Jaibones, whenever I see or hear of Mr. Levin, I’m reminded of the Oliver North hearings. Something to savor and to never forget.

Levin: Mr Gates, do believe we are winning in Iraq?

Gates: No, sir.

Levin: Thank you, Dr Gates…

Heh.

Can you imagine Scott McClellan telling one of these trash mongers such a thing?

Tony does a fabulous job at what is no doubt one of the toughest DC jobs a guy could have.

Pablo on December 5, 2006 at 7:24 PM

Mi amor señor, we’re not getting ‘divorced’ over this. I agree with you on Tony. Always liked the guy and wish they’d had him earlier.

Knowing that the media does what it does best worst, it’s important how things are said, not only what is said. It took hours before the headlines got changed…

Believe me, I’m on our side!

And appearing to be agreeable while merely being banal.

The interrogators showed themselves to be startlingly oblivious the nature of the ongoing global War, or that it is a self-declared assault on the West by age-old (and recently-remobilized) Islamic Imperialism.

How many in the infidel West will need to die to wake the rest?

3,000 on 9/11 was enough for anyone with instincts not shrivelled by suicidal p.c. to withered nubs.

The panel appeared to be 99% nubs.

With Gates as their nodder doll.

I was hoping he would utter a word of penetrating insight on something, anything… (or even a quip at the inanity of R. Byrd’s questions about “Do we intend to attack Iran?“… by perhaps saying to that former KKK member: “No, Senator, but we do intend on sending them all of the trans-fats that New York has just banned.“), but he opted for quasi-defeatist vagueness and politburo-esque mush.

We “transition” from the obstinately wishful to the pliantly hopeless.

Keep your powder and you wit dry.

Little Green Footballs

Hot Air ripped video of the likely new Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, saying at his confirmation hearing that the US isn’t winning in Iraq.

That’s all the Dems were waiting to hear, and the committee voted unan…

So Robert Gates was confirmed by the US Senate Armed Services Committee unanimously (21-0). His nomination now goes to the entire Senate where he’ll likely be easily confirmed….

Moonbats get drunk, think the GWoT would make a great board game.

http://www.waronterrortheboardgame.com/

I’ve seen their site. The game looks like Risk, except it’s designed to cater to people who use words like “Islamophobia.”

A bit slow out of the chute, perhaps?

So, Gates, would the glass be half-full or half-empty?

President Bush should withdraw the nomination.

And, give it to Tommy Franks.

MR. SNOW: What I would suggest is, number one, I know that you want to pit a fight between Bob Gates and the President. It doesn’t exist. Read the full testimony and you’ll see.

Hey, as long as we’re defining things…

Tony does a fabulous job at what is no doubt one of the toughest DC jobs a guy could have.

Well on the plus side, if there is any scandal associated with this guy, we will have finally gotten to “Gatesgate” and perhaps we can put that tired suffix to rest.

honora on December 5, 2006 at 12:55 PM

That’s cute, honora :)

Talk about fodder for the exuberant MSM. There will be Tony Snows all over trying to say “that’s not what Mr. Gates meant to say, bla, bla, bla…”

Entelechy on December 5, 2006 at 12:52 PM

My friends, call me for your next lottery picks, just kidding.

Tony Snow: Bush Disagrees With Gates, Says We Are ‘Winning’

What to make of it all, what to do?

Let’s see, he appeared to agree with the Democrats that we could not win, and he didn’t want to confront Syria or Iran, then he gets unanimously approved…… hmmmmmmm. I think President Bush directed him to do exactly that in order to get approved quickly so he could start getting to work and start killing more bad guys!

Apparrently you watched a different hearing than I did. He said that we’re not winning, not that we couldn’t win.

Democracy is a political process that the various factions have to buy into for it to succeed. Do you really think we can kill leaders of groups that enter that process and still expect it to succeed?

He wasn’t playing ball when we should have done it. And we survived the Lincoln and Kennedy assasinations. Clearly, this isn’t going to be a Jeffersonian democracy, and it has a better chance of succeeding without the rats than it does with them. And I wouldn’t feel the least bit badly about smoking him while he was exhorting his followers to kill Americans. Realpolitik, my friend.

First of all, it was only part of the Sunni community that began the sectarian attacks – that portion that enjoyed considerable power and prestige under Saddam.

And al-Sadr was just twiddling his thumbs all that time? No.

The Saddamists in the insurgency don’t give a crap about Sunni or Shia or the schism because they were and are primarily secularists and as such their primary loyalty lies with their party and tribe.

Which the Shia militants want badly to kill. If they don’t give a crap about it, they’re suicidal.

Iran has an uneasy relationship with both Pakistan and Russia. I won’t get into the historical details here (you can research that yourself if you wish), but relations are not as friendly as they might appear from contemporary MSM reporting, particularly in regard to Russia.
NPP on December 5, 2006 at 2:33 PM

and…

I was referring to Iran and Pakistan, which, as I said, are largely friendly. But since you bring it up, if you think Lebanon can be deconstructed into the simplistic terms of the Sunni-Shia schism then you know little of Lebanon’s history.

Which way do you want it? As for Lebanon, the history is relatively unimportant as the Christian influence that created the “Paris of the Middle East” is going the way of Palestinian Christians, and Iran takes over via Hezbollah while Egypt and Saudi try to figure out how to stop them. The facts on the ground are what they are, and they are what matter to this discussion.

Now you’re changing your tune. Of course some sectarian violence is inevitable. The problem, which I keep stating, is that we were not able to control AQI/Baathist violence on Shias and eventually the Shias figured this out and took their security into their own hands through the militias.

