[by Jake Tapper]
Doing the Math
So yesterday, amidst the Foley grime and slime, some more consequential news: Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner, R-VA, returning from a trip to Iraq, offered a bleak assesment of the situation there.
"I assure you, in two or three months, if this thing hasn't come to fruition and if this level of violence is not under control and this government able to function, I think it's a responsibility of our government internally to determine: Is there a change of course that we should take?" Warner said. "And I wouldn't take off the table any option at this time."
Now today comes word fom Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, that two other Senate Republicans have told him they'll break with the White House Iraq strategy.
But here's the hook -- they won't do so until after the November elections.
"Two leading Republican Senators have come to me," Biden recalled, and said that after the election "the need to protect the president will be nonexistent" and Republicans will be freer to break with the White House and call for change in Iraq.
Assuming Biden's tale is correct, it will be interesting to see which Republicans wait until after November 7 to break ranks with the White House on Iraq.
I wonder how a Senator who opposes the current Iraq war policy -- but hasn't stated so publicly -- calculates how many lives it's acceptable to have killed pursuing that policy before stating his opposition to it ….for the sole purpose of protecting his political party in an election.
How do you do the math on that?
Holding the Senate is worth, say, 500 dead? One thousand? How many US troops? How many wounded?
How do you justify it in your head?
"Well, my opposition won't change much on the ground there in the short term, anyway"...?
"I oppose the policy, but I don’t want President Bush to get miffed at me for helping the Democrats sweep Connecticut"...?
God, sometimes it's hard to work in this town and not grow deeply cynical.