Office of the Independent Blogger

This Bob Woodward article about the Bush Administration’s relationship with the military leading up to the “Surge” (titled “Outmaneuvered And Outranked, Military Chiefs Became Outsiders“) reads very much like a President doing the right thing well, albeit a little clumsily.

We are sending a billion dollars to Georgia in support of their democracy, have pledged our assistance to them and Ukraine in future matters, and Dick Cheney is over there right now re-affirming our alliance. We must stand with our allies and it’s good to see us do just that.

McCain’s campaign has maneuvered brilliantly into a dichotomous struggle between person and country, as Obama has been caricatured as a me-first phony while McCain presents himself as a man who has given everything to the United States of America. Will this move work? Maybe. Maybe not. But it is, I think, his best and only shot at victory as Bush’s unpopularity makes it virtually impossible for McCain to win otherwise.

A friend asked me today why at least one prominent Democrat seems to abandon the party in times of war to support the Republican candidate for President. I immediately thought back to John Connally, Zell Miller and Joe Lieberman and couldn’t find functional equivalents for the Republicans. Why? Because Democrats since the 1960s have been split between pacifist and realist, and that makes it more likely that a prominent leader will bolt for fear that the left-wing will not allow a liberal President to do what is right militarily if the situation calls for it. George W. Bush today mentioned that McCain was not broken by his experiences in Vietnam and so he would never be broken by “the Angry Left.” I thought that was a solid line, though it wasn’t as good as his remark about Laura Bush being there in his stead and that being a “trade up.” Fred Thompson gave a great speech and Joseph Lieberman has rocked the crowd: “Eloquence is no substitute for a record.”

The GOP has always known how to throw a punch at their convention. Democrats do it sometimes, but we haven’t had a William Jennings Bryan or Harry Truman in a long time.

This New York Times article and this NYT article are great success stories for the American government and people. First:

Two years ago, Anbar Province was the most lethal place for the Americans in Iraq, with a marine or a soldier dying here nearly every day. The provincial capital, Ramadi, was a moonscape of rubble and ruins. Islamic extremists controlled large pieces of territory, with some so ferocious in their personal views that they did not even allow the sale of bread.

On Monday, following a parade on a freshly paved street, American commanders formally returned responsibility for keeping order in Anbar Province, once the heartland of the Sunni insurgency, to the Iraqi Army and police force. The ceremony capped one of the starkest turnabouts in the country since the war began five and a half years ago. In the past two years, the number of insurgent attacks against Iraqis and Americans in Anbar Province has dropped by more than 90 percent. Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a homegrown Sunni Arab extremist group that American intelligence agencies have concluded is led by foreigners, has been severely degraded, if not crushed altogether. Since February, as the situation improved, American commanders have cut the number of marines and soldiers here by more than a third, they said.

The transfer of authority codified a transformation that Iraqi and American officers say has been in effect since April: the Iraqi Army and the police operate independently and retain primary responsibility for battling the insurgency and crime in Anbar. The Americans, who had long done the bulk of the fighting, have stepped into a backup role. With the transfer on Monday, Iraq now bears the primary responsibility for maintaining security in 11 of its 18 provinces.

Second:

This nearly deserted city appeared to have escaped threats of full-scale devastation on Monday when Hurricane Gustav came ashore 70 miles to the southwest, bearing winds and rain far less formidable than earlier forecast.

The storm smashed through the bayou country of rural Louisiana, raising fears of widespread coastal erosion and damage to fishing villages that state officials were unable to confirm Monday evening. But before making landfall, it was downgraded from a Category 3 hurricane to Category 2 when its winds slowed to 110 miles per hour, from 115 m.p.h., and state officials said they believed that their worst fears had not been realized.

Hurricane Gustav weakened to a tropical storm late Monday as it moved over central Louisiana.

I, for one, am proud of our soldiers and strategy in Iraq and the national response to Hurricane Gustav, though I realize that we had a lot of luck in New Orleans this time around. Incidentally, a friend of mine refused to “abandon the city” like he did during Hurricane Katrina and therefore stayed for this storm. I think he’s okay, and I’m glad that the city didn’t “get it” quite like last time around. Let’s just hope it holds.