That according to Cenk Uygur at the Huffington Post.
Let's get this straight - once and for all. It was a Republican president, a Republican administration, a Republican Senate, a Republican House and entirely Republican government that started and lost the war in Iraq. No excuses. They screwed this thing up entirely. It is 100% their fault.
Now that we have lost in Iraq, I think the country would be better off listening to the Democrats on how to extricate us from this mess. But I will not stand by and watch Democrats get blamed for losing Iraq when Iraq is already lost.
Why am I so adamant about this? Is it because I am a lifelong Democrat and an incurable partisan? No, I was a Republican until Bush invaded Iraq. My party loyalty has been to the Republicans for almost my entire life. No, it must be made clear that the Republicans lost Iraq because if it is not clear, the country might be deluded into believing them again.
It makes me wonder how many lifelong Republicans are at this point with the Republican Party. I say that not because I am skeptical of the author's credentials (I get that frequently when I tell people I was a lifelong liberal Democrat until I grew up), but because his criticism is both so emotionally intense and also so intelligently put. No "Bush is Hitler and this is the Holocaust" crap. And aside from a few eye-rollers ("And because they (the mainstream media) have been spun by conservative talk show hosts into thinking that the American people have an appetite for a larger commitment to the Iraq War"), most of his arguments about the war make sense, even in a defeatist sort of way.
What I disagree with in the piece is Uygur's insistence that the MSM has been complicit in what he sees as a failed war policy by the Bush administration. It is simply inconceivable to me that anyone reading the daily death counts, Cindy Sheehan's various rants, any leftwing site, or watched any press conference would come away with the impression that the MSM has been gung ho about the Iraq War at any point. Exactly what would have been proof that the media has been against the war? Body bags? Large pictures of screaming kids missing arms or legs? Burned bodies?
If the daily barrage of "Iraq is Vietnam" coverage is support for the war in Iraq, I have to wonder what protest would look like.
There's a lot of food for thought in Uygur's piece about the war and Republican responsibility for it, but trying to paint the mainstream press as pro-Bush just undermines the arguments.
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