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Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Ann Coulter :: Townhall.com Columnist
Surrender by any other name...
by Ann Coulter
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Do you think the President's plan to freeze interest rates on some sub prime mortgages will be successful?

How did we go from winning the war in Iraq to losing overnight? Was this decided by the same committee that changed "Peking" to "Beijing"?

These word changes are a fortiori evidence that liberals are part of a conspiracy. On what date did "horrible" and "actress" vanish from the English language to be replaced with "horrific" and "actor"? Who decided that? (Meanwhile, I'm still writing "Puff Daddy" in my nightly dream journal when everybody else has started calling him "Diddy.")

When did "B.C." (before Christ) and "A.D." (anno Domini, "in the year of the Lord") get replaced with "BCE" (before the common era) and "CE" (common era)? "Withdrawal" is "redeployment," "liberal" is "progressive," and "traitorous" is "patriotic."

These new linguistic conventions -- like going from "winning" to "losing" in Iraq -- simply spread like an invisible bacterial invasion.

To be sure, last month the Democrats did win a narrow majority in Congress for the first time in more than a decade. And it cannot be denied that for the past 50 years, Democrats have orchestrated humiliating foreign policy defeats for America. So it is understandable that some might interpret their midterm gains as a mandate for another humiliating defeat.

But that's not what the Democrats told Americans when they were running for office. To the contrary, they claimed to be gun-totin' hawks. A shockingly high number of Democratic candidates this year actually fought in wars. And not just the war on poverty, either -- real wars, against men with guns.

It was a specific plan of Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chair Rep. Rahm Emanuel to fake out the voters by recruiting anti-war veterans to run against Republicans. (And when did "chairman" become "chair"?)

To the credit of the voters -- especially the American Legion and VFW -- the Democrats didn't fool enough Americans to even match the average midterm gains for the party out of power.

But the point is: You can't run as a phony patriot and then claim your victory is a mandate for surrender. That would be like awarding yourself undeserved Purple Hearts and then pretending to throw them over the White House wall in protest. No, that's not fair -- nothing could be as contemptible as throwing someone else's medals on the ground in protest.

Is it the report of the "Iraq Surrender Group" that suddenly caused everyone to say we're losing?

The ISG report was about what you'd expect if the ladies from "The View" were asked to come up with a victory plan for Iraq. We need to ask Syria to tell Hamas to stop calling for the destruction of Israel. Duh! "Dear Hamas, Do you like killing Jews, or do you LIKE killing Jews? Check yes or no."

Most of the esteemed members of the ISG were last seen on the "Dead or Alive?" Web site. Vernon Jordan's most recent claim to fame was getting Monica Lewinsky a job at Revlon when she was threatening Bill Clinton with the truth. He's going to figure out an honorable way to get out of Iraq? Continued...

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About The Author
Ann Coulter is a columnist and author of Godless: The Church of Liberalism .
 
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Subject: Silly Ann, it wasn't overnight
Only fools have thought we are winning the war in Iraq for over a year now. That's why the republicans lost congress. American's want competent leadership.

This isn't a video game where you keep score by how many of our guys are killed vs. how many of theirs. Its about standing up a stable democratic government that isn't in the pocket of one militia or another and securing the country so people aren't being kidnapped and killed by death squads and militias. Its about rebuilding the infrastructure so that the electricity stays on longer than during Saddam's reign.

None of these things are happening. Until they do we are not winning.

Make no mistake, mistakes were made
I find a few points being debated here interesting, namely MsUnderestimated, who feels that Hannity's interview piece is somehow a reflection of the wishes of the many. This is not a scientific sampling indicating the wishes of the troops, this a pro-Hannity interview on Fox, one of the least respected sources for unbiased news in the country. Just as every US citizen is entitled to their opinion, this interview is with soldiers who agree with Sean, without allowing soldiers who don't equal time to air their statements. Note Hannity setting up the questions to ensure as much emotion and drama is infused as possible.

But we need to heed in the wishes of the majority, the very definition of democracy. The majority of the people want our military out of Iraq, the majority of troops wants out of Iraq and the majority of Iraqi people want us out. And this has nothing to do with me personal opinion, I don't think we should get out right now personally! But I believe the will of the people, soldiers and Iraqis should be carried out, even over my own opinion.

This is the formula for responsible journalism: present who, what, when, where, why and how - in balance, finding the most informed and eloquent sources for information possible and allow the listener to make up their mind. If Hannity's piece was about "how soldiers in Iraq feel about serving and the politicization of the war", where was an opposing viewpoint? Noticibly absent, especially in light of surveys conducted in March 2006 by Zogby that over 70% of troops wanted out by January and according to past polls, that figure is growing. If Hannity truly cared about the troops, why wouldn't he allow a single soldier who feels this way to say so in his report? Because it's propaganda, not journalism. Hannity only cares about troops who share his views.

In direct contrast, the upcoming issue of The Nation magazine will publish a petition signed by 1,000 current GIs including many officers, protesting this war for various reasons - some political, some strategic, some moral - but all with the same aim. For comparison, nothing like this has happened since 1969 when 1,200 troops published their names in the NY Times in a petition against the Vietnam war.
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