"Mixed Progress"

The White House released the Administration's progress report on Iraq today. They claim mixed progress and are now trying to spin the results to seem like half of the benchmarks are met. You can read the report for yourself, and I think as a voter and taxpayer, you should. The results are not balanced. See for yourself. The White House seems unwilling to square with the American people. If this were a report card about a student's progress (something we all have experience with) the student would be failing.

You can argue that the benchmarks were too hard, and they do argue that in some cases. For example spending our money on captial improvements is not progressing fast enough to spend $10 billion in time. Maybe they need our congress over there... we could build a couple of bridges to nowhere for them.

Or, take the "Satisfactory Progress" rating they gave to the benchmark that the Maliki government deploy three additional brigades of Iraqi Army units in Bagdad. This disingenous rating was achieved by drawing forces from other units around the country, not by establishing new units as proscribed.

Once again this administration is playing fast and loose with the truth and demonstrates their aversion to accountability.

You're doing a hell of a job Bushie...

Democrats - Bill Richardson

I just watched an interview by Tim Russert of Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico on the Meet the Press website. If like me you thought that he represented a reasonable candidate for the Democrats to nominate, it might be instructive.

He is a former Ambassador to the United Nations, Energy Secretary, and Congressman. The guy should know his stuff. Sadly, it looks like he knows politics and polls, but not foreign policy or consistency.

His call for immediate withdraw of all US troops from Iraq is a direct contradiction of his statements in his recent book. (Not named here to keep from giving him revenue.)

When pressed by Russert for a reason for the change: hot air.

Click the link above to go to the video clip. Once you get to the video page, the Richardson clip is down on the right. If the link doesn't work, head on over to the site via Google or your favorite search engine. Just watch and scratch off another Democratic hopeful.

J. Sweeney

Income Investor

Please take a look at the new Income Investor Blog at your convenience. On it I'll be posting content focused on building financial freedom. The first few posts will mostly be about building a foundation of knowledge. Motivating essays and How To guides will foloow.

J. Sweeney