Hand-wringing in Iraq; finally some straight talk?

Here are two encouraging stories just posted on CNN.com:

McCain: Bush Not Straight Enough on Iraq

I'm not going to comment on the "straight enough" phrase. Wait, I just did. Highlights from this article include the following:

Appearing on the same program, Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, a fellow Republican, disagreed with Kyl that the United States was anywhere near victory. "I don't think we're winning. In all due respect to my friend Jon Kyl, the term 'hand-wringing' is a little misplaced here," Hagel said. "The fact is, we're in trouble. We're in deep trouble in Iraq," said Hagel, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations and Intelligence committees.

"The president's going to the United Nations [Tuesday]," he said. "You know what we list as our priorities for the United Nations General Assembly? Dealing with sex trade, which is important. Dealing with cloning. Dealing with spread of democracy. Not one word of Korea. Not one word with regard to Iraq. Not one word with regard to Iran. It's like Wonderland," said Biden, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Lugar, who is chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said "the incompetence in the administration" led to only $1 billion spent out of $18 billion appropriated last year for reconstruction efforts.

Actually, in the grand scheme of things; this is bad news. Things are not going well. I should not have referred to this as an "encouraging" story. What I mean, by way of clarification, is that I am encouraged that prominent government figures seem to be displaying a rare level of candor about the disaster that is Iraq.

Kerry to Hit Bush on Iraq

This didn't have anything I deemed quotable; we'll have to wait and see what Kerry actually says. Mostly the article is filled with quotes from Terry McAuliffe, which makes me leery. I think McAuliffe is just a partisan boob, a political player. I'll confess, I was a Deaniac. And I resent the fact that the DNC refused to acknowledge Dean as a viable candidate and refused to support him even when he was the frontrunner. McAuliffe and other DNC types are too caught up in the myth of the "swing voter," they don't want to alienate anyone by being too far left. But hello, Howard Dean was really not that far left. He supported the death penalty. Contrary to rumor, he was not in favor of gay marriage. He was pretty moderate, actually. He just seemed like a wackjob because he dared to utter such off-the-wall statements like "capturing Saddam Hussein hasn't made us any safer." The press went nuts over that one. But you know, show me some evidence that citizens here at home are safer with him in jail, or that US soldiers are safer. I know, I know, the hawks out there are saying, "But Saddam tortured and gassed his own people." Yes. True. But you know, more than 10,000 civilians have died during our occupation. Is that really a significantly better mortality rate than when Saddam was in charge? I mean, I haven't seen any figures on this, but I'm gonna guess Bush's average is even worse than Saddam's on this one. And as for torture...um...Abu Ghraib, anyone?