Um...What!?!

How many times, Dear Gentle Reader(s), did we hear Mr. Bush assert, between the invasion of Iraq in March, 2003, and the announcement of the "surge" in late 2006/early 2007, that he allocated as many troops to the military effort as the generals requested?

Many.

Today, though, The New York Times carries an op-ed piece by David Frum which seems to indicate a sense that elements of the Republican party disagreed with Mr. Bush's assertions. How many times, then, did we hear from these dissatisfied Republicans?

Aside from Senator McClain, not very many.

Frum's article, "Turning the Triple Play," contains this: "You tax guys insisted on fighting this war on the cheap. So we didn’t expand the armed forces after 9/11 — and fought Iraq with half the troops the generals told us we’d need."

The"generals told" us? Which generals? Who, exactly is "us?" And why haven't we heard about this before? What caused this bit of truth, or party heresy to come to light? Frum has a lot of "'splainin'" to do, but don't look for it.

Frum is best remembered as a speech writer for Mr. Bush whose writings eventually generated "The Axis of Evil." Since he left the administration his criticisms of his erstwhile colleagues has been relatively muted.

If he had given voice to his "Foreign Policy Conservative" avatar (one of the combatants in today's piece) earlier than today, and stressed the insufficiency of troop levels earlier, say January, 2003, we might be in a much better place today. As it is, the "tax guys" won the day. The deaths and mangled bodies which resulted should lie heavily upon the backs of those Republicans and Frum who did not stand up to the money driven wing of their party and demand that this war be funded in such a way that it could be prosecuted more successfully than it has been.

Trust, but verify.

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