One of the repeated political strategies of the Obama administration has be to blame any of the current problems facing our nation on his predecessor (some of it correctly, some of it debatable, some it incorrectly).
Recently however, Vice President Biden signaled that they were going to take responsibility for one of the more important political developments – the success of the war in Iraq.
Biden told Larry KIng:
the great achievements of this administration. You're going to see
90,000 American troops come marching home by the end of the summer. You're
going to see a stable government in Iraq that is actually moving toward
a representative government.
Later, the White House press corp asked Spokesman Robert Gibbs to clarify Biden's statement, to which Gibbs explained:
troops home, which we intend to do in August of this year.
Q But the Status of Forces Agreement to bring troops home was signed before the President took office.
MR.
GIBBS: Something that — something that I think the political pressure
that the President, as a then-candidate, helped to bring about.
So wait, as Andrew Malcom laid out at the LA Times: Obama opposed the war in Iraq from the beginning, both President Obama and Vice President Biden opposed the surge, which has been credited for the stabilization of the nation, both predicted the surge would fail and produce more sectarian violence, Biden even suggested that the best solution would be to divide the nation up between the three groups in Iraq, and as the questioner pointed out to Gibbs, the Status of Forces Agreement was signed long before Obama took the oath of office.
Gibbs' answer – Obama the candidate brought about the political pressure to make everything work out. Here's a question, if Obama can place enough political pressure on the President of the United States, who is of a different political party, to make Iraq work, but Obama the President can't put enough pressure on the members of his own party, in the majorities in both houses of Congress, to pass the health care reform bill that they all want?
If Obama's policies bring about change and success in domestic and foreign policy he can and should take credit for that, but he cannot take credit for Iraq, when the turnaround happened before he took office, all the while blaming former President Bush for everything else. It's almost like he is a normal politician that only takes credit for the good things and blames the other party for anything negative.
