Thursday, September 02, 2010

Deposing Royalty

For all of the talk about "established" Republican Senators being "taken down" by the Tea Party, there is a certain poeticism in Linda Murkowski losing her primary in Alaska. She did, after all, get the job in the first place when she was appointed to it by her father, who had held it until he became governor of that state. I'm not sure how many states would let a governor get away with appointing his daughter to the seat he had just vacated. Maybe Tennessee, but I think they'd limit it to cousins.

Update, Thursday am: And, I have read one too many times phrases referring to "Obama's decision to remove troops from Iraq." He made no such decision. The drawdown of troops was put in place by George Bush before he left office, and Obama has adhered strictly to its terms.

Obama's promise, made repeatedly, was, "I will remove one brigade per month, beginning the month that I take office, until all of our troops are out of Iraq." This promise is one of the reasons I voted for him.

The first brigade did not leave until eight full months after he took office. Some 18 or so brigades are there now, and will remain until the end of next year. This is in accordance with the agreement reached between Bush and al Maliki, and is not due to any decisions by Obama.

Obama has played no part in the drawdown in Iraq, other than allowing the plan of George Bush to proceed.

1 comment:

  1. And he increased the presence in Afghanistan on his own, which had nothing to do with Bush (other than going in there in the first place, which is a wholly different issue).

    And "closing of the detainee thing in Guantanamo Bay"? He made a big show of signing something to close it within a year, which has not yet happened and probably won't.

    At least he didn't parachute in somewhere and proclaim "Mission Accomplished".

    Or did he? in some political way?

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