No, I’ve changed nothing. The fact is that we have been able to squash al-Qaeda, and the Shiites have done their own bit with the Sunnis, yet the violence continues. It is not as simple as you propose. Outside influences cannot simply create internal conflict without fertile ground to seed. Iraq is, was and has been ripe for such conflict, and it has in fact been ongoing. This is far more creditable to decades of murderous Baathist rule than it is to months of foreign jihad.

The average Shia does not believe the coalition or Iraqi government can protect them from attacks.

Why would they believe that the militias can? They quite obviously cannot. No one can provide a highly protective level of physical security from suicide attacks or from armed gangs that gather and disband like so much smoke, unless they go to martial law. And perhaps that’s what the Iraqi government ought to do.

How is democracy supposed to happen when the democratically elected government can’t fulfill the most fundamental government role – protecting its constituency from attack?

It ain’t easy, is it? Yet Britain managed to keep it together through WWII. Obviously, the status quo is not acceptable.

You’re right about one thing – the level of violence will not stay where it is – it will likely get worse.

That depends on what gets done about it, doesn’t it?

Waiting for the Iraqi’s to stop killing each other seems to be the height of wishful thinking, particularly given the blood-feud culture. We let Afghanistan sort itself out after the Soviets left and they still like to kill each other.

Well, that seems to be the entire point of going in there in the first place, to start weaning the region off of that millenia old culture that you seem to be arguing is simultaneously both the problem and not the problem. It’s either that, or we need to start solving our concerns with sorties from Whiteman, and no one seems to much of a stomach for that.

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

Having satisfied itself of Gates’s most important qualification — that he’s not Donald Rumsfeld — the Committee votes unanimously to send the nomination to the floor for confirmation.

AP, I adore you for this kind of writing. Wit, pure wit! Precious! I hope this gets picked up by HuffPo, Olbermann, Hardball, etc. Platinum!

P.S. A quick vote will also robb Webb of throwing a much tv’d fit. Tiny, tiny consolation.

An investment in the dimocrat party is an “Investment In
Defeat”

Update: Armed Services Committee unanimously approves Gates

Let’s see, he appeared to agree with the Democrats that we could not win, and he didn’t want to confront Syria or Iran, then he gets unanimously approved…… hmmmmmmm. I think President Bush directed him to do exactly that in order to get approved quickly so he could start getting to work and start killing more bad guys!

Sure – like Osama bin Forgotten?

Ugh.

We need a Godwin-type rule to deal with that phrase. Honestly, that was clever about three years ago and even then it sounded rather shopworn.

We did try to kill Sadr a few years ago and we badly beat up his Mahdi army, but then he decided to “play ball” and support the government.

And we decided to let him. If we’d really wanted to kill him, he’d be dead.

Maybe you need a review on democracy, or maybe your goal is a “democracy” like Egypt, Syria or Sudan. Democracy is a political process that the various factions have to buy into for it to succeed. Do you really think we can kill leaders of groups that enter that process and still expect it to succeed? Our stated goal was a democratic government – the USA can’t pick and choose which leaders get to participate by killing them off after they agree to join.

And what drives the Sunnis into such attacks? 1300 years of Shia/Sunni conflict. This has been going on since the Islamic schism.

First of all, it was only part of the Sunni community that began the sectarian attacks – that portion that enjoyed considerable power and prestige under Saddam. That they are Sunni is incidental since tribal affiliation meant more to Saddamists than religious affiliation (Tariq Aziz was a Christian after all) Those elements, early in the insurgency, allied themselves to AQ foreign fighters because they had a common goal. Their combined goal was to prevent a democracy in Iraq and kick the coalition out or bleed it dry. The easiest and most expeditious method to achieve that goal, given their limited military capabilities, was to sow sectarian violence. The Saddamists in the insurgency don’t give a crap about Sunni or Shia or the schism because they were and are primarily secularists and as such their primary loyalty lies with their party and tribe. Once it became clear they would not regain power, their attitude became one which could be summed up by saying, “well, if we can’t control Iraq, no one will” and they consequently sought to destroy any chance of a democratic government forming. AQI similarly saw sectarian conflict as a means to an end, not an end itself.

Overall both nations are friendly with eachother, so where is this simplistic war you speak of?

How about Lebanon?

I was referring to Iran and Pakistan, which, as I said, are largely friendly. But since you bring it up, if you think Lebanon can be deconstructed into the simplistic terms of the Sunni-Shia schism then you know little of Lebanon’s history.

Sectarian violence was inevitable. This level was not.

Now you’re changing your tune. Of course some sectarian violence is inevitable. The problem, which I keep stating, is that we were not able to control AQI/Baathist violence on Shias and eventually the Shias figured this out and took their security into their own hands through the militias. It’s why al Sadr became ascendant over Sistani and why Sistani has such little influence now. The average Shia does not believe the coalition or Iraqi government can protect them from attacks. It just so happens the average Sunni believes the same thing. How is democracy supposed to happen when the democratically elected government can’t fulfill the most fundamental government role – protecting its constituency from attack?

Not necessarily. That it hits a level like this doesn’t mean it’s going to stay there. One might presume that the Iraqi people, being human beings beneath all the religious, tribalistic fervor, will tire of watching the blood of their innocents run in the streets at the hands of the madmen among them and do something to stop it of their own accord.

This too shall pass.

You’re right about one thing – the level of violence will not stay where it is – it will likely get worse. Waiting for the Iraqi’s to stop killing each other seems to be the height of wishful thinking, particularly given the blood-feud culture. We let Afghanistan sort itself out after the Soviets left and they still like to kill each other.