REID'S GLASS HOUSE

by Amanda B. Carpenter

Majority Leader Harry Reid (D.-Nev.) has a nasty habit of name-calling, which reared its ugly head again when the Nevada senator tried to deflect charges from the White House about his position on the war.

Last week, Reid told reporters that Vice-President Dick Cheney was the “administration’s attack dog.” To warrant this charge, Cheney had said Reid’s views on Iraq policy were “uniformed and misleading.”

This testy exchange was prompted by an April 23 speech Reid gave at the Woodrow Wilson Center. There, Reid told listeners that “winning the war is no longer the job of the U.S. military.”

Revolving Views

A few days before that, on April 19, Reid declared the “war is lost” and said the President’s surge of U.S. troops to Iraq is “not accomplishing anything.” But the next day on the Senate floor, after receiving some backlash from his own party, Reid claimed, “No one wants us to succeed in Iraq more than Democrats.”

After breaking from the Republicans’ weekly policy luncheon on April 24, Cheney told reporters Reid was campaigning against the war for political gain. “Sen. Reid himself has said the war in Iraq will bring more his party more seats in the next election,” Cheney said. “It is cynical to declare that the war is lost because you believe it gives you political advantage.”

Through the midterm elections, Reid pledged to keep full funding for U.S. troops in Iraq. Then, after the Democrats took the majority on Capitol Hill, Reid said he supported funding the war as long as certain benchmarks were met. In early April, Reid signed on with Wisconsin Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold’s legislation to prohibit funding for the war by March 31. The bill also calls on the President to begin withdrawing troops within four months.

“Last November, Sen. Reid said there would be no cut-off of funds for the military in Iraq,” Cheney said. “So, in less than six months time, Sen. Reid has gone from pledging full funding for the military, then full funding with conditions, and then a cut-off of funding. Three positions in five months on the most important foreign policy question facing the nation and our troops.”

Doubts Petraeus

In January, Reid voted to confirm Gen. David Petraeus to be commander of U.S. Forces in Iraq. Petraeus was appointed by President Bush to carry out a surge of about 21,000 U.S. troops, most of them into the Baghdad area. When Reid was asked by CNN if he would believe Petraeus if Petraeus said the surge policy in Iraq was working, Reid said, “No I wouldn’t.”

In a press conference, Reid was asked to address the charges of inconsistency the Vice President made against him. Reid refused to answer. Instead, Reid called Cheney the “administration’s chief attack dog” and told reporters “I’m not going to get into a name-calling match with someone who has a 9% approval ratings.”

Reid is wise to decline answering these charges: They are correct. Below is a compilation of quotes from Majority Leader Reid that show both his propensity to insult and his inconsistent position on the war.

“I think that he [Justice Clarence Thomas] has been an embarrassment to the Supreme Court.” --NBC’s "Meet the Press," December 5, 2004

“I'm not a big Greenspan fan -- Alan Greenspan fan. I voted against him the last two times. I think he's one of the biggest political hacks we have in Washington.” --CNN’s "Inside Politics," March 3, 2005

"The man's [President George W. Bush] father is a wonderful human being. I think this guy is a loser." --Speech at Del Sol High School May 7, 2005

"When he [Bill Frist] got this job, he had had limited experience on the Senate floor, and he was leaving. He had term-limited himself. So he has no institutional integrity. ... He doesn't feel as strongly about the Senate. He does whatever the White House wants him to do.” --Washington Post, December 19, 2005

“Can you think of one thing that has gone right in Iraq? And I'm having -- searching and I'm having trouble finding that.”-- Press conference, September 19, 2006

'I'm going to throw bombs sometimes -- I'm going to be conciliatory other times.”- New York Times, November 10, 2006

“We're not going to do anything to limit funding [for the war] or cut off funds, even though there are some on the outside who suggest that.” --Associated Press, November 29, 2006

“Just as with Vietnam, there was never a time when funds were cut off from Vietnam. And I don’t think anyone can find a war that this country was engaged in where the funds were cut off. No one is talking about cutting off the funds.” --"The Charlie Rose Show," March 5, 2007

“Reauthorization [of the war] isn’t such a good idea, more than likely. I think probably what might be better is to specifically do away with the authorization whatsoever, period. And then just assign specific legislative authorizations to what the troops there could do. Get rid of the original authorization [of the war]. --"The Charlie Rose Show," March 5, 2007

“I am pleased to cosponsor Senator Feingold’s important legislation…. If the President vetoes the supplemental appropriations bill and continues to resist changing course in Iraq, I will work to ensure this legislation receives a vote in the Senate in the next work period.”-- Joint statement issued by Feingold and Reid on April 2, 2007.

