No, You DON'T Get to Move the Goalposts...

Unbelievable...

Do they really think they're going to get away with denying that they're just moving the goalposts each and every time it looks like they're failing to make any significant progress in Iraq?

From the NY Times:

WASHINGTON, Nov. 24 — With American military successes outpacing political gains in Iraq, the Bush administration has lowered its expectation of quickly achieving major steps toward unifying the country, including passage of a long-stymied plan to share oil revenues and holding regional elections.

Instead, administration officials say they are focusing their immediate efforts on several more limited but achievable goals in the hope of convincing Iraqis, foreign governments and Americans that progress is being made toward the political breakthroughs that the military campaign of the past 10 months was supposed to promote.

NO MORE MONEY! Make them accept a timetable for withdrawing US Troops and the Webb Amendment, giving service members equal time at home station for time spent deployed in Iraq.

This should go out as a wake-up call to Democrats who want to waffle and flip-flop--we're not only going to demand "better Democrats" but we're going to go after Democrats who cave in and support the administration over the needs of our troops and the overwhelming desire of the American People to end this war.

The US Ambassador had this to say:

Ambassador Crocker drew a distinction between the effectiveness of the American military buildup in quelling violence and the influence the United States could bring to bear at a political level.

“The political stuff does not lend itself to sending out a couple of battalions to help the Iraqi’s pass legislation,” he said.

Still, he said, there were some positive signs that Iraqis were interested in making headway on some thorny issues. Provincial governors, he said, were pressing for a law to define their powers. “We are past the point where it is an American agenda,” the ambassador said. “It is what needs to be done in Iraqi terms.”

I want to see Democrats out there, NOW, calling out the Administration for moving the goalposts. I want to see outrage and indignation. And I want it backed up with votes and with deeds.

Hear that, Presidential candidates?

Meanwhile, Huckleberry Graham sets the stage for the coup that was planned when the surge strategy was announced:

BLITZER: But what happens if they fail to divide up the oil, if they fail to get those elections, they don’t disband all the various militias by the end of the year? Then what does the United States do?

GRAHAM: So I am hopeful that some of these people at the local level will have a stronger voice. And I’m hopeful that Talabani, Maliki, and Hashemi and all the major players can have a breakthrough.

I’m asking them to do things they say are important for their country. The conditions are right now and, quite honestly, if they can’t do it by the end of the year, I have real doubts that this group will ever do it so we need a new political strategy to find a group that can.

WHAT???

"We'll find a group that can?"

I thought we had a law against overthrowing foreign governments. You'd think a sitting US Senator who pretends to know something about the law would know that.

Pardon me while I reset my indignation and outrage meters...

I wonder what Buckley thinks of this?

I met Bill Buckley once. He was the guest of honor at the Mortar Board breakfast at Wichita State University in January of 1986. I had made the high Deans list the semester before so I had an automatic invite.

Buckley might be a Conservative but he isn’t insane and he has a penchant for protecting Civil Liberties. I wasn’t about to pass up the opportunity to talk to him and we had a nice discussion about the absurdity of America’s War on Drugs. I’m sure I walked away thinking I had been brilliant and he would never forget me. Such is the arrogance of youth…

Still…The man I had breakfast with 21 years ago must be deeply disturbed by this comment by Thomas Sowell in the pages of the magazine that he founded on bedrock conservative principles.

When I see the worsening degeneracy in our politicians, our media, our educators, and our intelligentsia, I can't help wondering if the day may yet come when the only thing that can save this country is a military coup.

Seriously – are the Conservatives so afraid of facing their demons and fixing what went wrong with their revolution, that they would sign on to a coup if it meant clinging to an illusion of power??? Seriously?!?!?

I so hope Buckley comments on this…