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Wrong verb

By Michael J. Smith on Friday May 4, 2007 08:09 AM

I recall hearing an anecdote years ago about Jack Nicholson: at a party, a luscious starlet approaches the great man and says, "Wanna dance?" Nicholson replies, with a particularly wolfish grin, "Wrong verb." This story came to mind in connection with an amusing piece on ABC News. The only thing wrong with it is the verb in the headline:
http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=3136513

Democrats Back Down on Troop Withdrawal

A serene group of Democratic Senate leaders indicated this afternoon that they were willing to give up on forcing the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq....

"There are many different ways of focusing on the problems in Iraq," Reid said.... "Timetables is one. Benchmarks is one. We could have waivers from the president. We could have waivers from the secretary of defense. There are just many different things that can be done....

"We have benchmarks. We may need more benchmarks. We may need a way of enforcing the benchmarks."

... Reid and other members of his leadership team -- Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill.; Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.; and Patty Murray, D-Wash. -- spoke today almost as if their last bill didn't call for a U.S. troop withdrawal.

"If our legislation stood for anything, it stood for two propositions," said Schumer. "One, we support the troops. Two, we must change the mission. The president's veto isn't going to change our two goals. We're going to keep at it. We're going to try new ways to reach a reasonable agreement with the president. We're not abandoning our heartfelt view that that mission must change."

The problem, of course, is that you can't back down unless you've previously stepped up, and that's just what the Congressional Democrats have never done and never had any intention of doing.

Still, it seems a little churlish to nit-pick, it's such a funny story: Reid happily burbling about benchmarks, waivers here and waivers there. The sense of relief is palpable, isn't it? They think they wiggled out of a bind. The public expected 'em to do something about the war, and now they think they've gotten us to believe that they tried.

Comments (5)

It must be a historical day in the annals of message crafting. The dp elites made a non-binding withdrawal look like a real attempt to end the Iraq bloodbath, then made their caving in on the non-binding non-withdrawal look like nonpartisan compromise.

The BigBoxBlaghs - TPM, KO$, ad nauseum, will undoubtedly hail this as a moment of great moral weight. And thanks to our stenographic media, that's all the play it'll get.

Welcome to two more years of war.

op:

formula for prog doggling

make preserving the status quo
look like victory

hey if its about to be hitler time ...
sure pop front it
but mostly it ain't about to be hitler time
and never never
at the core of the globe's top empire

so spear the fuckers
spear and keep on spearing

Harry Reid sez:
"We could have waivers from the president. We could have waivers from the secretary of defense..."

Yeah, yeah, you could even have a waiver from Condolee-ee-eezza and a waiver from Brother Joe Lieberman.

Hell, Harry, you could just be Britannia and rule the goddamn' waives.

And, just how many times does he need to say "benchmarks", anyway? It was like reading a Max Headroom script. I can almost feel the splinters in my ass from all the "benchmark" talk. There's another goddamn' word I'll be glad to never hear again.

Reechard:

Give 'em less and less hell, Harry!

we could have holy wafers from the president. we could have promissory notes. we could have discount tickets to death. we could win a free ipod. we could put reliquaries back on the table. we could accomplish emissions.

pea ess:the paine, I know you are here. I can see you on the ultrasound.

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