"The American people, I repeat, have to understand what is happening. It is not worth another drop of American blood in Iraq. It is not worth another damaged brain." --interview with Ed Schultz, April 2, 2007

“We’re going to pick up Senate seats as a result of this war. Senator Schumer has shown me numbers that are compelling and astounding.” --Press conference, April 12, 2007

“I support, with Senator Feingold, legislation that would start redeployment in 120 days, and there would be a cut-off date April 1, 2008. I support that. And there will be a time when I’m going to be looking to Senator Feingold and others for a time to do that.” --Press conference, April 19, 2007

“Now, I believe myself … that this war is lost and that the surge is not accomplishing anything.”-- Press conference April 19, 2007

“No one wants us to succeed in Iraq more than Democrats.” -- Speech on the Senate floor, April 20, 2007

"General Petraeus, the commander on the ground, has said so himself. Twenty percent [of the war in Iraq] can be won militarily and 80 percent has to be won through our diplomatic efforts, politics, and economics. I repeat: the only way to succeed lies through a comprehensive political, diplomatic and economic strategy. So says the commander on the ground there, General Petraeus." -- April 20, 2007

CNN: [President Bush] has also said that General Petraeus is going to come on the Hill and make it clear to you that there is progress going on in Iraq, that the so-called surge is working. Will you believe him when he says that?

REID: “No, I don’t believe him.” --CNN’s Situation Room April 23, 2007

REPORTER: The Vice-President suggested you've been inconsistent in your position [on Iraq], changing, he said, three times in five months, from no cutting off of funds, to funding with limitations, to now cutting off funds --

REID: I'm not going to get into a name-calling match with somebody who has a 9 percent approval rating. --Press conference, April 24, 2007

SENATE PASSES SURRENDER BILL; EMBEDS REPORT FROM THE GROUND

Senate passes surrender bill; embeds report from the ground

By Michelle Malkin

Get out the veto pen, President Bush.

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The Tank publishes Joe Lieberman's floor statement. Here's a tidbit:

I have great respect for my friend from Nevada. I believe he has offered this proposal in good faith, and therefore want to take it up in good faith, and examine its arguments and ideas carefully and in depth, for this is a very serious discussion for our country.

In his speech Monday, the Majority Leader described the several steps that this new strategy for Iraq would entail. Its first step, he said, is to “transition the U.S. mission away from policing a civil war—to training and equipping Iraqi security forces, protecting U.S. forces, and conducting targeted counter-terror operations.”

I ask my colleagues to take a step back for a moment and consider this plan.

When we say that U.S. troops shouldn’t be “policing a civil war,” that their operations should be restricted to this narrow list of missions, what does this actually mean?

To begin with, it means that our troops will not be allowed to protect the Iraqi people from the insurgents and militias who are trying to terrorize and kill them. Instead of restoring basic security, which General Petraeus has argued should be the central focus of any counterinsurgency campaign, it means our soldiers would instead be ordered, by force of this proposed law, not to stop the sectarian violence happening all around them—no matter how vicious or horrific it becomes.

In short, it means telling our troops to deliberately and consciously turn their backs on ethnic cleansing, to turn their backs on the slaughter of innocent civilians—men, women, and children singled out and killed on the basis of their religion alone. It means turning our backs on the policies that led us to intervene in the civil war in Yugoslavia in the 1990s, the principles that today lead many of us to call for intervention in Darfur.

This makes no moral sense at all.

It also makes no strategic or military sense either.

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Michael Yon's latest dispatch is up with many trademark vivid photos, like this one, giving you an up-close look at the soldiers and the surge:

Yon's caption: "Combat soldiers can sleep anywhere: leaning curled in hallway steps , with bricks as pillows. With practically nobody here to tell the stories of their hard work, sacrifice and heartening professionalism, we have left our soldiers behind in this war."

Yon to broadcast a reality show from Iraq:

Michael Yon, the acclaimed independent photo journalist and war correspondent currently embedded in Iraq covering the “surge” has signed an exclusive deal with Peace River Company LLC and Extant Media to produce a verite television series that will film his war zone dispatches from Iraq.

This television vehicle, tentatively titled “Michael Yon: Dispatches/Iraq”, will bring a new dimension to Yon’s sometimes brutal blog accounts and vivid images as he covers the life and death struggle of the soldiers and citizens of this war torn country. Yon is one of the only journalists to brave the streets of Baghdad beyond the protected Green Zone and bring unfiltered war accounts to the American public...

13 episodes are planned.

