OK, Credit Where Credit And All That

I'm still impressed by President Bush's surgical strike Thanksgiving Iraq visit. It's great in so many ways, not least of which is troop morale. Even if it was only a symbolic photo-op moment, it was still very meaningful to see the President serving food to the men as he did. Even symbolically, it's still a powerful message.

He did manage to upstage Senator Clinton's visit pretty well, which pleased the spiteful side of me, but you have to give the Senator her due for continuing on to Iraq for a multi-day tour of the country. I doubt Iraqis have a sense of who she is as Americans understand her, but she's still the ex-President's wife; that is, the wife of the guy who left them in their hellhole for eight years. It's still dangerous there, and it takes a certain amount of guts to go. That said, my Representative, Marsha Blackburn, went a couple of months ago to much less notice.

Buried in the story of her visit, though, was this nugget from her travelling companion, Senator Jack Reed:

"We're caught in a dilemma, possibly of our own making," Reed said. "A quick, hasty election might bring to power a person who doesn't share the values we're trying to encourage. But the more we wait, the more it looks like an occupation."

Hmmm, and somehow that manages to leave President Bush on the horns of a dilemma, doesn't it? Damned if he does, and then damned if he doesn't. Will the rest of the Democrats hear what Senator Reed is saying? Somehow, I doubt it.