Each day lately, Democrats inch closer to giving President Bush more money for the war in Iraq without any serious mandates for withdrawing U.S. troops.
Democratic leaders are loath to acknowledge they’ve backed off, but lawmakers from both sides of the aisle, as well as congressional aides, say Democrats are trying to find a way to provide continued troop funding while searching for some compromises that show they’re still intent on challenging the president on the war.
Instead of arbitrary withdrawal dates, they will add things like anti-torture rules and benchmarks for Iraq political reconciliation, which their own politicians, [Rep. Norm Dicks (D-WA)] have already stated clearly is a hypocritical notion since our own congress cannot even manage political reconciliation.
Politico goes on to report that one senior Democratic lawmaker, there’s a growing discomfort among pro-defense Democrats about linking a $50 billion Iraq measure to troop withdrawal.
The Democratic leadership is loathe to publicly admit the change in strategy because it breaks yet more of the promises that they have been making consistently, and breaking just as consistently, to the anti-war base of their party, but they are not left with much choice.
Had the surge and the counterinsurgency tactics implemented by General Petraeus not worked as surprisingly well as they have, the Democrats doubling down and betting everything on Americas failure would have been a winning strategy for them, but things didn't work out the way they were hoping and although they have denied all progress and success for the most part, portions of their own party politicians have recently returned from Iraq declaring amazing progress and successes, which put the leadership on the wrong side of victory.
I have said before, betting against America is never a winning strategy and now the Democratic leadership is caught between a rock and hard place but they have put themselves in that position, so I find I have little sympathy for them.
As a side note:
Don Surber, who writes a column for the Charleston Daily Mail, points out that as of the latest public opinion polls, the war is twice as popular than Congress is, done by the same polling company, Gallup.
To keep up with the news that the MSM avoids at all cost regarding the reconstruction of Iraq, you can go to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers website and see for yourself the work being done.
Congress still wants to surrender, only now it is their own strategy they want to surrender and not Americas National Security.
That is an improvement.
Reactions from around the blogosphere:
Captain's Quarters:
Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi have made themselves absurd on this issue. Just from a purely political point of view, one can only promise something a small number of times without delivering on it without losing all credibility. They passed that point in July, when Reid didn't even bother to attend his all-night pajama party after realizing the Republicans would stick around and fight. For the antiwar base, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi have become Lucy with the football, and they've discovered that they're Charlie Brown.
Michelle Malkin:
The Democrats need to replace their donkey emblem with a photo of Gilda Radner’s SNL character, Emily “Neeever mind” Latella:
The Weekly Standard with "Daily Blog Buzz: Democrats Love to Lose"
Are congressional Democrats starting to wise up? After the Democrats' 41 useless Iraq bills,
Gateway Pundit shows more good news from Iraq.
Commentary Magazine:
In light of the successful U.S. troop surge in Iraq, the word withdrawal may be heading for the same trash bin that contains those other dead letters exit strategy and civil war. Democratic lawmakers, made hypocrites by their own rhetoric, now find themselves funding the war they’d declared lost, and doing so more-or-less unconditionally.
Right Voices:
Retooling, actually translates to scrapping the idea. But how do they cave on the funding and still save face with their base?
QandO:
And, of course, it is the Dems who will receive any blame such layoffs would bring. Every day they delay gives the administration and Republicans a stronger hand.
Jules Crittenden with "Desperately Seeking Surrender"
These reactions are all found at memeorandum, strangely, the left hasn't figured out how to "spin" this yet and as of right now, the silence on this Politico piece from the left, is deafening.
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