This and That.

Peter Wehner reviews Bob Woodward’s new book on the surge.
Now GWB has taken so much flack over the Iraq war from all sides but particularly the virulent brainless left and also from fellow Republicans over his domestic policies, and I’m not saying these weren’t justified, but set against it what this passage says about GWB’s independent courage.

The most important point to make, I think, is that the book underscores what an extraordinary decision President Bush made in deciding on the so-called surge. As Woodward’s book recounts, and my own experience in the White House underscores, in settling on a surge of five brigades to Baghdad and 4,000 Marines to Anbar Province, the President bucked the views of most members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (including the Army Chief of Staff, Peter Schoomaker, and Chief of Naval Operations, Michael Mullen), General George W. Casey, Jr., then the commander of U.S. Forces in Iraq, John P. Abizaid, the commander of U.S. Central Command, military analysts, the entire Democratic Party, much of the Republican Party, most of the foreign policy establishment, the Iraq Study Group, and many within his own Administration.

The prevailing view was that of General Casey, whom Woodward quotes as telling the President in June 2006, “To win, we have to draw down.” General Casey was exactly wrong, as was the much-heralded Baker-Hamilton Report, which in its 96 pages dismissed the idea of a surge in a single paragraph. (The ISG did recommend a short-term surge, but it argued, “Sustained increases in U.S. troop levels would not solve the fundamental cause of violence in Iraq, which is the absence of national reconciliation… past experience indicates that the violence would simply rekindle as soon as U.S. forces are moved to another area… America’s military capacity is stretched thin: we do not have the troops or equipment to make a substantial, sustained increase in our troop presence.” The ISG also recommended a drawdown of all U.S. combat forces by early 2008.)

The only real support for the surge was found within the White House and the National Security Council; from General David Petraeus, who succeeded General Casey and said, “I want all the force you can give me” and knew what to do with it once he got it; from Lt. General Ray Odierno, who had the courage to request the forces he knew were required despite the opposition from those he reported to; from retired General Jack Keane, the former Army vice chief of staff; from Fredrick Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute and William Kristol; and, of course, the early, forceful support of Senator McCain, as well as Senators Graham and Lieberman, was crucial, politically and substantively. At the time the surge was announced, it seemed as if its supporters could fit in a large phone booth.

For the President to have made the decision he did, in the face of such widespread opposition and with the war deeply unpopular within the country and his own party, took serious resolve. It was easily the most impressive and courageous decision he made in office.

Again, based just on the excerpts and the 60 Minutes appearance, one major area in which I disagree with the assessment of Woodward–one of the most influential journalists in American history–is his claim that the surge was not the primary factor in the staggering drop of violence in Iraq.

This is why history will see him as one of the great Presidents.

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Here’s an entry on a blog that’s new to me, The Fly Bottle. [Don't ask.] A sample:

Climate eschatology really is the ultimate in big lie crisis politics. The far-left has failed so comprehensively to make the case for its vision of society and economy that the only thing left to do is to brazenly and repeatedly assert that the world will literally collapse unless we implement this otherwise indefensible vision.

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Obama today on the campaign trail:

“You notice, at their convention, they spent a lot of time talking about John McCain’s biography, which is compelling,” Obama said. “They talked about Sarah Palin’s biography, which is compelling.”

When some members of the audience laughed at the notion that Palin’s biography was compelling, Obama insisted he was being serious.

“No, no, it’s an interesting story,” Obama said. “No, no, look, I mean that sincerely. I mean, mother, governor, moose-shooter, I mean, I think that’s cool, that’s cool, that’s cool stuff.”

Democrats, like their feminist allies, don’t have much of a sense of humor. As a comedian he’d better not give up his day job. Oh right, he doesn’t have a job. Voting present in the Senate doesn’t count, in almost Orwellian mode, voting present means you might as well not be there.

H/T Political Punch.

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In and article in The National Post on Sat, Conrad Black wrote this:

The Democrats and the feminist media establishment failed in their effort to represent Governor Palin as a Dan Quayle dunce in drag, a trigger-happy Stepford Wife and negligent mother (because she would choose to run for vice president despite her young family and 17-year old unmarried, pregnant daughter). The frenzy of the initial assault, and the sanctimonious conceit that American women would be offended by the candidacy of such an allegedly ditzy yokel, showed that McCain had remembered the basic military strategic lessons to apply maximum force at the decisive point and achieve complete surprise: If the liberal Democrats are taking the high ground on extramarital sex and working motherhood, you know they are frightened.

Doncha like that bit about military strategy, that would be completely foreign to the current crop of Dimcrats of course.

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