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| Dems Blast Bush for ’Bring ’Em On’ Remark |
| 2003-07-07 |
| Democrats blasted President Bush on Sunday for his recent tough talk on Iraq. One White House hopeful said the leader of the free world sounded more like a gang leader. Last week, Bush lashed out at those attacking American troops, saying "bring 'em on" as he vowed to stay the course in Iraq with a military capable of handling the situation. Al Sharpton, the New York clergyman who's running for the Democratic nomination in 2004, demanded that Bush apologize to U.S. forces and their families. Al Sharpton, a New York clergyman? Well, to the AP I guess. "For the president to say, `bring it on,' almost like daring and provoking Iraqis to kill American soldiers, he sounds more like a gang leader in South-Central L.A. than one that is trying to institute a policy of democracy and reconstruction in the world," Sharpton said on CBS' "Face the Nation." "I know gang leaders, I'm friends with gang leaders, and Mr. President, you are no gang leader!" The top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, agreed that Bush's tone was over the top. "I think that it's perfectly proper for the president to say that he has confidence in our troops. But it seems to me unwise to engage in this kind of cocky rhetoric, because it's not going to be helpful ... either with our troops or in bringing in other countries into this issue," said Levin, speaking on NBC's "Meet the Press." Oh, but that's not why he said it. Republicans disagreed. The Senate Intelligence Committee chairman, Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., and Sen. John Warner, R-Va., chairman of the Armed Services panel, said the president was doing nothing more than rallying the troops. "I probably would have said it another way, and I think the president would have too if he had a little more time to think about it," Roberts said on CNN's "Late Edition." But "I think that the statement was aimed more to the troops ..., saying, `You're doing a good job. Keep up the good work. There is no peer to the American forces,' et cetera et cetera." And Warner said on "Meet the Press" that Bush's message was simply that "'Each one of you, from the privates to the general, you've got the right stuff, the right training, and you know what to do.' It was not a taunting message." Oh, but it is. And it was aimed directly at those islamic fundi groups around the world who can not allow America to succeed in creating a stable and free Iraq. David Warren said it best: This is the meaning of Mr. Bush's "bring 'em on" taunt from the Roosevelt Room on Wednesday, when he was quizzed about the "growing threat to U.S. forces" on the ground in Iraq. It should have been obvious that no U.S. President actually relishes having his soldiers take casualties. What the media, and U.S. Democrats affect not to grasp, is that the soldiers are now replacing targets that otherwise would be provided by defenceless civilians, both in Iraq and at large. The sore thumb of the U.S. occupation -- and it is a sore thumb equally to Baathists and Islamists, compelling their response -- is not a mistake. It is carefully hung flypaper. . . . Hizbullah itself (the "Army of Allah" -- Shia, and ultimately financed and armed by Iran's ayatollahs) are directing their attention less and less towards the "Little Satan" of Israel, and more and more towards the "Great Satan" of the U.S., as events unfold. This is exactly what President Bush wants. To engage them, away from Israel, in mortal combat. To have an excuse for wiping them out -- a good, solid, American excuse, from which Israel has been extracted. The good news is, Hizbullah's taking the bait. As Bruce Willis said in Die Hard: "Welcome to the party, Pal!" |
| Posted by:Steve |