Where has Maxine Waters been? It wasn't until she turned up on Tucker Carlson's show this afternoon that I realized how long it's been. Now there is one fun lady. The Representative from California proved the perfect foil, helping Carlson score some wicked points at Nancy Pelosi's expense.
Carlson's fundamental question, and I think it's a good one, is, given that Dems ran and were elected on an anti-war platform, why are they apparently about to go along with the surge? The unstated answer is that they've made a cynical political calculation that it's in their interest to demagogue the issue rather than lead.
Here's how it went down:
Waters: "I certainly, do not trust the President of the United States to lay out a case that is believable . . . I don't trust him. I don't believe him, I won't be supporting it, for sure."
Carlson: "But [Pelosi's] naive enough to believe him. I think I understand the point you're making."
Waters: "She's Speaker and she didn't get there by being naive."
Carlson: "But on the other hand, you're saying you're sophisticated enough not to believe him, but she is not."
Waters: "What I'm saying is, I've lived long enough and I've heard enough from the President of the United States, and it's turned out that everything that he said about this war has been false. He's mismanaged the war, the American public knows it, they want us out. That's want I'm saying."
Carlson got in a quick, final shot: "And the Speaker's too callow to reach the same conclusion."
Rim shot!
Words cannot convey the archness of Waters' tone. View the video here.
Mark was in Iraq in November. Contact him at mark@gunhill.net
