IRAQ IN THE HEARTLAND….The LA Times reports that even heartland conservatives are starting to abandon the Republican Party over Iraq:
As Liz Larrison cooks up breakfast for customers at her family’s diner in a farm town long friendly to the Republican Party, she listens as the regulars sling political opinions as easily as she slings ham steaks.
….”Nobody is against the people fighting the war. I think you’ll hear that everywhere,” she said. “We’re just against it going on and on.”
….In fact, Larrison ? who, like many of her customers, considers herself independent but tends to vote for Republicans ? says she will vote against her Republican congressman.
Russ Feingold is absolutely right on this issue, and I wish more Democratic politicians would join him in demanding a serious plan for withdrawal of troops from Iraq. We don’t have to act like pacifists, and we don’t have to scream about the Bush administration being populated by war criminals. We just have to make it clear that enough’s enough. An open-ended commitment in Iraq helps to fuel their civil war, not end it, and it’s time to acknowledge this.
At this point, the Bush administration’s incompetence has pretty much eliminated any chance we ever had for success in Iraq, but whatever chance we have left would be maximized by a serious plan for troop withdrawal. It’s time.
