Brutally Honest

A cry for help goes out from a city beleaguered by violence and fear: A beam of light flashed into the night sky, the dark symbol of a bat projected onto the surface of the racing clouds . . .

Oh, wait a minute. That's not a bat, actually. In fact, when you trace the outline with your finger, it looks kind of like . . . a "W."

There seems to me no question that the Batman film "The Dark Knight," currently breaking every box office record in history, is at some level a paean of praise to the fortitude and moral courage that has been shown by George W. Bush in this time of terror and war. Like W, Batman is vilified and despised for confronting terrorists in the only terms they understand. Like W, Batman sometimes has to push the boundaries of civil rights to deal with an emergency, certain that he will re-establish those boundaries when the emergency is past.

And like W, Batman understands that there is no moral equivalence between a free society -- in which people sometimes make the wrong choices -- and a criminal sect bent on destruction. The former must be cherished even in its moments of folly; the latter must be hounded to the gates of Hell.

"The Dark Knight," then, is a conservative movie about the war on terror. And like another such film, last year's "300," "The Dark Knight" is making a fortune depicting the values and necessities that the Bush administration cannot seem to articulate for beans.

And it came to pass, in the eighth year of the reign of the evil Bush the Younger (The Ignorant), when the whole land from the Arabian desert to the shores of the Great Lakes had been laid barren, that a Child appeared in the wilderness.

The Child was blessed in looks and intellect. Scion of a simple family, offspring of a miraculous union, grandson of a typical white person and an African peasant. And yea, as he grew, the Child walked in the path of righteousness, with only the occasional detour into the odd weed and a little blow.

When he was twelve years old, they found him in the temple in the City of Chicago, arguing the finer points of community organisation with the Prophet Jeremiah and the Elders. And the Elders were astonished at what they heard and said among themselves: “Verily, who is this Child that he opens our hearts and minds to the audacity of hope?â€

In the great Battles of Caucus and Primary he smote the conniving Hillary, wife of the deposed King Bill the Priapic and their barbarian hordes of Working Class Whites.

And so it was, in the fullness of time, before the harvest month of the appointed year, the Child ventured forth - for the first time - to bring the light unto all the world.

-Gerard Baker, TimesOnline

So much for "Obama Love." That's the title of John McCain's new web ad, which strings together clips of cable news pundits gushing over Obama like besotted teens. This romance has been a prominent story line of Obama's entire campaign, and clearly elements of it are true: "I felt this thrill going up my leg," Chris Matthews crows in one clip flagged in the ad. But scratch the surface, and you'll find a lot of mixed feelings behind the Obama "love." Reporters are grumbling more and more that the campaign is acting like the Prom Queen. They gripe that it is "arrogant" and "control[ling]," and the campaign's own belief that Obama is poised to make history isn't endearing, either. The press certainly helped Obama get so far so fast; the question is, how far can he get if his campaign alienates them?

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Reporters who have covered Obama's biography or his problems with certain voter blocs have been challenged the most aggressively. "They're terrified of people poking around Obama's life," one reporter says. "The whole Obama narrative is built around this narrative that Obama and David Axelrod built, and, like all stories, it's not entirely true. So they have to be protective of the crown jewels." Another reporter notes that, during the last year, Obama's old friends and Harvard classmates were requested not to talk to the press without permission.

As tensions escalate, the risk to Obama, of course, is that reporters will be emboldened to challenge his campaign ever more aggressively.

DIANE SAWYER: We want to turn now to the race for '08. The new poll out showing Barack Obama leading 47 to 41 percent over John McCain and it comes as the candidates engage in two very different campaign schedules. Our correspondents are opening their notebooks this morning to take you behind the scenes and we'll get to ABC's David Wright for a look at John McCain in just a minute. But, beginning with senior political correspondent Jake Tapper in Berlin with Barack Obama this morning. Jake?

JAKE TAPPER: Guten Tag, Diane. Well, we just arrived in Berlin a few hours ago. Everything about this trip has been choreographed to make Senator Obama appear like President Obama and that's certainly the case with the speech he's going to deliver later today here at the Victory Column in central Berlin. Senator Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel met this morning, just a few hours after Obama's pre-dawn visit to Jerusalem's western wall, his last stop in Israel. For the first stop of his European swing, Obama's campaign has been pulling out all the stops, distributing these flyers in German to round up a huge crowd for his speech tonight, one the Obama campaign is billing at almost presidential. Even though he is not the president. From the scenic vistas in Jordan where local reporters clambered for his attention --

SENATOR BARACK OBAMA: Reporters are the same everywhere, aren't they?

