EMAIL OF THE DAY

“I saw your discomfort with Novak’s report in the blog, and I just wanted to say that it seems to me that we have two choices. One, admit that, given the other demands placed on U.S. forces, including maintaining a well-trained and well-equipped force at the ready, we simply do not have enough resources to create a democracy in Iraq, if that is even possible.
Second, admit that we are involved in a conflict that requires significantly more resources and raise them. If 100,000 members of the National Guard will have to be mobilized on a continuous basis over the next five years, why don’t we just acknowledge the obvious and expand the Army by 100,000 men and women?
The problem is that Bush likes calling himself a wartime president, but he does not like the responsibilities that flow therefrom, chiefly framing the sacrifices and choices that citizens face. It would be so refreshing to hear a politician say, “Look, we face the choice of paying for more high definition televisions and Ben and Jerry’s, or paying for more security. My job as president is to explain to you that it is worth paying more (and I mean paying, not borrowing from the Chinese central bank) for security.” Maybe I am way out of touch, but I think that a grown-up statement like that would resonate with people.
Instead we have a festival of pork barrel spending and a virtually empty political debate.” Amen. But Bush will never do such a thing because a) it would require conceding error and b) because it would require asking the American public to sacrifice, and he has never done that.