I can’t help but like this quote.
But a botched launch by the plan’s author, Rep. John P. Murtha (Pa.), has united Republicans and divided Democrats, sending the latter back to the drawing board just a week before scheduled legislative action, a score of House Democratic lawmakers said last week. ~washingtonpost.com
Sweet irony. After all of Murtha’s mouthing off about how Bush messed up Iraq war plans from day one, we get to see how well Murtha performs with simple legislative plans. Thank god he’s not running a real war. Just a war against Republicans. How lucky are we?
Choose your friends wisely, and choose your enemies even wisely-ier… as I always say.
Murtha’s credentials as a Marine combat veteran, a critic of the war and close ally of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) were supposed to make him an unassailable spokesman for Democratic war policy. Instead, he has become a lightning rod for criticism from Republicans and members of his own party.
…The story of Murtha’s star-crossed plan illustrates the Democratic Party’s deep divisions over the Iraq war and how the new House majority has yet to establish firm control over Congress. From the beginning, Murtha acted on his own to craft a complicated legislative strategy on the war, without consulting fellow Democrats. When he chose to roll out the details on a liberal, antiwar Web site on Feb. 15, he caught even Pelosi by surprise while infuriating Democrats from conservative districts. ~washingtonpost.com
This illustrates several things.
- Democrats did not win 2006 with a leftist mandate. They won with conservative Democrats in conservative districts. (Think vulnerability.)
- Murtha is an idiot.
- Abscam.
Ok, I threw the Abscam in there as a reminder of this guy’s shakey morals. Murtha is no hero.
Democrats plans are focused solely on domestic politics. They care nothing for the war on terror.
What’s even more terrifying is the propensity of the left to side with our enemies and against our own western liberal society. Witness Ken Livingston hero of the looney left:
LONDON–The other day Ken Livingstone, the mayor of my hometown of London, organized a conference on Islam and the West. It was a carefully rigged affair in which handpicked speaker after handpicked speaker stood up and announced that the democracies were to blame for the tidal wave of murder sweeping the world. ~opinionjournal.com
Update 2/26/07
Another source story: House Democrats Split on Murtha’s Iraq Plan
Great analysis, particularly this:
Just because national Democrats, and congressional candidates in left-leaning districts, were fuming about Iraq doesn’t mean the entire nation supports the Cindy Sheehan view of geopolitics. Democrats ran conservative candidates in those districts where it was necessary. But these “Blue Dogs” have no power in Washington; the power is reserved for true believers like Pelosi and Murtha. Bait and switch, indeed.
Nick Kasoff
Exactly Nick. And yet the spin from the left and, I’m afraid to say, from the media, has been that Dems have a mandate to end the war by any means necessary.
Of course, when Republicans held congress year after year there were no mandates, just an anomoly.