The Moose charges that the elephant is a national security girly man.
Armorgate has undermined the Republicans' bombast that they are tough on defense. Today's Washington Post contains an invaluable piece by Mark Shields which details how the Bushies went to war woefully unprepared -
"An America coming out of the Great Depression somehow found the leadership and the will to build and deploy around the globe 2.5 million trucks in the same period of time that the incumbent U.S. government has failed to get 30,000 fully armored vehicles to Iraq.
The Bush administration has appropriated $34.3 billion on a theoretical missile defense system -- which proved again this week to be an expensive dud in its first test in two years, when the "kill vehicle" never got off the ground to intercept the target missile carrying a mock warhead -- but has been able up to now, according to congressional budget authorities, to spend just $2 billion to armor the vehicles of Americans under fire."
Not only did the Bushies commit too few troops to the war, they have also brought the Reserves and the National Guard to the breaking point. The military is overstretched and the President has spent much of the nation's precious resources that could have been used to expand the armed services to instead reward his wealthy donors with lavish tax breaks.
Moreover, the administration also has plans to charge over $2 trillion in transition costs to pay for social security privatization which will further squeeze discretionary spending including defense. The argument can legitimately be made that the Bush version of social security reform will endanger national security.
Despite all of their flag waving and chest thumping, the G.O.P. has more important priorities than national defense - fundamentally, as has been said before, greed is the Republican creed. That means the donkey has the opportunity to become the party that is smart and muscular.
Stop letting the elephant bully kick sand in your face! With apologies to Arnold, the elephant is just a girly man.
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