Meanwhile, the tireless J.D. Johannes reports from Iraq:

48 hours without sleep.

24 hours without food.

6 hours with little water.

It was the most successful mission I had ever been on. Insurgencies are not beat with hammer and anvil clearing operations. They are not beat with presence patrols conducted from the confines of humvees that resemble bank vaults or Bradly fighting vehicles or Strykers.

Insurgencies are beat with a piece of paper: A Census Form...

THE DEMOCRATS" GONZALES

By David S. Broder

Here's a Washington political riddle where you fill in the blanks: As Alberto Gonzales is to the Republicans, Blank Blank is to the Democrats -- a continuing embarrassment thanks to his amateurish performance.

If you answered " Harry Reid," give yourself an A. And join the long list of senators of both parties who are ready for these two springtime exhibitions of ineptitude to end.

President Bush's highly developed tolerance for egregious incompetence in his administration may have met its supreme test in Attorney General Gonzales, who at various times has taken complete responsibility for the firing of eight U.S. attorneys and professed complete ignorance of the reasons for their dismissal. This demonstration of serial obfuscation so impressed the president that he rushed out to declare that Gonzales had "increased my confidence in his ability to do the job."

As if that were not mind-boggling enough, consider the mental gyrations performed by Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) as he rationalized the recent comment from his majority leader, Harry Reid, the leading light of Searchlight, Nev., that the war in Iraq "is lost."

On "Fox News Sunday," Schumer offered this clarification of Reid's off-the-cuff comment. "What Harry Reid is saying is that this war is lost -- in other words, a war where we mainly spend our time policing a civil war between Shiites and Sunnis. We are not going to solve that problem. . . . The war is not lost. And Harry Reid believes this -- we Democrats believe it. . . . So the bottom line is if the war continues on this path, if we continue to try to police and settle a civil war that's been going on for hundreds of years in Iraq, we can't win. But on the other hand, if we change the mission and have that mission focus on the more narrow goal of counterterrorism, we sure can win."

Everyone got that? This war is lost. But the war can be won. Not since Bill Clinton famously pondered the meaning of the word "is" has a Democratic leader confused things as much as Harry Reid did with his inept discussion of the alternatives in Iraq.

Nor is this the first time Senate Democrats, who chose Reid as their leader over Chris Dodd of Connecticut, have had to ponder the political fallout from one of Reid's tussles with the language.

Hailed by his staff as "a strong leader who speaks his mind in direct fashion," Reid is assuredly not a man who misses many opportunities to put his foot in his mouth. In 2005, he attacked Alan Greenspan, then chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, as "one of the biggest political hacks we have here in Washington."

He called President Bush " a loser," then apologized. He said that Bill Frist, then Senate majority leader, had "no institutional integrity" because Frist planned to leave the Senate to fulfill a term-limits pledge. Then he apologized to Frist.

Most of these earlier gaffes were personal, bespeaking a kind of displaced aggressiveness on the part of the onetime amateur boxer. But Reid's verbal wanderings on the war in Iraq are consequential -- not just for his party and the Senate but for the more important question of what happens to U.S. policy in that violent country and to the men and women whose lives are at stake.

Given the way the Constitution divides warmaking power between the president, as commander in chief, and Congress, as sole source of funds to support the armed services, it is essential that at some point Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi be able to negotiate with the White House to determine the course America will follow until a new president takes office.

To say that Reid has sent conflicting signals about his readiness for such discussions is an understatement. It has been impossible for his own members, let alone the White House, to sort out for more than 24 hours at a time what ground Reid is prepared to defend.

Instead of reinforcing the important proposition -- defined by the Iraq Study Group-- that a military strategy for Iraq is necessary but not sufficient to solve the myriad political problems of that country, Reid has mistakenly argued that the military effort is lost but a diplomatic-political strategy can still succeed.

The Democrats deserve better, and the country needs more, than Harry Reid has offered as Senate majority leader.

davidbroder@washpost.com

NUTS IN THE CROSSHAIRS

by Ann Coulter

For cranky right-wingers who think politicians don't listen to them, this week I give you elected Democrats running like scared schoolgirls from the media's demand that they enact new gun control laws in response to the Virginia Tech shooting.

Instead, Democrats are promoting a mental health exception to the right to bear arms. We've banned mass murder and that hasn't seemed to work. So now we're going to ban mass murderers. Yes, that will do the trick!

This is a feel-good measure that is both wildly under-inclusive (the vast majority of nutcases receive no formal court adjudication of their nuttiness) and wildly over-inclusive (the vast majority of nuts don't kill people.) The worst thing most nuts do is irritate everybody else by driving their electric cars on the highway.

