The Sunday Morning Talk Shows - The Review
By Mark Kilmer Posted in Special Features
Sunday, September 9, 2007.
On MTP, retired General James Jones of the Iraqi Security Forces Independent Assessment Commission pointed out to host Tim Russert that it might take four to five years to get the Iraqi army ready to defend Iraq without the assistance of the United States, but that this, contrary to Russert's insistence, doesn't mean that we'll need to keep constant troop levels for that time. It will evolve, he said, into a situation similar to the ongoing operation in Kosovo. General Jones also pointed out that U.S. interests are too great to allow for us to simply pick up and leave.
Next on MTP, candidate Joe Biden posited that General David Petraeus was "dead, flat wrong," but credited him with acknowledging that the surge had failed. Joe Biden spent most of his time pushing Leslie Gelb's confederacy plan for Iraq, on which his Presidential aspirations hang.
On FNS, Lindsey Graham described himself to host Chris Wallace as "upset" by those Democrats who would insist that General David Petraeus is a fraud. Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat, on the other hand, sneered that she doesn't think General Petraeus "is an independent evaluator."
Homeland Security Advisor Fran Townsend was the next guest on FNS, where she declared that it was OBL on the latest vid. She reminded Wallace that no terrorists' events have ever been triggered by a terrorist tape.
On TW, John McCain compared General Westmoreland was like Don Rumsfeld. He said that the surge is working, and he added a bit about the deleteriousness of a defeated army. Next up, John Kerry said that people who say we are making progress in Iraq have not spent real time in Iraq. He said that what is happening in Al Anbar is meaningless and cannot be replicated elsewhere. He said that Iran now controls Basra. He said that the Gelb/Biden soft partition plan had already been implemented because lots of Shi'a have moved to Baghdad. He praised General James Jones for, he thinks, coming out in favor of redeploying to an "overwatch" strategy; he also said that General Jones had no idea what he was talking about. Kerry's community is based on "reality," but not as we know it.
Next on TW, Alan Alda praised the genius of Marcus Aurelius for understanding that "now" is five seconds long.
On FTN, Teddy Kennedy insisted that we abandon the Iraqis in order to pressure their government to succeed. He said also that he does not believe that the Iraqi government can succeed no matter what we do. Teddy Kennedy is thus admitting that he insists on unconditional surrender.
Next on FTN, General Brent Scowcroft, USAF (retired), accused Democrats of looking at Iraq as if it were in a vacuum. It cannot be examined, he said, without considering its neighbors and U.S. interests in the region.
On LE, host Wolf Blitzer agreed with Mo Dowd that we should drop everything and concentrate on getting revenge on Osama bin Laden. Townsend countered that while this was symbolically important, there were other things equally as important, such as preventing future terrorist attacks.
Next on LE, Blitzer preached doom-and-gloom, and Iraqi National Security Advisor Dr. Mowaffak Al-Rubaie promised that the Iraqi government was working really, really hard.
You know, I can work with this.
Read on for the show-by-show notes:
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