I agree w the assessment that we need to redefine the mission from "nationbuilding" & policing endless sectarian strife to COUNTERINSURGENCY.

Then redeploy the bulk of our armed forces as the global threat dictates.

Our military are NOT police, they are lethal & feared assult forces which must be used to back-up diplomacy...like in north korea.

Let the iraqi's police their own GD problems.

"I don't recall them running in favor of anything, so we might have just missed this part of the Democratic platform".

Try failed Iraq policy, corruption and destruction of Constitutional checks and balances. Weren't paying attention were you?

And Bush, by consulting with Kissinger, wanted to turn Iraq into another Vietnam!

Come on! Even Bush has now admitted that things aren't going well in Iraq and has FIRED RUMSFELD! Since it is Bush's war, he BETTER WORK with Dems to find a solution, or HE WILL BE BLAMED FOR FAILURE!!!

The President is always blamed for things going badly, he is also credited when things go well. He, and you, better hope things go well!

Why do you want America to lose, Mark?

These 60-odd lefties are the worst of the worst - the real moon-bats; the people who really do think that President Bush caused 9/11 to happen so we could go to war for Big Oil and The Jews.

Please provide evidence of this. You know, some direct quotes and not you putting words into other people's mouths!

Talk about hatred and wanting America to fail! The Dems haven't even taken power yet and now your're rooting for them, and America, to fail! It took Republicans 6 years to screw things up (so decided Americans this election cycle), at least give the Dems and America a chance!

Or don't you really believe in democracy?

coulterfannot,
We welcome the Democrats to the table. If anything of substance is proposed and acted on, you and other moonbats will be disappointed! As will the moonbat leadership of the Dims. Can you say bye to the moonbat component?

If the Dims are to find a future it will come from the rank and file, not the upper echelon of Dims or you moonbats. I wish success, we are tired of cut and run, always higher taxes, same sex marriage and murder on demand abortions.

Go Dims.

it's going to be an interesting couple of years and i'd expect mr. noonan to continue to be the flag-bearer for this administration. but one cannot ignore that the fact that he's hitched (literally and figuratively) his wagon to a lame duck president, and his legacy (and that of B4B)now seem destined for the dustbin as republicans and conservatives alike start putting some serious distance between themselves and the individual for which the blog was named.

SEW - check you spelling. 'dims' should be 'dems'.

no excuses in the age of spell-check.

Good points, orangealert! I do wish SEW, Noonan and the like would get comfortable with facts, statistics, and reality in general. I KNOW that 'science' and 'facts' are suspect to this administration (witness the ficticious "debate" about evolution, for instance), but REALLY science is not a liberal conspiracy!

orangealert,

I think we BOTH forgot about and underestimated one thing which could keep this blog alive!

GO JEB!!!

Hi - the Dem's were all about getting us out of Iraq, raising the minimum wage, providing cogressional oversight (checks and balances) for the executive branch, restoring civil liberties, providing health care for more Americans, enacting a fair tax policy instead of borrowing hundreds of billions of dollars, allowing Medicare to negotiate with drug companies, protecting the environment, stopping corporate looting, ensuring that voting machines are auditable...

The rest of America heard this loud and clear - where was Mark during the campaign?

Orangealert, Dims is correct. For you , start a sentence with a capital letter, and Mr. Noonan, not mr. noonan. Perhaps now you know why I refer you you moonbats as Dims. You are not Dems.

Yes, the dems certainly seemed to espouse the idea of "getting out of Iraq", the problem you have is that the plan ended with those words.

Like saying "Im going to build a house" when you dont even have a blueprint, the democratic plan for Iraq is just as ethereal. If there is a real plan, then lets hear it, so far all Ive heard is a call for 'summits and meetings to kind of sort of start crafting a plan of some kind maybe.'

Wow, great plan.

To me it feels like just the opposite -- five minutes with Google led me to several concrete proposals (from Murtha and others). But what is the Republicans' plan for Iraq? After all, they got us into it -- and the current plan, as best as I can tell, is just to "stay the course." I saw a video montage of Bush the other day -- he must have said "stay the course" at least twenty five times in various speeches. The problem is, this "course" is a course that kills American soldiers and Iraqi civilians, costs half a TRILLION dollars, and creates a haven for terrorists -- the people want to get OFF this course!

Radical caucus of more than 50 members of the House of Representatives
Until 1999, worked in open partnership with Democratic Socialists of America

The Progressive Caucus is an organization of Members of Congress founded in 1991 by newly-elected Representative Bernie Sanders (Independent-Vermont), the former socialist mayor of Burlington and a member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), which describes itself as "the principal U.S. affiliate of the Socialist International."

The Progressive Caucus today includes Sanders and more than 60 other members of the House of Representatives, all of them leftist Democrats and almost all in districts heavily gerrymandered to guarantee the re-election of any Democratic Party incumbent, no matter how extreme.

