Monday, November 06, 2006

Joke Line

Had the immense pleasure of listening to my good friend Joe Klein on Nice Polite Republicans this morning. I learned that Iraq was the "worst foreign policy blunder" in the past 100 years, but that Democrats are unlikely to improve things because they don't know the difference between a brigade and a battalion. I learned that while Americans shouldn't have naively supported the war, it's as much of a mistake for them to naively oppose it as they do now. How this is supposed to impact what is actually smart policy, or what that policy should be, I do not know, as Klein didn't bother to tell me. Most of all I learned that there is no one smarter than Joe Klein, whose genius transcends that of anyone else in politics.

Coincidentally, I had been thinking about Klein this morning. About 4 and a half months ago here's what Joe Klein had to say about Iraq:



[T]he responsible path is the Democrats' only politically plausible choice: they will have to give yet another new Iraqi government one last shot to succeed. This time, U.S. military sources say, the measure of success is simple: Operation Forward Together, the massive joint military effort launched last week to finally try to secure Baghdad, has to work. If Baghdad isn't stabilized, the war is lost.


Klein didn't say how long this "one last shot" should be given, but I generously gave one F.U. Still, it's pretty clear Operation Forward Together hasn't actually been a smashing success. Is the war now lost? If so, what should we do? What is now the responsible thing for responsible serious Democrats to do? Will Klein show them the way?

Since Klein's one last shot began, roughly 325 American troops have lost their lives. That's about enough for a small battalion.