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A Letter To Bill Kristol: Challenge Michael Steele To A Debate On Afghanistan

Dear Bill,

You love, we know, war. Love it. Always trying to get America into new and bigger ones. It’s your thing. We get it.

But we think you’re being unfair towards RNC Chairman Michael Steele. Sure, he was wrong when he said that Afghanistan “was a war of Obama’s choosing” and “not something that the United States had actively prosecuted or wanted to engage in.” But as you correctly note, his entire term has been marked by “gaffes and embarrassments” — such as telling African Americans they “don’t have a reason” to vote Republican, by suggesting Republicans are “drinking that Potomac River water” and “getting high,” and telling the public that it has “no reason, none, to trust” the GOP. But none of this produced from you the slightest peep of protest.

You express concern that Mr. Steele breaks from Republican orthodoxy by voicing his criticisms of the Afghanistan war. But when Mr. Steele broke from Republican principles and expressed his view that abortion should be an “individual choice,” we didn’t hear your call for his resignation. (In fact, your publication defended him.)

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What really irks you is that Mr. Steele has the temerity to suggest that the continued war in Afghanistan is not a good idea — which is a debate worth having. It’s therefore no surprise that the one thing that should motivate you to call for the resignation of Mr. Steele is his suggestion that it’s a bad idea for the U.S. to continue to “engage in a land war in Afghanistan.”

For the crime of questioning an American war, you feel that Mr. Steele must pay. This shouldn’t be a political issue — members of both parties have concerns about the current course in Afghanistan, and members of both parties should be having this debate. Not just Democrats.

So Mr. Kristol, instead of calling on Mr. Steele to resign, challenge him to a debate on Afghanistan to discuss your foreign policy views. And as for Mr. Steele, we hope he stays.

Sincerely yours,

The Think Progress team[featuredcomment]paleolib says:

Nicely done TP. I would have added one minor suggestion:Hold the debate in Kandahar

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