Serious Warnings to the "Party of Defeat"

[Annie]

I came across two articles that echo warnings to the Democrats, I doubt they'll have impact now, but perhaps some might wish to think of how many of the past 50 years have been with a Democratic president:

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20070218/news_lz1e18caldwel.html

The party of defeat

By Robert J. Caldwell
February 18, 2007

Democrats have struggled for a generation to escape the crippling public perception that they are soft on national security. Majority Democrats in the House of Representatives have now revived their party's electoral curse.

The House vote Friday for a Democratic leadership resolution opposing President Bush's plan to reinforce U.S. troops in Iraq was lopsidedly partisan. Nearly all Democrats voted for it. All but a relative handful of Republicans voted against it.


MAYA ALLERUZZO / Associated Press
An American soldier stands guard during a search operation last week in Baghdad.
Yes, it is a nonbinding resolution, meaning it has no force in law. Bush is free to ignore it, as he already has said he will. And, yes, it contained political cover language expressing support for American troops in Iraq. Thus, as virtually all Democrats proclaimed during the House's four days of debate on the resolution, Democrats can claim that they “support the troops.”

But House Democrats are now on record as formally opposing the troops' mission – a potentially decisive effort to stop the violence in Baghdad and defeat the Sunni insurgency in Anbar province.

It is no exaggeration to say that the fate of the entire American campaign in Iraq rides on this mission, and on the parallel effort to prompt political reconciliation among Iraqi factions. Unless U.S. and Iraqi forces can at least greatly diminish the terrorist carnage convulsing Iraq's capital city, the paramount U.S. objective of creating a stable, democratic Iraq won't be achieved. The complementary struggle in Anbar province is equally decisive. Defeating the Sunni insurgents and their allies, the terrorists of al-Qaeda in Iraq, is vital to the hopes of stabilizing Iraq sufficiently to permit American forces to begin withdrawing.

The Democrats' passage of a nonbinding resolution opposing the troop reinforcements that Bush and his Iraq commander, Army Gen. David Petraeus, say are essential to American success is damaging enough. If Democrats now use their power over appropriations to defeat the troop surge before it can be fully implemented, the political risk to Democrats will be greatly compounded.

Starkly put, Democrats risk making “Bush's war” their war, and then losing it.

...

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/02/murtha_in_command.html

February 19, 2007
Murtha in Command
By Robert Novak

WASHINGTON -- After 16 undistinguished terms in Congress, Rep. John P. Murtha at long last felt his moment had arrived. He could not keep quiet the secret Democratic strategy that he had forged for the promised "second step" against President Bush's Iraq policy (after the "first step" non-binding resolution of disapproval). In an interview last Thursday with the anti-war website MoveCongress.org, he revealed plans to put conditions on funding of U.S. troops. His message: I am running this show.

Indeed, he is. Murtha and his ally, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, were humiliated last Nov. 16 when the Democratic Caucus overwhelmingly voted against Murtha as majority leader. Three months later, Murtha has shaped party policy that would cripple Bush's Iraq troop surge by placing conditions on funding. That represents the most daring congressional attempt to micromanage ongoing armed hostilities in nearly two centuries, since the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War challenged President Abraham Lincoln.

Murtha's plan did not surprise Republicans. They were poised to contend that his proposed amendment to the supplemental appropriations bill would effectively cut off funding for the war, confronting moderate Democrats elected after promising voters to support troops. But the Senate rule requiring 60 votes to end debate, which prevented final passage of the non-binding resolution rejecting the troop surge, would not affect Murtha's plan because appropriations have to be passed and cannot be filibustered.

Thus, unless there is an unexpected retreat of Democrats, Murtha will be driving U.S. policy. That is an improbable elevation for a congressman best known until now as a purveyor of pork. An ideological moderate (75 percent liberal and 40 percent conservative, according to recent ratings), he became a hero to the left by advocating "redeployment" of troops from Iraq.

...

Murtha has made clear that the non-binding resolution, whose merely symbolic nature infuriates anti-war activists, was only the "first step." Murtha, chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, did not hide the purpose of setting standards for training, equipping and resting troops: "They won't have the equipment, they don't have the training, and they won't be able to do the work."

When Murtha revealed the strategy, the House Republican staff quickly dispatched e-mails to GOP members that list Democrats who had campaigned last year against restricting support for troops in the field. The messages asked: "Will they side with Jack Murtha and their leadership in Washington, or with the promises they made to their voters?"

But only eight such Democrats, including six newcomers, were listed. Rep. Nick Lampson, who returned to Congress from Tom DeLay's conservative Texas district, had said (according to the Associated Press) that "he opposes withdrawing until the Iraqi army is capable of controlling the country." Lampson declined to talk to me when I said I wanted to ask him about Iraq. Freshman Rep. Brad Ellsworth won election to a swing district in Indiana by saying (according to the Evansville Courier & Press) that "he would not support any measures that would cut funding for forces in Iraq." Ellsworth said he was "too busy" to talk to me after I said the subject was Iraq.

It seems all but certain that Democrats will pass what Murtha frankly calls an attempt to prevent funding of the surge. Improbable though it may seem, blunt and brassy Jack Murtha is moving close to command over U.S. policy on Iraq.