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Fox News Sunday scored the big interview of the weekend: Chris Wallace spent a half hour with Vice President Dick Cheney. Cheney used his time to remind the American people of exactly what's at stake in Iraq....On Democratic opposition to the president's plan for a surge in troop strength, Cheney was somewhat detached. "You can't run a war by committee. The Constitution is very clear that the president is in fact, under article two, commander in chief," Cheney said...
Face the Nation featured interviews with two senators who happen to be frontrunners for their party's nomination for president in 2008. John McCain spoke to Bob Schieffer on the need for more troops in Iraq and what the road ahead might look like. He also condemned the callow resolution being offered by Congress this week--the nonbinding resolution disagreeing with the president's proposed troop increase.
Meet the Press gave time to National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley, who took on the notion that Americans trying to get things accomplished in Iraq, telling Tim Russert the president and his advisers "made a judgment that the Iraqis simply do not have the wherewithal to get it done. And therefore the president has made a judgment that, yes, the Iraqis have to be in the lead, it has to be their strategy, but we need to reinforce our troops so we that can be standing with them and to ensure that it succeeds."
This Week also featured an interview with Hadley, and he again emphasized the fact that turning control of security over to the Iraqis would be a poor course of action at this point. The roundtable was relatively bland, except for one little outburst between the Nation's Katrina Vanden Heuvel and Fareed Zakaria. Vanden Heuvel said "listen, let me just begin by saying that the people have been ahead of the politicians at every step of the way, the politicians are responding to people pressure," before being cut off by Zakaria who, half laughingly, reminded her of the actual sequence of events: "Katrina, this is a fantasy: the people were in favor of the Iraq War, there was 65 percent support when Congress voted for it, there was support for the first year, this is the populist fantasy that the people are always right." Not appreciating her point being so succinctly shot down, Vanden Heuvel responded in a tone one octave shriller than usual: "It is NOT a populist fantasy." Point: Zakaria.
Sonny Bunch is assistant editor at THE WEEKLY STANDARD. |