three people in Baghdad's downtown Karradah neighborhood....
A car bomb targeting a police patrol in Karradah also missed its target but wounded eight civilians, police Col. Abbas Mohammed said.
Elsewhere in Baghdad, a roadside bomb killed Col. Muthanna Faeq Abdul-Razzaq, the assistant commander of the Iraqi army's 7th Division, and wounded his driver, police said. In a shootout between gunmen and Iraqi police, two policemen were killed and six were wounded, Lt. Maitham Abdul-Razzaq said.
The insurgency is unchecked. The national unity government is increasingly fractured. And what are the administration and the Rubber Stamp Republicans doing to fix Iraq? Nothing. Apparently, they'd prefer to use the Iraq Debacle as a political tool in their increasingly shrill efforts to fix all of the blame of this mess on the Democrats.
As the debate approached, Bush embarked on a surprise, made-for-TV mission to Baghdad. On the same day, the president's top strategist, Karl Rove, accused Democrats of wanting to "cut and run" from Iraq.
In a June speech to New Hampshire Republicans, Rove charged that Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) and Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), who have proposed a timetable for U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, were "ready to give the green light to go to war, but when it gets tough, and when it gets difficult, they fall back on that party's old pattern of cutting and running," according to the Union Leader newspaper.
The next day, Bush signaled that Republicans would paint the Democrats as pushing a plan that would "embolden" terrorists.
"What's going to matter [in the 2006 elections] is who has got the plan that will enable us to succeed in Iraq," he said.
Well, guess what? The Iraq Debacle happened on your watch. The mess is all yours, and talk is cheap, Georgie Boy. Where is that plan that is going to bring us success in Iraq? Where has that plan been for the last three years? Keep talking like this, and people are going to start waking up to the fact that you and the Rubber Stamp Republicans are more concerned with job security than with national security.