Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - New military tactics in Iraq are working but the best way to honor U.S. soldiers is "by beginning to bring them home," Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton told war veterans Monday.

Clinton, seeking the Democratic nomination for president, praised the work that soldiers have done in Iraq but described the government there as "on vacation," leaving American troops in the middle of a sectarian war.

Interesting. We're winning so let's give up?

The nightmare vision which has haunting Democrats has been victory in Iraq. They have sought to avoid that - to them - disaster by forcing an end to the war before any change in tactics could produce the kind of progress which might promise victory.

They have failed, thanks largely to the steadfastness of a president who was willing to sacrifice his popularity on the alter of doing what was right for the nation.

Hillary, despite her reputation for brilliance, has only a mediocre intellect a problem which is compounded by wretchedly poor political instincts. She watched her husband govern the nation through public opinion polls (to the point of running family vacation destinations past focus groups) and maintain a high job approval rating in spite of them most sordid kind of scandals (everything from the White House Travel Office to a credible accusation of rape).

At every step of the way Hillary's gut level instinct was to do exactly the wrong thing.

Hillary's payoff for standing by her man through all his infidelities was real power within his administration. Her first exercise of that power was in picking certain women to fill key jobs within the administration. Does anyone remember what a disaster that was? How much embarrassment did the Clinton administration endure because of Joycelyn Elders? And even Bill Clinton admits that Janet Reno as Attorney General was the biggest mistake of his presidency.

Next Hillary wanted to run the administration's domestic policy and her first project was a socialized medicine scheme which, more than almost anything else, reveals her true nature. HillaryCare was a giant totalitarian bureaucracy which would have been perfectly at home in Stalin's Russia - right down to the part about being put in jail for seeing a doctor which the government didn't assign to you.

It was a disaster which got no support even from the Democratic majority in the legislature and it cost her party its control of both the House and the Senate.

Now we see Hillary's political tone deafness in play yet again. We have hit on a winning strategy in the war and that is an enormous problem for Democrats so she wants to end the war before that dreaded victory can be achieved. She wants to "honor" the troops by pulling them out of the action just when victory was in sight and bring them home in defeat.

She thinks this is how she is going to win the White House. No wonder Democrats are becoming increasingly frightened that with her at the top of the ticket they not only won't win the White House but might even lose the congress as well.

Here's my advice to all the little donkeys who are sweating bullets at the thought of Hillary at the top of your ticket next November. The first primary hasn't even been held yet. DON'T PICK HER.