Historic Veto

In exercising his right and executing his duty, President Bush has rightly vetoed the defeatist Democrat-induced bill that would have established a dangerous timeline for withdrawal of our troops.

Key disingenuous quote:

Democrats accused Bush of ignoring American's desire to stop the war, which has claimed the lives of more than 3,350 members of the military.

That may be, but you might think they'd remember the niggling little factoid that Democrats only speak for roughly half of this nation's voters.

Make no mistake: I'm no fan of the war in Iraq. I personally think it has indeed become the very "quagmire" that many people feared it would become over time. I just don't appreciate the violence involved, no matter who's doing the shooting.

But.

I also believe — and have stated before — that the War on Terror is the Cold War of this generation. There are differences, certainly, and I'm not suggesting for a minute that you can draw a direct parallel between the two. Yet the War on Terror has already lasted long enough that children who were born at the beginning of it are now entering the classroom and have known only a world where we are at war with a hideous enemy. For as long as we are engaged there, these children will have the fight in Iraq shaping their world views and their vocabularies.

Yet the statement that President Bush's veto ignores "American's desire" to "end the war" is misleading. I don't care what the polls say: even those of us who don't like this war continue to support the President's decisions to support his commanders in the field.

Harry Reid is not a commander in the field. Neither is Nancy Pelosi. For that matter, neither is George W. Bush, but there is a key difference. Bush wants to listen to his commanders. Reid and Pelosi will shout over those commanders so that they, in effect, can say, "Not listening! La, la, la!"

Of course the veto means a long, drawn-out, messy in-house fight over the war effort. That's what vetos do. And far from making Bush look like a weak-minded war-monger, it instead shows Congressional Democrats for what they really are: defeatists.

As I said before, when the Dems find themselves in the Commander-in-Chief's chair, they can bring the troops home just as soon as they like. Then see how many terrorist attacks they will have "prevented."

Leaving Iraq now will only be an enabler of the jihadists' blood-lust.