He's begun a campaign, on the Senate floor today, to win Republican votes for a timely exit strategy, to be passed, if not before the August break, then by September.
False starts and incoherent flourishes aside, he makes a good speech, and he knows his stuff; gotta give him that.
The question is, do we continue to send our kids into the middle of a meat grinder, based on a policy that is fundamentally flawed?
I don't think there's a dozen Republicans on that side of the aisle who agree with the president's strategy. Nor do I believe, if the president had followed the recommendation of the senator from Delaware and, then, the senator from Arizona, back before there was a civil war, to put enough troops in to solidify the situation on the ground, we might not be here.
The rationale he offered and I offered, if I'm not mistaken, was, Mr. President, you don't have a strategy. The secretary of defense -- these are not a bunch of dead-enders. They're not a bunch of thugs. They are thugs. But you've got a big problem, Mr. President.
If I'm not mistaken, I heard the senator from Arizona make those speeches four years ago. I heard him, along with me, call for more troops, back then, in order to get out sooner.
We predicted there would be a civil war if we didn't gain control. Surprise, surprise, surprise. We have a civil war.
Look, I understand the political dilemmas that we find ourselves in when we have a president of our own party we have a problem with. I've been there. It never kept me from talking up, speaking up.
You recall, my friend from California, as presiding member, to use the trite expression, I beat President Clinton up and about the head, as they say in the neighborhood where I come from, to use force in Bosnia, to end a genocide.
The president didn't agree with me. I was told, calm down; don't put him in that spot. I'm accustomed to taking on presidents of my own party. And I know it's hard. It's hard.
But I tell you what. Name me any one of the people who were quoted here who thinks the policy we're pursuing now makes any sense.
Look. Ever since the Democrats took control of the Congress back in January, we've been working to build pressure on the administration, and quite bluntly, on our Republican colleagues, to change course in Iraq.
Because I've reached the point, Madam President -- I think the president is impervious to information. There's a great expression -- I believe it was Oliver Wendell Holmes -- he was referring to prejudice. And the president is not prejudiced, but it'll make the point.
He said "Prejudice is like pupil of the eye. The more light you shine upon it, the more tightly it closes."
This administration is like the pupil of the eye. The more hard facts you give them to prove that their policy is a failure, the tighter it closes and the less -- the less inclined to change they are.
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