The
Washington Times' very own Tony Blankley promises to press President Bush on any Iraq "cut-and-run" exit strategy. He did so while appearing on the December 30, 2005, edition of KCRW's
Left, Right and Center with guest host Lawrence O'Donnell and former
Los Angeles Times columnist Robert Scheer.
O'Donnell: Speaking from the objective center, as is my task this week, let me suggest that I believe 2006 will be the year of the Republican cut-and-run in Iraq. Whenever you hear Republican presidents accusing Democrats of being weak-willed people who are ready to cut-and-run from a war, what that means is that the Republican president is the process of doing exactly that. We saw Nixon do this with Vietnam. It was the stupidest cut-and-run strategy ever since it took him four years to execute it, and then he ran the military out of the country in defeat and the Republican president will be forced to do that this year by Republican congressmen and by domestic politics.
I believe that we will see a draw down of at least 50,000 troops from Iraq whether is justified militarily on the ground or not, according to the president's objectives and that entire exercise for the president this year will be how do we define how quickly we are actually leaving Iraq so that the Republican Congress can get itself re-elected in the midst of still being involved in what was a majority, now a majority unpopular war in the United States. Tony, I respectfully invite your disagreement.
Blankley: It's certainly a plausible description. I think it's not the case, but if it does become the case I will certainly and my editorial page at the Washington Times will be extraordinarily vigorous in criticizing this administration if we judge that they are deciding to cut-and-run and I think they would in so doing undercut any chance of Republican success because the base 40% percent of the electorate, which is Republican, I think, would be inflamed by the betrayal and I think both for that reason and I believe that Bush actually believes in the project it won't happen. But it's plausible that if he weakens his will, pressured, given good/bad advice, he might go that way but I'd bet against it.
Though Blankley carefully parsed his speech and qualified nearly everything he said, I still think there's a promise in there to actually be a journalist. Fat chance that Blankley will actually follow through on this, of course. For what's it worth, here's another little nugget to undermine Blankley's credibility when he inevitably forgets his vow and adopts the talking points de jour to excuse Bush of any missteps in Iraq.