Please Lie To Me

Usually the Curmudgeon saves his wrath for the Republicans, because, well they’re Republicans. And as the bumper sticker says “If you are not completely appalled then you haven’t been paying attention.” But this time it is the Democrats who have done it, at least the so-called leading contenders in the presidential race.

In their debate last week in New Hampshire, (disclosure: Of course I didn’t watch it, only people who were being paid to watch it did so. But I did read what some of the people paid to watch it wrote about it.) none of the top three contenders for the presidential nomination were willing to say they could have our troops out of Iraq by the end of their first term. That’s 2013!!

Here is what the lily-livered, mollycoddling, namby-pambies had to say:

The leading Democratic White House hopefuls conceded Wednesday night they cannot guarantee to pull all U.S. combat troops from Iraq by the end of the next presidential term in 2013.

"I think it's hard to project four years from now," said Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois in the opening moments of a campaign debate in the nation's first primary state.

"It is very difficult to know what we're going to be inheriting," added Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.

"I cannot make that commitment," said former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina.

What? You people are politicians. Three fourths of everything that comes out of your mouth is not true. Why can’t you make a commitment that the troops will be home by the year 2013? You are telling us lots of other things that even you can’t possibly believe.

You have no trouble telling me that you will provide universal health care. No you won’t, you don’t have the votes. One of you has already tried.

You have no trouble telling me you will stop global warming. No you won’t, you don’t have the know-how.

You have no trouble telling me you will end poverty. No you won’t, you don’t have the will of the people behind you.

So please tell me you will bring the troops home sometime in the next five years. Give me a reason to vote for you. If I wanted to keep the status quo I would vote for one of those cookie-cutter Republicans. I don’t. I want someone to tell me they will end our occupation of Iraq.

In fairness Bill Richardson and Chris Dodd both said they would, but so what? There aren’t three people who are not blood relatives or paid staffers who know who either one of them are. If they dropped out of the race today it would be like the tree falling in the forest when no one is there to hear it.

I realize that the three top contenders are concerned that they may not be able to keep their promise if they pledge to bring the troops home by 2013, but they shouldn’t give up on that goal in 2007. They can always heap more blame on Bush if they are unsuccessful. Say the situation was worse than Bush told us (probably true), the facts on the ground changed as time passed (likely to happen), or even we are on the verge of victory (highly unlikely). And yes the Curmudgeon will be pissed that you didn’t keep your word, but isn’t it better to try than to give up on the goal fifteen months before you could possibly take office?

The Curmudgeon generally thinks that the Democratic candidates are better than the Republican ones, but it is very disconcerting to see them all saying the same thing that Bush and his minions have been saying all along. Remember, the Bush “experts” have been wrong about every single thing they have predicted about Iraq. It is inconceivable that the Democrats would pick this particular play to steal from the Republican playbook.

In the wonderful novel “Animal Farm” by George Orwell the closing scene has the other farm animals looking in the window at the pigs who had taken over the farm from the people. They look first at the people and then at the pigs and pretty soon they could not tell which was which. I think I’m experiencing déjà vu all over again.

Mayor Bloomberg run as an Independent and tell me you will bring the troops home and you will have the vote of the Curmudgeon.