TAPPER: --to his hobnobbing with world leaders, to his military exercises in Israel and Iraq, everything about this trip is meticulously designed to make you comfortable with Obama as commander in chief. That started with his newly retrofitted plane. The American flag on the tail wing has been replaced by an enormous Obama "O." And the slogan "change we can believe in" is on the sides. [Tapper is now inside the plane.] Inside, the plane has been redesigned to separate the senator and his staff from us lowly reporters. And this was the site of a big media mutiny the other day as Obama officials insisted they'd be able to brief us on background as anonymous officials. One of them said that's what we did at the White House during the Clinton years. We pointed out they don't work at the White House. Other flourishes, an Obama napkin holder after we refueled in Ireland.

OBAMA: The world is keenly interested in this election. And I think they're hungry for a sense of where America is going. So, you know, certainly there's a curiosity factor involved.

TAPPER: Some authorities are anticipating a crowd as big as one million, but Senator Obama said we should not set our expectations too high for the crowd. He expects it to be more like in the tens of thousands. Diane?

SAWYER: All right, Jake. I want to say, Jake, I don't want to be around if there's a media mutiny and you're one of the mutineers. I would be running for the hills. Okay. Thanks so much.

I had a first hand view of Barrack Obama's "fact finding" mission, when he passed through this base.

While I can't name it, it's one of the largest air bases in the region, with up to 8000 troops (depending on influxes and transients in mobilization/demobilization status), mostly Airmen and Soldiers, but some Marines, Sailors, Koreans, Japanese, Aussies, Brits, US Civil Service, contractors including KBR, Blackwater and Halliburton, among others in the news. The overwhelming majority of all of these are professional, courteous and disciplined. Problems are rare.

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When his plane arrived (also containing Senators Reed and Hagel, but the news has hardly mentioned them), there was a "ramp freeze." This means if you are on the flight line, and not directly involved with the event in question, you stay where you are and don't move. For a combat flight arriving or departing, this takes about ten minutes, and involves the active runway and crossing taxiways only. For Obama's flight, this took 90 minutes, during which time a variety of military missions came grinding to a halt. Obviously, this visit was important, right?

95% of base wanted nothing to do with him. I have met three troops who support him, and literally hundreds who regard him as a buffoon, a charlatan, a hindrance to their mission or a flat out enemy of progress. Even when the rumors were publicly admitted, almost no one left their duty sections to try to see him, unless they were officers whose presence was officially required.

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Now, there are close to 8000 troops on the base and its nearby satellites. No one came up from the Army side (except perhaps a few ranking officers). The airbase resumed operation, once he cleared the flightline, as if nothing had happened. The dining hall holds about 300 people and was not full. The troops did not want to meet him and the feeling was apparently mutual. In attendance, besides the Official Entourage, were the base's senior officers, some support personnel, and a very few carefully vetted supporters who'd made special arrangements. No photos were allowed. No question and answer with the troops. No real acknowledgment that the troops existed.

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I can't imagine any officer of the few he met told him anything other than what they tell the troops, and what their own leadership at the Pentagon tell them—we're winning. Our troops are stomping the guts out of the insurgency. The surge worked and is working. If the insurgents have to divert to Afghanistan, it means they can't fight in Iraq anymore. We should not change the rules and retreat with the enemy on the ropes as we did in Vietnam. We should finish kicking their teeth in. The Iraqi government now controls 10 of 18 provinces, with US assistance in the rest. Let us win the war. 90% of the troops I know, even those opposed to the war, say that is the way to win. Victory comes from winning, not from "change." In fact, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs is on record as opposing Obama's strategic theory.

Since he obviously knew in advance that's what they'd tell him, and since he didn't care to talk to the troops (we're told by the Left that the troops are horrified, shocked, forced to commit atrocities with tears in their eyes, distraught, burned out, fed up with losing, etc) and find out how they feel, and was barely in country long enough to need a shower and a change of clothes, we can only call this for what it is.

A disgraceful PR stunt, using the troops as a platform for his ego and campaign.