As lovely as it would be, we cannot identify mass murderers before they have broken any law, and mass murder is often the first serious crime they commit. No one can be locked up permanently for being potentially dangerous.

Even stalking laws can put away a person known to be dangerous for only a few years -- at best -- which is generally not worth spending a day sitting in court, facing your stalker, and then waiting a month for the court order.

So on one hand, the mental health exception is a feel-good measure that would be largely pointless. But on the other hand, it's no skin off my back. Liberals go to therapy. Conservatives go to church. And I think we'd all sleep better knowing that David Brock could not buy a gun.

In fact, I think we should expand the mental illness exception to cover First Amendment rights as well as Second Amendment rights.

I note that before mass murder, the only harassment the Virginia Tech killer was guilty of involved speech: creepy e-mails, creepy short stories, creepy phone calls. Stalkers, too, engage in frightening speech -- but that is protected. Revealing a stalking victim's address is "speech" but is little different from being the one to pull the trigger.

This small measure would have taken Dan "What's the Frequency, Kenneth" Rather off the airwaves years ago, preventing him from presenting doctored National Guard documents to the American people to try to throw a presidential election. A mental illness bar would deal a quick blow to Air America and both its remaining listeners. It would also free up about 90% of the Internet.

And it would end the public lunacy of Jim Wallis, the Democrats' Christian. Wallis' first remark on the massacre at Virginia Tech last week was to hail the remarkable "diversity" of the victims. True, Cho murdered 32 people in cold blood. But at least he achieved diversity!

Anyone who thinks a single-minded fixation on diversity must be the ultimate goal of every human endeavor, including mass murder, is not the sort of person who should be able to buy a gun or to publish his daft ruminations in public forums.

But just to get this straight: Democrats are saying we should be able to jail "strange" or "angry" people, but we can't deplane imams who demand extra-length seatbelts after boarding?

Speaking of which, has anyone else noticed the public expressions of shame and contrition from the Korean-American community after the Virginia Tech shooting? Of course, no one blames this exemplary community for the actions of one nut. The Koreans are manifestly law-abiding and decent -- nipping at the heels of Italians as the greatest Americans and tied for second with the Cubans.

Indeed, I believe this marks the first time a Korean has killed anyone in the United States, not involving an automobile. Nonetheless, Korean congregations, community groups and the family members themselves are issuing statements of sorrow. Not "pleas for tolerance." But sorrow. Remorse. Remember those? They were big back in the day.

If the Koreans can do it, why can't the Muslims? What explains the lack of a Muslim guilt impulse -- so normal, as seen in the case of the saddened Koreans -- after dozens of terrorist attacks on Americans?

How about a Muslim exception to the Second Amendment? That would have prevented the Virginia snipers from killing 10 people within three weeks in 2002. But most important: It would help us achieve "diversity" in our gun law prohibitions.

RUDY WARNS OF ANOTHER 9/11.....

.... if the Democrats win, that is. Giuliani says, however, that if a Republican is elected another terrorist attack can be anticipated and stopped because, he says, Republicans will remain on the offense. "I listen a little to the Democrats and if one of them gets elected, we are going on defense. We will wave the white flag on Iraq. We will cut back on the Patriot Act, electronic surveillance, interrogation and we will be back to our pre-Sept. 11 attitude of defense."

Giuliani also says that the Democrats do not understand the threat of the "terrorist war against us." Uh oh ... did you notice a bit of PC in that statement? How about the "Islamic terrorist war against us"?

Giuliani has much of this right. Democrats will absolutely go on the defense as soon as they can .. and a defensive posture before these Islamic murderers is suicide. Simply put ... we have identify them and go kill them over there before they come and kill us over here. But why allow political correctness play such a role here? The enemy is radical Islam. How can we say we are serious about fighting the enemy if we won't even speak its name?

ROSIE LEAVING THE VIEW?

By Michelle Malkin

That seems to be the buzz.

Here was her vulgar performance at the Matrix awards in case you missed it. Lorie has a big round-up.

I said earlier this month that ABC was not going to do the responsible thing and and proactively can her after her "9/11 was an inside job" cheerleading. I was right. Out of ideological sympathy and then cowardice, they let her drag down public discourse further and they let her choose her time and manner of departure.

The question now is: Where will she take her big mouth next?

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9/11 conspiracy-mongers and the advertisers who love them
Hey, Rosie: read my lips
Hey, Rosie O'Donnell: Did you teach your kids to speak "ching chong," too?
The (Conservative) View
Rosie O'Donnell: Psycho mom