Sirotablog
David Sirota is a political journalist and nationally syndicated newspaper columnist at Creators Syndicate. David writes about political corruption, globalization and working-class economic issues often ignored by both of America's political parties.
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August 16, 2007 9:24 AM
GOP Rep. Lamborn Admonishes Troops for Supposedly Not Yet "Wanting" to Win
Apparently, Congressman Doug Lamborn thinks the Iraq War is akin to the Little Miss Sunshine contest. According to today's Colorado Springs Gazette, he had the audacity to tell U.S. troops serving in Iraq that "If we want to win this war, we can" - a not-so-subtle suggestion that, with us not exactly winning yet, he thinks the big problem in Iraq is not the Bush administration's mismanagement, not the Republican Congress's longtime refusal to perform any oversight of the war whatsoever - but that American troops supposedly don't yet have a sufficient DESIRE to win.
A few nights ago, I was watching the film Little Miss Sunshine. There is scene where the family is sitting at the dinner table, and the little girl is talking about the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant. Someone wishes her good luck and the stern father cuts in to say her success will be "about wanting to win - willing yourself to win...you gotta want it badder than anyone." The girl replies, "I do" and the father pauses and then says, "Do you really? Then you're gonna be a winner."
This scene is designed to be tragic - a humorless father admonishing a daughter who has been working her tail off, implying that her problem is that she doesn't "want" to win. But that's a movie. Lamborn's comments are very real, and they are (or at least very clearly appear to be) directed at troops serving in combat, considering he was there with them when he said what he said. Republicans talk a lot about troop morale and the need to make our men and women in uniform feel like we are behind them. But when a Republican politician parachutes into Iraq with his own team of bodyguards to then chastise our brave troops serving in combat for supposedly not yet "wanting" to win - well, that's more than tragic. It's disgusting.
UPDATE: Check out Harsanyi's non-defense defense. He just says "let's stick to what Lamborn said." Uh, that's exactly what I did. As I said, Lamborn is in the Middle East with troops and telling reporters "If we want to win this war, we can." The logical conclusion is that he's saying we aren't winning and haven't yet won because the American troops he is currently visiting in the Mideast haven't yet "want[ed] to win." This isn't even a mild stretch - this is straight-up logic. Lamborn didn't encourage troops by telling them he KNOWS they want to win - he deliberately used if - a questioning term that says he's not really sure they do. Now I suppose Lamborn could rather pathetically try to weasel out of his disgusting comments post facto by saying no, no, even though he made the comments with American troops in the Middle East, he REALLY meant the "we" to refer to the Congress, which is supposedly being overtaken by a nefarious coalition of dirty antiwar hippies and East German communists. Now THAT would actually be a stretch. At the absolute least, even if you are a staunch, ultrapartisan Dick Wadhams Republican, you've got to admit that Lamborn's comments here are - at minimum - highly insensitive in that they can quite easily be seen as incredibly offensive (I shudder to think about the GOP's inevitable charges of treason and sedition had a Democratic congressman went to Iraq and said this). Harsanyi just telling us to just go read the article (which I originally linked to so people could see it) doesn't change that one bit. But then, I'm surprised by nothing anymore, not even conservative attempts to weasel out of their own ideological allies' comments by paraphrasing President Clinton and trying to challenge what the definition of "if" is.
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About David Sirota
David Sirota is a political journalist and nationally syndicated newspaper columnist at Creators Syndicate. He is the New York Times bestselling author of Hostile Takeover. He lives in Denver, Colorado. His daily blog can be found at CREDO Action. He contributes regularly to the Denver Post's Web site, is a senior editor at In These Times magazine and is working on his second book. He has been profiled in Newsweek and the Rocky Mountain News and is widely known for his reporting on political corruption, globalization and working-class economic issues often ignored by both of America's political parties. Sirota serves as co-chair of the Progressive States Network, a 501(c)3 organization that supports state legislators and that is a partner of CREDO.
You can subscribe to Sirota's e-mail newsletter by going to davidsirota.com and signing up in the lefthand corner. To find out more about Sirota, download his official biography or see his recent media appearances. You can e-mail him at sirota@credoaction.com.
The views expressed on this blog are his own, and do not necessarily represent the views of Working Assets (publisher of CREDO Action) or the institutions Sirota works for.
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Discussion
Reminds me of the stories I read about Hitler in his last days, he believed the Germans were on the verge of defeating the Russians.
Simply delusional, but this is the price one pays for adhering to ideology regardless of what reality says.
Lysenko would have understood Lamborn quite well.
Anyone remember the movie "Air Bud"? First there was a basketball coach with a "strict leader" attitude always preaching that "we're in it to win". Luckily, the dog got him fired by exposing his ABUSES against a team player to the school who immediately replaced him with a generous and nurturant coach named Arthur Chaney, himself once a basketball player. The best thing about the new coach was he made it a priority to getting team members to look at basketball as a sport, not as a mere winning contest. Moreover, he put forth team spirit above relying on one team member to run the show. The sad truth is America could use more Arthur Chaneys these days as their leaders.
Like Arthur Chaney who told the judge to let Buddy decide who he wants to be with, I say let the troops first get the chance to truly decide the next course of action and let them decide what winning is really all about. The troops are old enough, worn out, and have had more than enough to answer by now.
P.S.: Notice that Pelosi, Reid, DLC, etc ... are also involved in the "win at all costs" ideology just like the Bush/Limbaughians in the GOP. One would expect that after decades of losing like this the Democrats would put principle and team spirit above power grabbing via money grubbing, playing politics, and pandering to win at all costs.
max, "Air Bud" was cool. The ending scene you described I'd like to add to it. The custody dispute of Buddy the dog was decided in court. Josh (the kid) and his community could be looked at as the American people and I'd even add the troops. Norm, the criminal bully, could be looked at as the rightwing GOP. If I could compare the Democrats to the dog, let's move through the end and here's the scene. When Norm tries to threaten Buddy to come right over, the dog TEARS up the newspaper and immediately returns to shows his gratitude to Josh. In sharp contrast, every time Bush/GOP threaten the Democrats issue after issue, be it tax cuts for the wealthy, Iraq war funding, bankruptcy, wiretapping, abortion, etc ..., the Democrats roll over and allow Bush/GOP to FUCK and RAPE them ! It sure goes to show that dogs can be a whole lot braver than the Democrats who are better off running a floral shop as waltc pointed out in another post.
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