Hide-and-Seek Republicans

The games go on in the United States Senate.

At a press conference yesterday, John Kerry pleaded with Republican colleagues to come out of hiding and go public with the opposition to the war they have been expressing in private. If they did, he predicted, more than 60 Senators would vote for a change in policy

“This is the time, this is the moment,” Sen. Kerry said at a press conference. Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe agreed. “We are at a crossroads between hope and reality,” she said.

White House marching orders were reflected, as they often are, on the Politico web site: “Republican leaders on Tuesday pounced on a newly released National Intelligence Estimate to argue that the increasingly powerful and ominous Al Qaeda presence justifies current troop levels in Iraq at least until September.”

Never mind that the Estimate was an exercise in vagueness, that it is the presence of American troops that brought Saudi suicide bombers to Iraq and that we are losing the hide-and-seek game of trying to uproot their increasing numbers. This White House uses the “kill your parents and ask for mercy because you’re an orphan” strategy without blinking.

It’s painful to see people sworn to serve the national interest keep playing political games with the lives of Americans in uniform.