I Reject Your Reality and Substitute My Own!

The bio says it all: “Witcover is one of the nation's leading political columnists. Author of 15 books on American politics and history, Witcover has covered the Beltway beat for 50 years, giving his Baltimore Sun column considerable historical perspective. He is one of the most critical voices in American journalism of the radical turn in U.S. foreign policy. Witcover's liberal column is an aggressive, outspoken examination of politics and foreign policy.” It is no wonder then that in his Dec 10 column Bush clings to unreality in Iraq (via TMS) that Witcover himself is the one that finds him self clinging to “unreality.”

How can one honestly respond to the conclusion’s Witcover presents when his argument is couched in terms of Bush’s “grandiose visions of spreading democracy through the Middle East…” and that the only solution is “to find not ‘victory’ in his terms, but an honorable way out of his muddled foreign-policy overreach[?]” When those terms are used how is it even possible to escape “unreality,” when Witcover and the rest of the liberals have all determined that their reality is the only correct version? For a group that has constantly been harping about an honest accounting and dialogue on Iraq, they sure seem bent upon framing the discussion in terms of failure and totally ignore the possibility of any type of victory.

If Witcover is the mouthpiece for the left we can only assume that his disgust for Iraq is not that it isn’t succeeding well enough, it’s that the “grandiose vision” that led the effort does not fit with their view of the world and how it should operate. In Witcover’s opinion nothing that Bush the Junior could ever do would be the right thing, otherwise we might be hearing about all the great things that are happening each and every day in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In Witcover’s reality the US is at fault for the deaths of thousands of innocents at the hands of terrorists, because the US Military some how forced them to come out of the wood work to fight, and the only possible solution is to make Iraq another Vietnam and simply retreat, leaving the Iraqis who truly thirst for freedom to be slaughtered in the ensuing power vacuum. For Witcover the only possible reality is to declare defeat and run home, not to fight another day but to put away our weapons and cede freedom and democracy to the heathens.

After reading Mr. Witcover’s opinions we can readily come to the conclusion that his reality is based not upon any fact or truth but rather a belief that he knows better and that anyone whom follows another drummer must either be wrong and in need of an education or mentally deficient. As the “mouthpiece” of the party of tolerance, that is an incredibly intolerant view Mr. Witcover.

Mr. Witcover begins his piece with this sentence:

“Perhaps the most difficult thing for a politician to do in the competitive world in which he toils is to admit failure.”

I would suggest that it be re-written to say:

Perhaps the most difficult thing for a journalist to do in the competitive world in which he toils is to admit failure.

For Mr. Witcover, if we follow your advice we will all fail in this competitive world.