Shuster: 'Americans Don't Care' If Surge Worked

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The things people will do for love.  Take David Shuster.  So eager is the Obama inamorato to cover for his man, he's willing to sacrifice all semblance of reason.  Faced with the implacable fact that Obama was wrong in opposing the surge, Shuster has been reduced to claiming that Americans don't care about the surge's success. Shuster made his descent into abject sycophancy on today's Morning Joe.  The jumping off point was a clip from an interview of Obama by ABC's Terry Moran [Brent Baker has the full report on the interview here].

TERRY MORAN: If you had to do it over again, knowing what you know now, would you support the surge?

OBAMA: No, because, keep in mind that-

MORAN: You wouldn't?

OBAMA: Well, no, keep in mind, these kinds of hypotheticals are very difficult. You know, hindsight is 20/20. But I think that, what I am absolutely convinced of is that at that time, we had to change the political debate because the view of the Bush administration at that time was one that I just disagreed with.

After a clip was aired of McCain hammering Obama on his opposition to the surge, Shuster slipped on the flippers and goggles.

View video here.

WILLIE GEIST: David, shouldn't Barack Obama just come out and concede that the surge has worked, but here's where we go from here?

DAVID SHUSTER: You know, I suppose he could, but the bottom line is that Americans don't care.  I mean, when 60% of Americans say the war should not have been fought to begin with, it's sort of like saying, you know what, you know that last-place baseball game the other night?  Maybe the Giants should have pitched the fellow -- you know, people don't care.  If they don't believe the war should have been fought, then what's happening right now, whether the surge is successful or not, is really sort of secondary.  Americans still don't want us --

Shuster's tank job was too much even for Morning Joe's resident Obama fan . . .

MIKA BRZEZINSKI: I'm not sure about that!  I mean, I see what you're saying in terms of approval ratings for the war, but I don't think they care [sic; I believe Mika meant to say "do"] about winning or losing. I think they want to win.  I think they want to leave right. And I think they don't like the idea of, quote, losing, in any way. So depending on the language that's used by the McCain campaign, they could care.

SHUSTER: Yeah, except that I'm not sure Americans really understand or can figure out what a clear victory really is.  I mean, I don't think politicians can articulate it.  And until, if there was the possibility of a very clear victory, then sure, you could say, yes, the success of the surge means that we are victorious or we're gonna be victorious in Iraq.  But I'm not sure Americans really see victory at the end of a process where, OK, fine, we turn Iraq over to a stable government but, what, we've lost almost 4,000 soldiers in the process.  I think Americans still feel that it wasn't worth the cost.

Summarizing Shuster: Iraq's like a last-place baseball game that Americans don't care about.  Hence they don't care that the surge has worked.  And yeah, maybe Americans would like to win the war, but they're incapable of figuring out what winning would be.  For that matter, even if we did win, Americans wouldn't think it was worth it.

Cue the Luther Ingram.