Quote:
Originally posted by Lanny_MacDonald@Sep 16 2004, 03:58 PM
Not wanting to hijack this topic but, what ramifications is this going to have on the election in America? Bush and Co. have been using their effectiveness in their repsonse to 9/11 and the battle against terrorism. Military intervention in Iraq was a big step for the administration and this has blown up in their faces. Iraq is now a festering sore on the Bush administration that no one wants exposed. Is this the turning point in this election campaign that the Democrats have been waiting for? Can the Democrats manage to drop the ball on this gift that is being handed to them? They have run possibly the worst election campaign in American history to date, but can they honestly screw this up? The Bush administration were the ones pushing to get into Iraq to "stablize" the region. What they have done is take containment, toss it out the window, and create chaos for a country they had aspirations of saving from tyrany. How is this going to play with the international community? How is this going to play with the media as the international community has a hayday with this? How is the Bush campaign going to try and spin this and do damage control?
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Well, you've passed the milestone of 1000 American bodies and the nightly news has clear evidence of continued disturbances and violence in Iraq.
And Bush continues to lead the polls.
The report cited seems to merely reinforce an unsettled Iraq that voters can clearly see with their own eyes anytime they flip on a television.
Impact? None. A lot of polls seem to indicate voters are tired of Vietnam and Iraq and want to talk about social security and the like.
You would "need" a terror attack inside the USA to impact the election at this point. Or an actual civil war in Iraq rather than the theory it might happen. My opinion.
As Zacharia notes - the insurrection looks more like a bunch of anti-democracy crazies than anything resembling a civil war.
A reaction from the Democrats in the original New York Times article:
The committee's ranking Democrat, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, one of the harshest critics of the Iraq policies, was far more outspoken. "The president has frequently described Iraq as, quote, 'the central front of the war on terror,' " Mr. Biden went on. "Well by that definition, success in Iraq is a key standard by which to measure the war on terror. And by that measure, I think the war on terror is in trouble."
Cowperson