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Obama clearly doesn't care about the troops, doesn't care about America, doesn't care about anything except hearing his own voice and the chance to sit at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue…From where he'll bring us the proven Democratic wartime leadership of Bosnia and the Balkans (US forces still there), Somalia (US forces prevailed despite being ill equipped by executive order, and taking heavy casualties), Haiti (what were we doing there again?), Desert One (oops?), Vietnam (where we snatched defeat from the jaws of victory), Korea (still there), WWI, and the fluke success of WWII won by such wonderful liberal notions as concentration camps for Japanese Americans, nukes, FBI investigations of waitresses who dated soldiers in case they were "morally corrupt" and the (valid) occupation of and continued presence in Italy, Japan and Germany for 60 years, which they are conveniently pretending won't happen with Iraq.

That's not "change." That's "failure we can do without."

But, there's a problem with this latest Obama statement. He's not a member of this senate committee.

Christian doctrine maintains that we're all guilty of sin and deserve death and that Jesus Christ died for our crimes. But the doctrine of Black Liberation Theology changes the essential nature of Jesus Christ, holds white persons still culpable for their perceived sins and those of their fathers and--the most important part--ignores Jesus's purpose for being born, being crucified and being resurrected.

The founder of BLT and those who have been taking in by him want to hold onto the power of guilt over white Americans, but can't be brave enough to repudiate Jesus Christ as he actually is. His mercy is inconvenient. So they change him into someone else, a victim who requires earthly vengeance. It's a change--a lie--they can believe in.

Even though the Obamas have left TUCC, they have not refuted their belief in this religion of guilt and blame, this Black Liberation Theology.  As a matter of fact Michelle is still selling guilt, white and otherwise, while her mate offers the sufferers of white-guilt the promise of redemption if only they would believe in him.

Do not forget that this is who these folks are.

Couric: But talking microcosmically, did the surge, the addition of 30,000 additional troops ... help the situation in Iraq?

Obama: Katie, as … you've asked me three different times, and I have said repeatedly that there is no doubt that our troops helped to reduce violence. There's no doubt.

Couric: But yet you're saying … given what you know now, you still wouldn't support it … so I'm just trying to understand this.

Obama: Because … it's pretty straightforward. By us putting $10 billion to $12 billion a month, $200 billion, that's money that could have gone into Afghanistan. Those additional troops could have gone into Afghanistan. That money also could have been used to shore up a declining economic situation in the United States. That money could have been applied to having a serious energy security plan so that we were reducing our demand on oil, which is helping to fund the insurgents in many countries. So those are all factors that would be taken into consideration in my decision-- to deal with a specific tactic or strategy inside of Iraq.

Couric: And I really don't mean to belabor this, Senator, because I'm really, I'm trying … to figure out your position. Do you think the level of security in Iraq …

Obama: Yes.

Couric … would exist today without the surge?

Obama: Katie, I have no idea what would have happened had we applied my approach, which was to put more pressure on the Iraqis to arrive at a political reconciliation. So this is all hypotheticals. What I can say is that there's no doubt that our U.S. troops have contributed to a reduction of violence in Iraq. I said that-- not just today, not just yesterday, but I've said that-- previously. What that doesn't change is that we've got to have a different strategic approach if we're going to make America as safe as possible.

Presidential Candidate Obama’s statements in and about Iraq in the past 24 hours have been nothing less than shameless and disgraceful. While we strive to avoid political discussion at ThreatsWatch, criticism of his words transcends rank political partisanship if for no other reason than his claims are simply and flatly untrue, made in a war zone, during a time of war and while running to become the Commander in Chief of US Military Forces. This simply cannot stand unchallenged.

Not only does Senator Obama apparently think the Anbar Awakening and the Shi’a militia stand-downs that have occurred are somehow separate developments from the surge, which is a remarkable feat of logic in and of itself, but he is implying that they are part and parcel indigenous to what his ‘plan’ for ‘political progress’ would have afforded.

In an interview on ABC World News Tonight last night, Senator Obama said that, even knowing what he knows now, he would not support ‘The Surge’ if he had it do do over again. No matter our success, shared among Iraqis and American troops. In order to shore his position, he cheapens the Anbar Salvation Council (as it was known in September 2006, perhaps long before the senator knew who they were) as a mere "political factor".

“I think that, I did not anticipate, and I think that this is a fair characterization, the convergence of not only the surge but the Sunni awakening in which a whole host of Sunni tribal leaders decided that they had had enough with Al Qaeda, in the Shii’a community the militias standing down to some degrees. So what you had is a combination of political factors inside of Iraq that then came right at the same time as terrific work by our troops. Had those political factors not occurred, I think that my assessment would have been correct.â€

Of course he didn’t anticipate it. He probably had no idea who they were and is still demonstrating a fundamental misunderstanding of counterinsurgency.

