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Failures of PolicyMonday, May. 07, 2007 10:35 AMAfter Hurricane Katrina, folks in the Bush Administration were quick to assure us that having close to 100,000 members of the National Guard deployed in Iraq would not adversely affect disaster response here in the good ol' U.S. of A. Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius disagrees. On Friday, a tornado paid a visit to Greensburg, Kansas � practically levelling the town of 1500 people. And equipment like tents, trucks, and semi-trailers are with the guardsmen in Iraq. Al-Qaeda's number two, the cockroach-persistent Ayman Al-Zawahiri, released one of his periodic rants about America, and how the recent bill vetoed by President Bush would keep us from being caught in a historic trap. Of course, conservative hackery ensued as the usual claims of 'if we give up in Iraq, it will mean defeat' and 'the Democrats want to surrender' came gushing forth. Except, as has been pointed out elsewhere in the blogosphere, why are we doing what al-Zawahiri and the rest of al-Qaeda wants us to? It's not about quitting or surging or benchmarks to him. It's about opportunities to kill more Americans. Speaking of benchmarks, Minority Leader John Boehner (R�Ohio) is all for them, as long as they don't involve, "� artificial timelines, yanking funds, (and) trying to ensure there's failure in Iraq." What we should be doing, according to Boehner, is, you know, have the president report to Congress every 30 days, and reassess our position. Clearly, Boehner believes the president actually respects him and his colleagues beyond being obedient drones for Karl Rove's talking points. But more important is the blatant drivel Boehner passed off as representative of the bill that President Bush vetoed. Timetables, by definition, are artificial. Whether we're talking about trains, flights, or divisions in grade school, they are almost always based on someone else's determination of reasonable progress or acceptable performance. Timetables where you don't have to actually meet goals or objectives don't contribute to progress or performance. The only person 'yanking funding' is President George W. Bush. To suggest that the Democratic-sponsored legislation is responsible is to refute the concept of oversight. As for ensuring failure, considering that there's no clear mission and a playing-on-the-freeway mentality as far as tactics, shouldn't that responsibility lie with those who took us to war in the first place?
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