In the meantime, for those of us who may have missed one or more FDL book salons, it would be helpful to have them (all) listed on the sidebar somewhere. (If they are, I didn’t see them.)

Whether or not leaving will result in fewer deaths- I have no idea- but the egg timer has dinged on Clusterfuck’s war. Americans won’t put up with two more years of this shit. It will be over soon.

It may take two or three hundred years until Iraq is healed. The US has scars 150 years later and I do not think that was as deep. But that 200 years won’t begin until we are gone.

We will need to offer sanctuary here to any Iraqi who wishes it, it is the least we can do. Perhaps the UN could help stabilize things in the country, but later, don’t see how it could possibly help now.

http://www.revbilly.com/

Rayne @ 135

Swopa 108 — the pony to be found if Levin’s plan is implemented isn’t the Iraqis’.

It’s our pony. No more troop deaths in Iraq, for starters. A slow beginning to recovering our nation’s status in the world. An equally slow end to the financial drain that is a Forever-War. A sorry pony, but ours.

Any Iraqi ponies will have to be ones they plant and find themselves. That may have be enough; we’ve passed the point at which we could ever help them in this respect.

Can anyone explain to me where this business about “ponies” in the blogosphere started?

I hate being left out.

“The pony” = a positive solution in Iraq. I don’t know when Atrios started using the term as shorthand, but the following is from a post of mine on Iraq and the pony problem in December 2005:

The simple fact is, Iraq is screwed, and the only plausible goal of U.S. policy at this point is to find a way to keep a humiliating and tragic outcome from becoming a catastrophic one (that is, catastrophic even for people outside Iraq). Politically, though, it’s hard to explain to the American public that hauling away manure is the only option left when the Shrub-in-Chief keeps promising there’s still a pony in there somewhere.

And the Frog is out saying we should still Stay the Course (TM)

But Kissinger, an architect of the Vietnam war who has advised President Bush about Iraq, warned against a rapid withdrawal of coalition troops, saying it could destabilize Iraq’s neighbors and cause a long-lasting conflict.

Sorry I messed up my attempted quote of your comment.

What I was trying to say was,

I used to get angry when Scotty McClueless replied to any question suggesting that the Bush administration had done something wrong with the respones, “You’re playing the blame game…I’m not going to play the blame game…there you go again, trying to play the blame game..”

You’re darn right we are.

Another word for it is “accountability.”

Jim @
127

I know the Beltway Establishment has declared Congressional oversight to be “the blame game” (Ron Suskind, of all people!), but I still say Henry Waxman should use this as his handbook in hearings.

I used to get angry when Scotty McClueless replied to any question suggesting that the Bush administration had done something wrong with the respones, “You’re playing the blame game…I’m not going to play the blame game…there you go again, trying to play the blame game..”

You’re darn right we are.

Another word for it is “accountability.”

In a fuck-up this bad, you have to play the blame game. It’s how you ensure that those with criminally poor judgment (or, in many cases, simply criminal judgment) don’t get trusted to make any more judgments.