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"We have one candidate who essentially is telling us every day that the world as it is just fine. That what we've been doing for the last eight years is fine," Obama said. "Stay the course. Don't make too many changes.

"And then we have this other candidate -- Barack Obama -- who is saying every day that the world as it is not right. It's not good enough," she said.

Obama rattled off a list of areas where she believes the nation has been underperforming during the two terms of President Bush: education, health care and the economy.

"I wish we had time to be divided. I wish we had time to be upset. To be angry. To be disappointed. I wish we did," Obama said. "Because if we had time for that, then things wouldn't be so bad right now. Instead, we're in a place where another four or eight years of the world as it is will devastate the life of some child."

I hold a bachelor’s degree in political science and international studies and have been fascinated by study of politics from a young age.  I’ve been intrigued by politics and movements the way some people watch soap operas.  What will happen next and the speculation is a source of endless enchantment for me.

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My first thoughts are that all Christians need to take a course in critical thinking.  This is critical.  As an adult convert (at the age of 30) who went to a regular liberal arts college and learned the art of critical thinking and discourse, I have been regularly appalled at the lack of critical thinking that I see amongst the brethren and sistren.   It is why so many are now so bitterly disillusioned with President Bush.  Those of us who are critical thinkers saw him for who he was back in 1999; a charlatan.  But most Christians only heard what they wanted to hear in 2000 and again in 2004.  Having done that, and been so badly burned they seem unwilling to trust any politician again.

They need to listen for themselves and read for themselves what the candidates are saying.  Do not rely on the media reports … do not rely on Fox News or CNN or anyone else.  The internet is rife with the ability to get the speeches whole cloth.  Do this for yourself.  All you have to do is get one or two of the whole speeches and you will have enough to have the tenor of the candidate.  For instance,hen the story broke about Barak Obama’s pastor (Dr. Wright), I searched YouTube until I found his entire sermon and found the little bitty clips in context. They meant something then and were not nearly as offensive.  If you know anything about the African-American church in this country, then you can understand where they came from.  If you don’t, then shame on you.  You have some homework to do.

Mitchell let loose on this evening's Hardball, speaking of "fake interviews" and indicating we don't know the truth of the trip because we don't know what was edited out of the video that's been released.

Before Mitchell made her displeasure known, Roger Simon of Politico, Chris Matthews's other guest during the segment, depicted the images coming out of the war zone as all Obama could have dreamed of.

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In January 2007, when General David Petraeus took command in Iraq, he called the situation “hard†but not “hopeless.†Today, 18 months later, violence has fallen by up to 80% to the lowest levels in four years, and Sunni and Shiite terrorists are reeling from a string of defeats. The situation now is full of hope, but considerable hard work remains to consolidate our fragile gains.

Progress has been due primarily to an increase in the number of troops and a change in their strategy. I was an early advocate of the surge at a time when it had few supporters in Washington. Senator Barack Obama was an equally vocal opponent. "I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there,†he said on January 10, 2007. “In fact, I think it will do the reverse."

Now Senator Obama has been forced to acknowledge that “our troops have performed brilliantly in lowering the level of violence.†But he still denies that any political progress has resulted.

Perhaps he is unaware that the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad has recently certified that, as one news article put it, “Iraq has met all but three of 18 original benchmarks set by Congress last year to measure security, political and economic progress.†Even more heartening has been progress that’s not measured by the benchmarks. More than 90,000 Iraqis, many of them Sunnis who once fought against the government, have signed up as Sons of Iraq to fight against the terrorists. Nor do they measure Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki’s new-found willingness to crack down on Shiite extremists in Basra and Sadr City—actions that have done much to dispel suspicions of sectarianism.

The success of the surge has not changed Senator Obama’s determination to pull out all of our combat troops. All that has changed is his rationale. In a New York Times op-ed and a speech this week, he offered his “plan for Iraq†in advance of his first “fact finding†trip to that country in more than three years. It consisted of the same old proposal to pull all of our troops out within 16 months. In 2007 he wanted to withdraw because he thought the war was lost. If we had taken his advice, it would have been. Now he wants to withdraw because he thinks Iraqis no longer need our assistance.

To make this point, he mangles the evidence. He makes it sound as if Prime Minister Maliki has endorsed the Obama timetable, when all he has said is that he would like a plan for the eventual withdrawal of U.S. troops at some unspecified point in the future.

