Here’s a little excersize in compare and contrast.

Senator Hatch in this morning’s Deseret Morning Republican Party Newsletter:

WASHINGTON — Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, noticed a change in the atmosphere during his visit to Iraq over the weekend, saying it was different from when he made his first trip there a year ago.
“We are seeing measurable progress,” Hatch said Tuesday in a conference call with reporters. “I believe that we have made headway.”

Here’s celebrated Neo-Con William F. Buckley:

“It is simply untrue that we are making decisive progress in Iraq. The indicators rise and fall from day to day, week to week, month to month.”

Here’s Hatch in the Salt Lake Tribune today:

“In all, the change I witnessed since I went to Iraq last year is substantial,” Hatch said. “I believe we’ve made headway. That’s not to say victory will be achieved tomorrow. It’s going to take quite a while.”

And, a little more Buckley:

[Enemies in Vietnam…] “operative headquarters …, we have no equivalent of that in Iraq. […] All of the terrorist mayhem seems so spontaneous. Of course, that’s the nature of terrorism. Sponsors in Iraq and Syria remain in the shadows while semi-independent radicals carry out attacks that kill and maim innocents, striking fear into the hearts of citizens.”

Please, George Bush, give Crazy Uncle Orrin the AG job. He’ll be done just about the same time he figures out how the phone works, so, hopefully, no real harm done. If you give it to him I promise to be nice to you (by ignoring you, specifically) every other Tuesday afternoon between the hours of 3:15pm and 5:15pm here on the blog.

Oh, and here, as a bonus, is a tidbit of info in the handsome and talented Robert Gehrke article from the Tribune that was utterly missing in the Lil’ Joey Cannon’s Deseret Morning Republican Party Newsletter:

It [the troop “surge”] has also led to an increase in the rate of U.S. casualties. An average of 3.2 coalition soldiers have been killed each day since Feb. 1, according to statistics compiled by the Web site Iraq Coalition Casualty Count. Since the war began, the average had been 2.4 per day.

Hat Tip to Reach Upward for pointing me at the Buckley article.