Say it, Nancy!

The N.I.E. (National Intelligence Estimate) managed to leak a report yesterday that said, in a nutshell, that the war in Iraq is actually strengthening terrorists and terrorism (as in not just Al Qaeda) rather than damaging. In other words, we're losing the War on Terror, and are even enhancing the strength of our enemies with our policies in Iraq. John Negroponte, Director of National Intelligence (and formerly the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. before he was the U.S. ambassador to Iraq), panned the report with this quote:

"only a small handful of those judgments distorts the broad strategic framework the NIE is assessing -- in this case, trends in global terrorism."

Well, glad he cleared that up. The report was only referring to global trends in terrorism; specifically, the trend of terrorism becoming more and more threatening ever since we went in to Iraq. What was the New York Times thinking presenting a small handful of judgements, and leading us to believe that the report somehow concluded that terrorism has become more threatening since we went in to Iraq? The secondary argument from the Right is that this is old news, and that the report is over five months old. The argument there? The timing of this leak is political so big bad Democrats are politicizing the war. I've yet to see someone even make a convincing argument that the war is not inherently political let alone demonstrate why it is bad to speak politically about it.

What really gets me, though, is that Nancy Pelosi (Democratic House Minority Leader) has yet to say the one thing that came to my non-politician mind first. First of all, she gets pissed off at Hugo Chaves (President of Venezuela) called Bush the devil at the U.N. General Assembly. Freedom of speech is supposed to be an inalienable right to citizens of humanity, but apparently commies can't just go and say anything when they are on U.S. soil. The citizens of humanity thing really only means legal citizens afterall, or something. Right, Nancy? O.K. I'll let you go with just being vexing with that call on your part, but why the hell was this your response to the N.I.E. leak?

"President Bush should read the intelligence carefully before giving another misleading speech about progress in the war on terrorism."

Ooo, zing, Nancy. Go for the whole "he's a misleading guy" since you don't have the guts to call him a liar. That's a great stance to take when you were just handed a political A-Bomb on a silver platter. You can even put it in a sound byte. Here goes:

"The course Republicans have put us on is losing the War in Iraq, losing the War on Terror, and strengthening our enemies rather than defeating them. The response from Republicans is stay the course. Voters have to choose between losing both wars, not to mention being in more danger of terrorism than ever, and changing course for the better".

That takes all of 10 seconds to say, and can be belted out by every Democrat alive for the next six weeks. You'd probably have a sound byte that, in itself, could win both houses of Congress for you. You could take the credit for being a brilliant politician that put this whole ordeal in to such clear and concise light, and would thereby strengthen your own political clout among voters.

If you wanted to keep elaborating, then you could say that Bush knew this officially, at least, five months ago while he still claimed just weeks ago that the situation in Iraq is the exact opposite. Then you can even call him a liar with some confidence, eh?

Instead, Nancy, you played things reserved, and went for a smug jab at the President's credibility. Well done there, he's doing really great on credibility right now, and we probably need to keep trying to chip away at it. Nancy, why haven't you used this report as a death knell for the Republican Party on the whole in November?