Senator Obama is also misleading on the Iraqi military's readiness. The Iraqi Army will be equipped and trained by the middle of next year, but this does not, as Senator Obama suggests, mean that they will then be ready to secure their country without a good deal of help. The Iraqi Air Force, for one, still lags behind, and no modern army can operate without air cover. The Iraqis are also still learning how to conduct planning, logistics, command and control, communications, and other complicated functions needed to support frontline troops.

No one favors a permanent U.S. presence, as Senator Obama charges. A partial withdrawal has already occurred with the departure of five “surge†brigades, and more withdrawals can take place as the security situation improves. As we draw down in Iraq, we can beef up our presence on other battlefields, such as Afghanistan, without fear of leaving a failed state behind. I have said that I expect to welcome home most of our troops from Iraq by the end of my first term in office, in 2013.

But I have also said that any draw-downs must be based on a realistic assessment of conditions on the ground, not on an artificial timetable crafted for domestic political reasons. This is the crux of my disagreement with Senator Obama.

Senator Obama has said that he would consult our commanders on the ground and Iraqi leaders, but he did no such thing before releasing his “plan for Iraq.†Perhaps that’s because he doesn’t want to hear what they have to say. During the course of eight visits to Iraq, I have heard many times from our troops what Major General Jeffrey Hammond, commander of coalition forces in Baghdad, recently said: that leaving based on a timetable would be “very dangerous.â€

The danger is that extremists supported by Al Qaeda and Iran could stage a comeback, as they have in the past when we’ve had too few troops in Iraq. Senator Obama seems to have learned nothing from recent history. I find it ironic that he is emulating the worst mistake of the Bush administration by waving the “Mission Accomplished†banner prematurely.

I am also dismayed that he never talks about winning the war—only of ending it. But if we don’t win the war, our enemies will. A triumph for the terrorists would be a disaster for us. That is something I will not allow to happen as president. Instead I will continue implementing a proven counterinsurgency strategy not only in Iraq but also in Afghanistan with the goal of creating stable, secure, self-sustaining democratic allies.

After reading you’ll know the real reason the NYT’s didn’t run the piece – McCain destroys Obama with some little things not high in the agenda of the MSM, Obama and his supporters - facts.

An editorial written by Republican presidential hopeful McCain has been rejected by the NEW YORK TIMES -- less than a week after the paper published an essay written by Obama, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.

The paper's decision to refuse McCain's direct rebuttal to Obama's 'My Plan for Iraq'  has ignited explosive charges of media bias in top Republican circles.

'It would be terrific to have an article from Senator McCain that mirrors Senator Obama's piece,' NYT Op-Ed editor David Shipley explained in an email late Friday to McCain's staff. 'I'm not going to be able to accept this piece as currently written.'

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In McCain's submission to the TIMES, he writes of Obama: 'I am dismayed that he never talks about winning the war—only of ending it... if we don't win the war, our enemies will. A triumph for the terrorists would be a disaster for us. That is something I will not allow to happen as president.'

NYT's Shipley advised McCain to try again:  'I'd be pleased, though, to look at another draft.'

The belief that reporters are trying to help Barack Obama win the fall campaign has grown by five percentage points over the past month. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey found that 49% of voters believe most reporters will try to help Obama with their coverage, up from 44% a month ago. 

Just 14% believe most reporters will try to help John McCain win, little changed from 13% a month ago. Just one voter in four (24%) believes that most reporters will try to offer unbiased coverage.

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Among Republicans, 78% believe reporters are trying to help Obama and 10% see most offering unbiased coverage.

As for unaffiliated voters, 50% see a pro-Obama bias and 21% see unbiased coverage. Just 12% of those not affiliated with either major party believe the reporters are trying to help McCain.

In a more general sense, 45% say that most reporters would hide information if it hurt the candidate they wanted to win. Just 30% disagree and 25% are not sure. Democrats are evenly divided as to whether a reporter would release such information while Republicans and unaffiliated voters have less confidence in the reporters.

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A separate survey released this morning also found that 50% of voters believe most reporters want to make the economy seem worse than it is. A plurality believes that the media has also tried to make the war in Iraq appear worse that it really is.

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These results are consistent with earlier surveys finding that large segments of the population believe the media is biased It is also clear that voters select their news sources in a partisan manner.

Behind the curve?

Yes. We just seem to gravitate to that which is familiar and comfortable. Jesus said "go"...we say, "Ya'll come."

The church should be militant evangelists and fishers of "men" not keepers of the aquarium. We should confront our culture with the truth of the gospel, not accommodate every whim and fancy.

