One. Mature. Democrat.

That would be Senator Joe Lieberman, D-CT. He wrote a long but forceful op-ed for today's Wall Street Journal, "Our Troops Must Stay." In it you will find many words, remarkable words, words you've been hearing from the Bush Administration all along, and from Al Gore's 2000 running mate, no less. Here are few choice selections.

I have just returned from my fourth trip to Iraq in the past 17 months and can report real progress there...

Progress is visible and practical. In the Kurdish North, there is continuing security and growing prosperity. The primarily Shiite South remains largely free of terrorism, receives much more electric power and other public services than it did under Saddam, and is experiencing greater economic activity. The Sunni triangle, geographically defined by Baghdad to the east, Tikrit to the north and Ramadi to the west, is where most of the terrorist enemy attacks occur. And yet here, too, there is progress...

It is a war between 27 million and 10,000; 27 million Iraqis who want to live lives of freedom, opportunity and prosperity and roughly 10,000 terrorists who are either Saddam revanchists, Iraqi Islamic extremists or al Qaeda foreign fighters who know their wretched causes will be set back if Iraq becomes free and modern...

If the terrorists win, they will be emboldened to strike us directly again and to further undermine the growing stability and progress in the Middle East, which has long been a major American national and economic security priority...

None of these remarkable changes would have happened without the coalition forces led by the U.S. And, I am convinced, almost all of the progress in Iraq and throughout the Middle East will be lost if those forces are withdrawn faster than the Iraqi military is capable of securing the country.

These are forceful words. Determined words. Optimistic words. Literally the entire piece reads like a section of a George W. Bush stump speech on Iraq. The question remains - why is Sen. Lieberman seemingly the only Democrat who sees this? The unanimity of thought among Democrats means one thing, and one thing only. Democrats are not so much against the war (and, as a result, the Iraqi people) as they are against President Bush. They don't want to see democracy in the Middle East fail; they want to see Bush fail.

If there are others out there who feel as Sen. Lieberman does, that the best policy that can be followed now in Iraq is staying until the job is done, then let's hear from them with voices equal to those of the anti-war crowd. Speak up, lest you be lumped in with those with whom you disagree.

Update: Don't count Sen. Lieberman among those hurting troop morale.

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Thanks for the link!

Basil's Blog