In his own words1:
KRISTOL: No, absolutely. And I was looking at some letters from -- e-mails from soldiers over in Iraq online to Senator Reid. You know, he is sending them over there. He is voting to appropriate funds for them to continue fighting in a war that I don't believe is lost, and I think we need to continue fighting. If he believes it is lost, he has an absolute responsibility to cut off that funding and bring those troops home as soon as possible -- three months, six months, maybe, not 15 months, which is the appropriations bill that he just supported with this gradual withdrawal. I really think it's a disgrace. And Trent Lott, who was Senate majority leader in December 2002, was forced to resign by a rebellion within his own party because he had praised Strom Thurmond at a 100th birthday dinner for him. Thurmond had made it seem that the country would have been better off if we had followed segregationist policies back 40 years ago. What Harry Reid said is much more disgraceful than anything Trent Lott said. And I do think Democrats should ask Harry Reid step down. I'm saying this. Of course, it's not going to happen.But he is the Senate majority leader. He's not some back-bencher just spouting off. And he should not be Senate majority leader if he's going to say, "Well, we have 150,000 troops fighting over there -- that their effort is in vain." It's just a disgrace.
Juan Williams spoke immediately after and told the truth:
WILLIAMS: Wait a second. Brit says this is laughable. You say it's a disgrace. I think he simply said the truth. I mean, it's unavoidable.
How can you say, watching the kind of carnage that takes place there on a daily basis, that this is not an effort that is misbegotten at this point?
Most Americans think we should never have gone in there. So he's speaking in a voice that represents the majority of the American people.
Secondly, when he says that it's lost, he's talking about the idea that we need to have a diplomatic, economic, political solution. We're not seeing any political progress in the country.
In fact, the al-Maliki government looks to me to be weak and weaker, and getting weaker, with the withdrawal of people like al- Sadr's forces from the parliament, and from support of his government.
So what we have here is a civil war in which Americans are caught in the middle. So the idea of withdrawing -- it's not a strategy, as the president said. What Senator Reid is talking about, what most people are talking about, is trying to contain it.
I think that we have General Petraeus coming here this week. And the Republicans want to make the case that it's Senator Reid and the Democrats versus the troops, that the troops are standing tall and the Democrats aren't supporting them, or, as Brit said, it's pulling away from fighting Al Qaida.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. What we're doing here is we want to fight Al Qaida. We want to fight terrorists. We should have gone after them in Afghanistan.
Going into this war in Iraq -- well, we got rid of Saddam Hussein, but I don't know why we need to be there right now. What is the point?
War Whores Kristol and Hume pull a by now standard BushBot tactic: Lie about who are adversaries in Iraq really are:
HUME: Well, they're connected, Juan, but Al Qaida is a very major actor in Iraq now. There is no doubt about that.
KRISTOL: They're fighting Al Qaida.
KRISTOL: That's not true. Mostly it is Al Qaida.
As Gen. Maples put it on 11/15/06:
"Attacks by terrorist groups, like al Qaeda in Iraq, account for only a fraction of the insurgent violence."
1SHOW: FOX NEWS SUNDAY 9:00 AM EST
April 22, 2007 Sunday
TRANSCRIPT: 042203cb.250
SECTION: NEWS; Domestic
LENGTH: 3696 words
HEADLINE: Fox News Sunday Roundtable
BYLINE: Chris Wallace, Brit Hume, Mara Liasson, Bill Kristol, Juan Williams
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