Cross-rant on Iraq from the Daily Kos

Background: a story on the Daily Kos, a misbranded "progressive" community blog, purported that even "Bush's own people" were coming out against his handling of Iraq. It's just too bad that the story couldn't name a single one.

Below is my challenge to dems to define, on the record, what might be considered progress in Iraq. Currently, it seems with every successful milestone, libs just redouble their efforts to define failure as 'anything the administration/military attempts.'

Here's the story. Here's my post:

These are the sources of quotes used to prove that "even [Bush's] own people are coming to terms with the multitudes of bad, shitty decisions:"

...according to U.S. officials in Washington and Baghdad

...U.S. officials say

...said a senior official involved in policy since the 2003 invasion

...U.S. officials and Iraq analysts say

..said another U.S. official familiar with policymaking from the beginning

Five references, five dodges. If conservatives tried to pull b.s. like this, I hope you might be bright enough to figure out there isn't much behind their argument. Wake up and realize these petty accusations mean nothing when these cheap sources are the best a reporter could come up with.

What will it take for a liberal to be convinced any effort in Iraq is successful? The scenarios discussed by liberals before the war certainly haven't occured. Saddam was ousted in weeks, not years. No community within Iraq has attempted to secede from the state.

The elections that were supposed to be a joke according to liberals were amazingly successful. The terrorists causing problems are not Iraqis. Iraqis are not denouncing attackers like they could be, but as long as the country of Iraq is safer than the city of Baltimore, we aren't doing that bad.

I know you'd hate to admit America could be right about democracy, capitalism and freedom, but I cannot understand why you so passionately root for the tyranny over the Iraqi people.

I would like someone to respond: what events could happen in the next year that would convice you that things aren't going so poorly? Here's a standard I propose: if ethnic groups leave the bargaining table and demand separation, it would require drastic strategic changes on our end. On the other hand, if a constitution is hammered out that Kurds, Shi'ites and Sunnis can all agree to live by, we will have made some unquestionable long-term progress in the region.

But it seems as soon as we're successful, it's easy to invent a higher standard that berates our leadership and military.

UPDATE from Radar:

I think Slowpitch has hit the nail on the head with this one. Anyone who ever originally opposed the war in Iraq will never ever admit that any event in Iraq was "successful" to any degree. I must admit that if any politician who originally opposed the war ever admits its success I will scream about it on the front page of this blog. It'll never happen.