On November 11, 1999, the Progressive Caucus drafted its Position Paper on economic inequality. It reads, in part, as follows: "Economic inequality is the result of two and a half decades of government policies and rules governing the economy being tilted in favor of large asset owners at the expense of wage earners. Tax policy, trade policy, monetary policy, government regulations and other rules have reflected this pro-investor bias. We propose the introduction or reintroduction of a package of legislative initiatives that will close America's economic divide and address both income and wealth disparities. … The concentration of wealth is a problem because it distorts our democracy, destabilizes the economy and erodes our social and cultural fabric."

In order "to bring new life to the progressive voice in U.S. politics," the Progressive Caucus has worked closely with Progressive Challenge, a project of the Institute for Policy Studies. Progressive Challenge is a coalition through which the activities and talking points of leftist groups are synchronized and harmonized with one another, producing coordinated, mutually-reinforcing propaganda from some 200 seemingly-unconnected groups.

The Progressive Caucus recently crafted its "Progressive Promise" document, which advocates socialized medicine; radical environmentalism; the redistribution of wealth; the elimination of numerous provisions of the Patriot Act; dramatic reductions in the government's intelligence-gathering capabilities, debt relief for poor countries; and the quick withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. These measures, says the Progressive Caucus, would help "re-build U.S. alliances around the world, restore international respect for American power and influence, and reaffirm our nation's constructive engagement in the United Nations and other multilateral organizations."

Until 1999 the Progressive Caucus worked in open partnership with Democratic Socialists of America. After the press reported on this link, the connections suddenly vanished from both organizations' websites.

As of June 2006, the following Members of Congress belonged to the Progressive Caucus: Neil Abercrombie; Tammy Baldwin; Xavier Becerra; Madeleine Z. Bordallo; Corrine Brown; Sherrod Brown; Michael Capuano; Julia Carson; Donna Christensen; William "Lacy" Clay; Emanuel Cleaver; John Conyers; Elijah Cummings; Danny Davis; Peter DeFazio; Rosa DeLauro; Lane Evans; Sam Farr; Chaka Fattah; Bob Filner; Barney Frank; Raul Grijalva; Luis Gutierrez; Maurice Hinchey; Jesse Jackson, Jr.; Sheila Jackson-Lee; Stephanie Tubbs Jones; Marcy Kaptur; Carolyn Kilpatrick; Dennis Kucinich; Tom Lantos; Barbara Lee; John Lewis; Ed Markey; Jim McDermott; James P. McGovern; Cynthia McKinney; George Miller; Gwen Moore; Jerrold Nadler; Eleanor Holmes Norton; John Olver; Major Owens; Ed Pastor; Donald Payne; Nancy Pelosi; Charles Rangel; Bobby Rush; Bernie Sanders; Jan Schakowsky; Jose Serrano; Louise Slaughter; Hilda Solis; Pete Stark; Bennie Thompson; John Tierney; Tom Udall; Nydia Velazquez; Maxine Waters; Diane Watson; Mel Watt; Henry Waxman; and Lynn Woolsey.

Then as was asked by LTB, what is the plan? Ive heard Murtha talk of retrea...er...redeployment to Okinawa. Thats it. Is there more to it than that?

Youre in power now, you hold the reins and the votes so what is your plan NOW? Republicans AND democrats voted for military force in Iraq, but now democrats are fully invested in the outcome and you better get used to it. Blaming Bush for not doing anything isnt going to wash any longer.

You can talk of what Bush said, but that was pre-election, now its post-election and you need to do more than just blame republicans for starting the war. We cant go back in time, the war exists and the dems now have to make their plans known. You promised America that things would change, so lets hear what that change involves.

Hi - the Dem's were all about getting us out of Iraq, raising the minimum wage, providing cogressional oversight (checks and balances) for the executive branch, restoring civil liberties, providing health care for more Americans, enacting a fair tax policy instead of borrowing hundreds of billions of dollars, allowing Medicare to negotiate with drug companies, protecting the environment, stopping corporate looting, ensuring that voting machines are auditable...

^^^^^^^^^^

Uh huh. We will see. Lets see how well they WALK the TALK. LOl

Time will tell. And American is in for a rude awakening of the mistake they just made.

Hey guys, remember in Iraq the insurgency was NOT THERE until Bush invited them In. This administration has a habit of creating problems, so that they can look like they are solving them. Look at their unabashed radiant pride at "lowering" the deficit to 250 billion dollars...numbers only true BushBots could love.

In Iraq, the insurgency is growing every day. It started 3 years ago, it continues now. Yes, will kill lots of them, but like Hydras two heads pop up for every one that we kill.

