Redstate

What Arnold Really said on "Face the Nation"

By Mark Kilmer Posted in War — Comments (2) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

The complete truth, if it distorts the media's pre-conceived image, falls aside when the media tells its story to a public which lives with differing degrees of gullibility. . In this case, Los Angeles Times writer Peter Nicholas wants to bolster the media-spawned image of the American people and media-approved lawmakers standing in firm opposition to the Bush-Petraeus surge plan for Iraq as folly.

He thought he said it all. Or perhaps not.

Read More. ...

Aligning himself with congressional Democrats in the debate on the Iraq war, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger reiterated Sunday that the U.S. needs to set clear timelines for bringing troops home, lest Iraq devolve into a quagmire with no end in sight.

Republican Schwarzenegger, speaking on CBS' "Face the Nation," said Americans won't support a war that becomes an open-ended commitment — a point, he said, that needs to be made to the Iraqis.

"We should let the Iraqis know that we are here until this time. And then we're going to draw back," Schwarzenegger said. "We're going to draw our troops out of Iraq. I think a timeline is absolutely important because I think that the people in America don't want to see another Korean War, another Vietnam War, where it's an open-ended thing."

Well, Nicholas might really think he said it all, or perhaps he purposely ignored the most important thing that Governor Schwarzenegger said about the situation in Iraq; either way, it's not there. Arnold is depicted as backing Democrats against the President, and the President is portrayed again as a go-it-alone cowboy. It's a very old line, media-spawned.

You see, Arnold said that he personally favors a timeline. Here's the actual quote, word-for-word from the Face the Nation transcript:

I believe very strongly that we should do everything that we can to be victorious and to really create the kind of democracy that they envisioned for Iraq, but that we should let the Iraqis know that we are here up until this time, and then we're going to draw back, and we're going to draw our troops out of Iraq. I think a timeline is absolutely important because I think that the people in America don't want to see another Korean war, another Vietnam war, anything like this where it's an open-ended thing. There should be a timeline.

His personal belief that there should be a timeline is all that resembles the Democratic rhetoric. Nicholas does not mention Schwarzenegger's caveat:

I think that it is clear that, you know, he [President Bush] has different information than I have. He has a different opinion on that than I have. And I think that, within the Republican Party and within this country, I mean there's different opinions on all of this, which is OK.

Schwarzenegger admits that the President has different information than he has he – and by extension, Congressional Dems – and thus has a different opinion. He is not faulting the President for his more informed opinion, which puts the governor at odds with Congressional Democrats.

Please continue, governor:

[W]hat good is the nonbinding resolutions and all that stuff and getting--creating bitterness and--and fighting over something that is nonbinding?

Nichols did not tell us of this, of Governor Schwarzenegger's strong rebuke of the Congressional Democrats. And it would have ruined Nichols's preconceived theme to tell his readers that Schwarzenegger seems to be reading Mitch McConnell's press releases.

Mitch says:

If the Senate doesn’t support the mission in Iraq, it has only one option and that’s to decide whether or not to fund that mission. That’s our constitutional role, and we shouldn’t drag this into the morass of Democratic presidential primary politics. We shouldn’t deny General Petraeus reinforcements, and we certainly shouldn’t rewrite the Rules of Engagement for him.

On Face the Nation, Arnold said, referring to Congress:

[T]hey should cut the funding or let the president do what he needs to do. Because to micromanage a war is the worst thing. It's the ingredient for a loss. That is an important thing.

Oh, but Peter Nicholas writes:

Schwarzenegger's stand mirrors that of some of the Democratic presidential candidates. Illinois Sen. Barack Obama has introduced legislation requiring that all combat troops leave Iraq by March 2008. Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) has called for removing some troops within 90 days. Former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, the party's vice presidential candidate in 2004, wants an immediate drawdown of up to 50,000 troops, with a goal of total withdrawal within 12 to 18 months.

If Nicholas is referring to a mirror image, an opposite, this last statement would be correct; he wasn't, so he is fibbing. His governor said to Bob Schieffer: "[T]o micromanage a war is the worst thing."

You know, that should have been the headline, not "Gov. repeats call for troop pullout timeline: Schwarzenegger, in line with Democrats, says Americans won't back a war that is open-ended." The story, the bottom line, is that Governor Schwarzenegger supports the President's decision as the President's decision. Governor Schwarzenegger rejects attempted Democrat micromanagement and their deleterious anti-Bushie resolutions.

Nicholas should have watched the show. (Arnold was in the studio with Schieffer for 15-minutes max.) You cannot do these things justice by picking stray lines out of context from a transcript. Trust me.