It's about time

The front page headline in the Washington Post sums up everything that needs to be said: Iraq War Debate Eclipses All Other Issues. As has been recently apparent, our elected officials have been forced to put the topic of the war ahead of pet pork projects, estate tax cuts, marriage amendments, and other more pressing items on their social calendars.

And it's about damn time.

Funny, though, but there appears to be a bit of whining coming from some individuals about the amount of time and attention demanded by the war. The Post reports:

"Iraq is now a cloud over everything," said Stuart Rothenberg, a nonpartisan political analyst specializing in Congress. "It's the 800-pound gorilla in the room."

"I feel like every morning, I wake up, get a concrete block and have to walk around with it all day," said first-term Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), who came to the Senate with an ambitious agenda to overhaul Social Security and the tax code. "We can't even address the issues."

The issues, Congressman? It seems to me that a government decision to send our children and siblings and spouses off to fight and die by the thousands should already have been the top issue of each and every Congressional day.

It also strikes me that those Americans sent to risk and sacrifice their lives for a hasty invasion (that's had questionable justification from the start), would automatically deserve a few moments of serious critical thought at the start of daily business. Especially from the officials who are responsible for sending them there in the first place.

And it occurs to me that the issue of Iraq should have been the 800-pound gorilla from the instant this Administration recklessly decided to violate every military precedent in the history of the nation, and put our troops in harm's way as unprovoked invaders in the name of a fabricated cause. C'mon - don't tell me you didn't have doubts.

But, that's just me. And I suppose I should be glad that Congress (and the majority of the American people) have finally caught on to what a few of us have been saying since the beginning of this suspect, cavalier, and reprehensible misstep by the Bush White House - namely, that it shouldn't have started, and it's simply gotta stop.

The topic of Iraq must remain a top Congressional priority, because it is the very event that has sent America's self-image hurtling in a negative direction for three long years. And until that downward spiral is reversed, and our national soul made respectable again, those other pet issues are just gonna have to wait.