IF WE LEAVE, what are the terrorists going to do in Iraq? The assertion that they will use it as a base to attack us is just plain nuts. THEY ALREADY have Iran, Syria, Pakistan and Jordan to do this. And yes, they already have Iraq, as Maliki has sided with al-Sadr regarding the dismantling of US checkpoints.

We can't win with Maliki and al-Sadr in charge. THEY are our allies and our enemies at the same time. They are the people we are helping, training, and they conspire against us.

There is NO GOOD solution in Iraq. But helping our enemies is the ABSOLUTE LAST thing we want to do, and by training them we are training terrorists.

If there were only two options, (leaving or helping terrorists), leaving would be better. Perhaps the Dems will come up with a brilliant plan...dividing Iraq is being talked about now. It may work. But Mark won't support any solution that didn't come straight out the 2003 playbook; in his view endless war and helping terrorists is better than eating crow (he DOES know what crow tastes like now...)

So no, Mark, defeat is not an option. THAT's ANOTHER reason the GOP got clobbered--the people were tired of helping terrorists to our ultimate defeat. The "Defeatopublicans" got their heads handed to them. Which means we, as a nation, now a chance at victory.

And it's about time.

"because Congressional Communist Caucus didn't poll as well in focus group testing. These 60-odd lefties are the worst of the worst - the real moon-bats; the people who really do think that President Bush caused 9/11 to happen so we could go to war for Big Oil and The Jews."

Please eductate yourself on why 9/11 happened and McCarthyism. Watch PBS or something. Pick up a book.

"Democratic leadership to convince the Congressional Progressive Caucus to keep their mouths shut for all time to come."

Is this how Conservatives view democracy? "Keep your mouths shut"?

There are some who believe that the longer we stay in Iraq, the better it is for certain companies to profit from no-bid contracts. Here again we have ample evidence of a corrupt practice that no one on the right criticizes, yet would cause them to rage if a Democratic president did it.

The Iraqi civil war cannot be "won" militarily by non-Iraqis. What can happen is that we broker a deal. The only other option is to let the Iraqi forces pacify the country.

Well lets see. The dems win congress, three days later Iraq claims they are winning because of it. Doesn't seem like they are too intimidated by Harry and Nancy.

If Democrats don't take steps to end the war in Iraq soon

End the war in Iraq, or merely end our presence? We got our military out of Vietnam in 1973, but the war kept going after the Paris peace accords fell apart. If we get our military out of Iraq next June, that will NOT stop the insurgency, but will give it renewed strength because it will have only the (still relatively weak) Iraqi government to fight. Look at history. We left Vietnam, the communists "reunified" their country, and then murdered 800,000 people, as predicted by American supporters of that war. After we left Lebanon in 1983, the Syrians occupied that country and allowed Hezbollah to flourish. We left Somalia in 1993, and that place devolved into anarchy and is now crawling with Muslim extremists. If anyone here thinks that all those deaths that have occured since our invasion are so horrible, they will be miniscule compared to the death toll that will occur if we leave before Iraq's government can defend itself and its people. And once again, America will look like a country of wusses, who run when the going gets tough. There's one thing that the world hates more than a bully, and that's a wuss.

And it's about time.

Cue the ominous music.

Ok then, the dems have the horse, now its time to lead it down the road. You understand that this will be a democratic plan for Iraq, and any failures of it will have to land on democratic heads? Cool. Ive heard bitch, piss, moan and whine about Bush screwing everything up, ok, you take over and we will see what happens. Still dont know what the plan is though, is it hiding in Pelosi's closet?

Doug, you must feel a certain amount of disgust with Bill Clinton on the issue of no-bid contracts, considering he gave one to Halliburton for work in Kosovo. Im here for ya buddy, let it all out.

There are some who believe that the longer we stay in Iraq, the better it is for certain companies to profit from no-bid contracts.

There are also some who believe that Saudi oil will be replenished by allah and that AIDS was manufactured to wipe out blacks.

When people say things like that, its because they have a belief in it themselves, but they try to keep from being labeled a kook by saying "some have said..."

Hahaha Mark, your sense of humor is sharpening! "Congressional Communist Caucus" didn't poll well. Hahaha.

Pelosi is the one wearing the leash and she's barking mad. I guess the cut and run description of the Democrat platform was 100% accurate. What a bunch of cowards.

And SEW is right. It's not "Dems," it's "Dims" or even "Dums." Actually "kookbat" works just as well.

Why did Cal Thomas on Townhall.com (not exactly a communist, nor a communist web site) say that "McGovern was Right"?

So, maybe you think LBJ and Nixon were right and that we should still be in Vietnam today?

Maybe that's was "it was a thumpin'"!!!!!

"It's not "Dems," it's "Dims" or even "Dums." Actually "kookbat" works just as well."

Why don't you go back to hating blacks? What, too much of a "coward" to go after them?