Pointing Out the Obvious

Iraq doesn't have to be a safe place for us to bring the soldiers home," Mr. Sodrel said, a formulation he repeats often on the campaign trail. "It merely has to be a country that is well organized enough that it can deal with its internal problems. There is no place in that part of the world that there won't be a car bomb or a suicide bomber."

The rate of suicide and car bombings in Saddam Hussein's Iraq was MUCH MUCH LOWER than the rate of suicide and car bombings in New Improved Liberated Iraq, a fact which Representative Sodrel conveniently neglects to mention.

I realize that, as Field Marshall Rumsfeld puts it, "Freedom’s untidy," that "Free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things", and that "Democracy is a messy thing", but in the 35+ years I've walked this earth, I have heard of precious few carbombs and suicide bombs in America, Land of the Free, with the exception of right-wing extremist Timothy Mcveigh and a small cadre of "Killing for Jesus" clinic bombers . To suggest, as Mr. Sodrel does, that Iraq has always been the abattoir it is today, is dishonest, absurd, and defeatist. Life under Mr. Hussein was without a doubt awful, but it was not the Hell on Earth that Iraq is today. It's Bush's, and by extension the Republicans', Iraq. They cannot extricate themselves from the albatross millstone they've hung around their own necks, no matter how they try.

You broke it, you bought it. The waves of car bombs and suiciders belong to Mr. Bush, his loyal Republicans, and quite a few spineless and craven Democrats. But mostly Mr. Bush and his Republicans.