how many dead to protect the Pres?
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/
[by Jake Tapper]
Doing the Math
So yesterday, amidst the Foley grime and slime, some more
consequential news: Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John
Warner, R-VA, returning from a trip to Iraq, offered a bleak
assesment of the situation there.
“I assure you, in two or three months, if this thing hasn’t come to
fruition and if this level of violence is not under control and this
government able to function, I think it’s a responsibility of our
government internally to determine: Is there a change of course that
we should take?” Warner said. “And I wouldn’t take off the table any
option at this time.”
Now today comes word fom Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, ranking Democrat
on the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, that two other Senate
Republicans have told him they’ll break with the White House Iraq
strategy.
But here’s the hook — they won’t do so until after the November
elections.
“Two leading Republican Senators have come to me,” Biden recalled,
and said that after the election “the need to protect the president
will be nonexistent” and Republicans will be freer to break with the
White House and call for change in Iraq.
Assuming Biden’s tale is correct, it will be interesting to see which
Republicans wait until after November 7 to break ranks with the White
House on Iraq.
I wonder how a Senator who opposes the current Iraq war policy — but
hasn’t stated so publicly — calculates how many lives it’s
acceptable to have killed pursuing that policy before stating his
opposition to it ….for the sole purpose of protecting his political
party in an election.
How do you do the math on that?
Holding the Senate is worth, say, 500 dead? One thousand? How many US
troops? How many wounded?
How do you justify it in your head?
“Well, my opposition won’t change much on the ground there in the
short term, anyway”…?
“I oppose the policy, but I don’t want President Bush to get miffed
at me for helping the Democrats sweep Connecticut”…?
God, sometimes it’s hard to work in this town and not grow deeply
cynical.