Now it is "spin" that Iraq is stabilizing, according to the afternoon Progressive Dane newspaper in a Tuesday editorial titled "Reality, not spin, on Iraq."
Which is why Buzz Davis, of Stoughton, beseeching the Madison Common Council to put impeachment on the February primary ballot is page one news on Tuesday.
Classic is the response of Ald. Zach Brandon, who noted that the Dane County Board did in August what the city council has too much sense to do, take a purely symbolic vote for impeachment:
The last time I checked, Madison is part of Dane County and the President is still not impeached.
While the Dane County Board was impeaching a president, Madison was engaging in listening sessions where hundreds upon hundreds of citizens were telling their mayor, their alders and their police that they want the city to get down to the real business of keeping our neighborhoods safe.
This is why Buzz Davis will get the bum's rush: Madison's alders and its mayor can no longer afford to be portrayed as tilting at symbolic windmills. There are too many important issues -- crime and snow clearance for two. That is why Mayor Dave is taking his cues not from Brenda Konkel but from Thuy Pham-Remmele. Very wisely, Cieslewicz issued Tuesday this Winter Weather Update press release to show that he was on the job as another snowstorm approached Madison.
I served with old Buzz Davis on the Dane County Board -- he lasted one term. As Samuel Johnson once said, not only is he boring but he is the cause of boringness in others.
Buzz did succeed in putting impeachment on his hometown's ballot this April. Stoughton voters turned it down handily.
Iraq, no spin
Civilian deaths in Iraq caused by war-related violence have dropped for a third straight month, according to November data compiled by Iraq's Interior Ministry. It is the lowest monthly civilian death toll since sectarian tensions heightened across Iraq, after the February 2006 bombing of the Askariya mosque in Samarra. The U.S. troop death toll in Iraq for October was 38 and for November 37, marking the lowest two-month stretch of American fatalities in the war since early 2004.
Now tell me, did you see this story in either Madison daily newspaper? CNN has the story. (Note the picture of in-bound buses!)
This success is very bad news for "progressives" everywhere. The December 3, 2007 edition of The Weekly Standard names names:
When casualty rates started falling off drastically among Iraqi citizens, David Obey rose to the occasion, telling a bemused audience at the National Press Club that this was because there was no one left in Iraq to be killed by insurgents.
Hillary Clinton should have stuck to her guns. On September 11, 2007 (what an anniversary!) she told General Petraeus, "The reports that you provide to us really require the willing suspension of disbelief."
As The Weekly Standard writer Noemie Emery concludes:
Seldom before in the annals of governance have so many politicians fought so long and so hard to completely screw up a winning strategy being waged on their country's behalf.
Bush has gone from 29 percent approval in September to 36 percent in November while Congress hovers at 22 percent.
Seventy-four percent of Republicans -- up from 51 percent in February -- think there has been improvement in Iraq since the surge began, according to the latest poll by the Pew Research Center. Democratic support for the war more than doubled, from 16 percent to 33 percent. So reports The Washington Times.
Take the truth test
Here is the true divide in American politics: Do you hope most fervently that America succeeds in Iraq or secretly hope that America fails?
