...conservative Democrats and some party leaders continue to worry that taking on those issues would expose them to Republican charges that they are weak on terrorism. And advocates of a strong push on the terrorism issues are increasingly skeptical that they can prevail.
"I don't think it's that we're reluctant to take on Bush," said Rep. Alcee L. Hastings (Fla.), a senior member of the House intelligence committee. "I think it's we are reluctant to take on each other. . . . If I can fast-forward to September, October, November, December and see where we'll be, we'll be nowhere."
Said Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (Va.): "I would've thought the administration would have been bereft of credibility by now, but they seem to be able to get what they want from this Congress."
The terrorism issue came to a head early this month in an explosive final closed-door House Democratic Caucus meeting before the August recess. Reps. Hastings, Moran, Melvin Watt (N.C.), John F. Tierney (Mass.) and Jerrold Nadler (N.Y.) pleaded with party leaders not to bring to a vote a White House bill extending the administration's authority to listen in on electronic communications from abroad without a warrant.
Conservative Democrats, including Rep. Allen Boyd (Fla.), argued just as vociferously that Democrats dare not leave on vacation without passing the White House bill.
Read the rest...
The Democrats, as a party, have no "plan" to deal with terrorism, their main goal is to hinder any efforts by the President to deal with terrorism...that is their whole plan on terrorism. Luckily the conservative Democrats or the Blue Dogs, understand how the party is seen which is weak on National Security and they do not intend to foster that opinion any more.
Next we see in the NYT that the momentum is turning and the only ones incapable of see this is Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and a handful of Democrats that haven't just returned from Iraq after seeing the progress that is being made.
WASHINGTON, Aug. 29 — The White House is growing more confident that it can beat back efforts by Congressional Democrats to shift course in Iraq, a significant turnabout from two months ago, when a string of Republican defections had administration officials worried that President Bush’s troop buildup was in serious danger on Capitol Hill.
Current and former administration officials say they realize that the September battle over the troop buildup will be difficult. But they also say the president’s hand is stronger now than it was in early July, when Republican senators like Pete V. Domenici of New Mexico and Richard G. Lugar of Indiana publicly called for a change of course.
“There is a tonal shift, and that is important, but there is always the chance that it could be ephemeral, in the same way that the panic of early July proved ephemeral,” said Peter D. Feaver, who helped draft the buildup strategy as an official with the National Security Council but recently returned to his post as a political science professor at Duke University. “I don’t detect any triumphalism in the White House.”
A senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity to avoid upstaging the president, said there was “a sense the dynamic has changed.” But the official was also cautious, adding: “I don’t want to portray overconfidence. This is a very important debate, and September is going to be a very important month.”
[...]
At least one nonpartisan analyst, Charlie Cook, the editor of The Cook Political Report, an independent newsletter, says the pendulum appears to be swinging — even though the war remains hugely unpopular and Republican lawmakers are under great pressure at home to end it.
“It’s a momentum situation,” he said. “The momentum back in June and early July was really running hard against the war, and it was starting to snowball. But that snowballing stopped, and it has probably kind of reversed itself somewhat.”
The fact is with the good news that has reluctantly been reported from Iraq, the Democratic politicians that have returned stating that the surge needs to continue, the political progress that is finally starting to be seen, the stubborn insistence of the Democrats in Congress and the Senate to try to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by letting their far left liberal base dictate their actions, will only take their 14% approval rating and send it falling down even more.
I said the other day that this August recess has to have been the worst vacation they have ever taken because the whole time they have been at recess, their own politicians, starting with Keith Ellison and Jerry McNerney, then even Dick Durbin very reluctantly said their had been progress from the surge, then Brian Baird, one of the most staunch of war critics from day one completely did a 180...the news for the "withdraw now" portion of Congress could not have been worse.
Jeef Jacoby from the Boston Globe has an article out that describes what is happening right now and how we are getting Good News, but it is not good news for the Democrats because they have so heavily invested themselves in defeat and failure that any good news from Iraq is bad news from them.
For most Americans, positive developments in Iraq are very welcome. But good news is bad news for the Democratic left, where opposition to the war has become an emotional investment in defeat. House majority whip Jim Clyburn of South Carolina was asked by theWashington Post what Democrats would think if Petraeus reports next month that the war is going well. "That would be a real big problem for us," Clyburn candidly replied.
Read the entire article, much of it has been said here at Wake up America for the past two months.
The worst thing that can happen to the Democrats as a party os for us to be successful and continue to see progress in Iraq.
How sad is that that any party or any Americans would put themselves in that kind of position?
Pitiful.
.