Recent news tells us of how the balance of power has shifted in Washington with recent voting. The House of Representatives now has a Democrat majority, and the Senate has swung in their direction too UPDATE: There is now a Democrat majority in the Senate. Donald Rumsfeld has stepped down as Secretary of Defence.
What I found amusing, however, was last night’s 10 o’clock news on BBC1. The news team were thrilled.
Unfortunately I can’t access the programme online anymore, but some of the quotes I seem to remember:
This is an unpopular president and an unpopular war.
Oh, OK. Perhaps it would help if you had a source for that.
Now there’s a new Secretary of Defence, he’ll surely accelerate the plans to get the troops out of Iraq.
Will he? Unfortunately this is only a statement of the hopes of the reporter. Almost certainly the new chap will do no such thing. The link above contains the following line from another news source, referring to the intentions of the new majority in the House:
On Iraq, Democrats have said they would begin a phased redeployment of U.S. forces and would require Iraqis to take responsibility for their country. They have also promised to double the size of Special Forces in order to track down and destroy terrorist networks such as Al Qaeda.
So let me get this straight, the Republicans want to stay in Iraq… and so do the Democrats. Hmm, interesting. Rather unfortunately, it’s the opposite of what the BBC want.