We should lead the way in tearing down every wall that divides us, not building walls to separate.

We should recognize no other King than Jesus, know no other Kingdom than God's, and be each one committed to our lives being lived to the glory of God alone.

We should be committed to being movers and shakers not slumbering in the shadow of polls and popularity.

We should be leaders of "men" not followers of fads.

We should see ourselves as spokesmen to humanity on the brink of doom, filled with dread for the coming Day of the Lord's judgment, and speak as dying prophets to dying people.

We should be consumed with a passion for the lost, and a devotion to the redeemed.

We should be fearless, restless, and dissatisfied with every achievement...always looking forward and never satisfied with any slight victory of yesterday.

We should never have our noses in the air but our faces buried in the earth in abject prayer and supplication.

We should see ourselves as destitute, desperate, and needy...with a razor sharp awareness that if it is not God we will fail.

We should never allow ourselves to attempt the explainable but stretch out in the deep waters, the roaring winds and waves, our only hope in Christ.

We should be vulnerable, weak, and trusting...ready to bear the weight of sorrow for broken people.

We should be...as Christ.

We have now tried with great effort to define humanity as an impersonal product of chance, an adult germ in a vast cosmic machine. We have brusquely described life as a tale told by an idiot, signifying nothing, only to claim this should not lead us to despair. We have declared our appetites the gods of a better religion, while insisting both God and religion to be an invention of the human psyche. We scoff at the notion of a savior who frees the captive or restores the fallen, while maintaining we live with every qualification for human dignity, distinction, and freedom. But are these even realistic applications of our own philosophies? Do the explanations warrant the conclusions?

On the contrary, we are undermining our own mines. In the words of R.C. Sproul, we are living on borrowed capital. Why should a product of chance have intrinsic value? Why would an impersonal, cosmic accident see herself as a personal, relational being worthy of dignity? What we are attempting to explain away in one sentence, we are arguing for in the next. 

Explanations need not always lead us to the conclusion that all is lost. But neither should our explanations lead us to conclusions that contradict our own accounts! Thankfully, in both cases, there are times in life where we find, like Job, that we have spoken out of turn and discover there may be more to the story. After sitting through the whirlwind of God's 63 questions, Job exclaims: "I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know" (Job 42:3).

-Jill Carattini

• Democrat Joe Biden, Jan. 2007: "If he surges another 20, 30 [thousand], or whatever number he's going to, into Baghdad, it'll be a tragic mistake."
• Democrat Barack Obama, Jan. 2007: "I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraqis going to solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, I think it will do the reverse."
• Democrat Hillary Clinton, Jan. 2007: "I cannot support [the] proposed escalation of the war in Iraq."
• Democrat Barack Obama, Jan 2007: "I don't think the president's [surge] strategy is going to work."
• Democrat John Kerry, Feb. 2007: "The simple fact is that sending in over 20,000 additional troops isn't the answer--in fact, it's a tragic mistake. It won't end the violence; it won't provide security; ...it won't turn back the clock and avoid the civil war that is already underway; it won't deter terrorists, who have a completely different agenda; it won't rein in the militias."
• Democrat Dennis Kucinich, Feb. 2007: "It has been proven time and time again that troop surges don't work."
• Democrat Harry Reid, Apr. 2007: "The war is lost... This surge is not accomplishing anything."
• Democrat Christopher Dodd, Apr. 2007: "We don't need a surge of troops in Iraq... there is no military solution in Iraq. To insist upon a surge is wrong."
• Democrat Barack Obama, Jul. 2007: "My assessment is that the surge has not worked."
• Democrat Dick Durbin, Aug. 2007: "By carefully manipulating the statistics, the Bush-Petraeus report will try to persuade us that violence in Iraq is decreasing and thus the surge is working. Even if the figures were right, the conclusion is wrong."
• Democrat Jan Schakowsky, Aug. 2007: "I believe overall the surge is a failure. ...It’s clear to me we cannot win..."
• Democrat Joe Biden, Sep. 2007: "We should stop the surge and start bringing our troops home... [When asked whether Iraq closer to political reconciliation than before the surge began, and would continuing the operation stop the killing between Sunnis, Shi'ites and Kurds?] ...The answer to both those questions is no."
• Democrat John Kerry, Sep. 2007: ""The president's escalation ... has failed to achieve its goal of bringing about a resolution of the fundamental conflict between Sunni and Shi'ite."
• Democrat Chris Dodd, Sep. 2007: "It