[Vision2020] Now is the Time for a Vacation

[Tom Hansen]

>From the closing commentary by Bob Schieffer on today's (May 13, 2007) "Face
the Nation" -

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Now is the Time for a Vacation
By Bob Schieffer

I was in my office reading the newspaper one day last week when I heard
someone on one of the cable networks say, "Vice President Cheney urged the
Iraqi parliament to abandon plans for a two month summer vacation." 

I guess I should have heard about it before, but somehow I hadn't and it hit
me with a jolt. I mean who could be serious about taking two months off
while people - Americans and Iraqis - were dying just beyond the parliament
door. 

But then I heard the television reporter say the Vice President had told the
Iraqis that with so much at stake, "any undue delay would be hard to
explain." 

I've got a couple of issues with the vice president but I am with him on
that one. 

Big time. 

We have a sharp debate going on in our Congress about whether to bring our
troops home from Iraq. I buy some of those arguments, some I don't. 

But I haven't heard a better argument for withdrawal than the Iraqi
parliament's decision to take a vacation in the coming weeks. That makes the
case far better than "our poor power to add or detract," to quote another
American wartime president. 

The idea that the Vice President of the United States would have to go to
Baghdad to urge the Iraqis not to take a vacation is ludicrous in itself. If
the Iraqis think the American people will put up with that, I'm sorry, they
better think again. 

I'm not sure even the President's strongest supporters would put up with
that.

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Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"Patriotism is not a short and frenzied outburst of emotion but the tranquil
and steady dedication of a lifetime." 

--Adlai E. Stevenson, Jr.