Feckless Feingold

Russ Feingold took a while to forumlate his thoughts on the death of al-Zarqawi.

Perhaps that's because he's in a bind. He has to say that killing this murderer is a good thing, while at the same time, he wants to criticize it and exploit it to serve his political self-interests.

I commend our military forces for their success in targeting Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The death of this ruthless terrorist, who led an insurgent campaign of brutal suicide bombings, kidnappings and hostage beheadings in Iraq, is great news for the Iraqi government and the Iraqi people. It is also a testament to the professionalism and capability of the men and women in the U.S. military and the effectiveness of well-planned and targeted operations.

Yes, the U.S. military has been effective, but Feingold believes that the troops should be out of Iraq by December 31, 2006.

What if the military had learned of al-Zarqawi's whereabouts late on the day of Feingold's deadline for withdrawal? What if they were in the process of retreating instead of hunting down the ruthless al-Zarqawi?

The murderer would still be alive and killing and beheading innocents, and making silly videos while wearing New Balance shoes.

This illustrates how absolutely idiotic arbitrary deadlines for troop withdrawals are.

Feingold's blathers on incoherently in his commentary on The Huffington Post.

He concludes:

This Administration's single-minded focus on Iraq has crippled our ability to address the threats we face around the world. We should redeploy U.S. troops from Iraq by the end of the year so that we can refocus on our true mission in the wake of 9/11: defeating the global terrorist networks that threaten us.

In true fringe LEFTIST style, Feingold contradicts himself.

He first describes the ruthless al-Zarqawi as a terrorist and a threat to innocents. Then, Feingold says that we must redeploy our troops to defeat terrorists.

That is absurd.

Which is it? Obviously, al-Zarqawi, as a terrorist leader, presented a serious threat to us; yet Feingold wants to separate him from the War on Terror.

Clearly, Feingold doesn't get our enemies. He seems to be saying that unless an al Qaeda member was directly involved in the 9/11 attacks, he or she should be of no concern to us.

That's silly.

It doesn't matter that al-Zarqawi was not part of the 9/11 plan. That's irrelevant to the fact that he was an enemy of the United States and the highest ranking member of al Qaeda in Iraq. He is (I mean was) part of the global terrorist networks that threaten us.

Apparently, Feingold didn't consider the targeting of al-Zarqawi to be part of "our true mission in the wake of 9/11."

With all due respect, that's stupid.

Al-Zarqawi was a terrorist, a bin Laden buddy, and he was a threat to us. Now, he's dead. That's a major victory in a battle of the War on Terror. Of course, it doesn't end the war, but as President Bush said, it helps.

Poor old Russ won't acknowledge that. He pretends that al-Zarqawi posed no threat to Americans and American interests.

That sort of blindness is why the likes of Feingold cannot be trusted to handle national security.

Feingold doesn't get it.

He does, however, get how to pander to his supporters. That he understands.

Let's be honest. Feingold isn't a maverick. He's a puppet of the far Left.