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New Surrendercrat Strategy: Betray The Troops -- Update 5
(Multiple updates -- last update 2007.02.18.15:06.) Nutroots Spin Murtha Plan as
"Protecting the Troops" from Bush's Abuse
Greg Tinti
Crooks and Liars is giving some attention to a Daily Kos post called "Frame the Debate: The Murtha Plan Protects Troops from Bush's Recklessness," warning fellow nutroots about the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy's attempt to "frame" Murtha's plan as a cut in funding, an attempt to pull the rug out from under the troops, and a slow bleed strategy.
How should Murtha's plan be "framed" then?
[...]
Well, this DKosser is right about one thing: Murtha's plan is not an attempt at restricting funding for Iraq. And I've heard few Rethuglicans describe it that way or argue that it's an attempt to pull the rug out from under the troops.
No, what it is is an attempt to pull the rug out from under President Bush and micromanage his constitutional right as Commander in Chief. What it is is a political ploy by Democrats to attempt to force the president into losing the war while avoiding any responsibility and sparing them the political risky move cutting off funds for the Iraq war altogether. ...
Actually, Greg, Representative Sam Johnson said on the House floor Friday: The grim reality is that this House measure is the first step to cutting funding of the troops … Just ask John Murtha about his ’slow-bleed’ plan that hamstrings our troops in harm’s way.
That doesn't change the fact it's also an attempt to pull the rug out from under the Commander in Chief during a war. Whether Abe Lincoln really said it or not: “Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military are saboteurs and should be arrested, exiled, or hanged.”
See previous:
*** Good News From Iraq
Lorie Byrd
This is just a snapshot report from a short period of time, but anytime violence is down in Iraq as a result of U.S.-Iraqi strategy, it is good news and is worth passing along. It remains to be seen whether or not the trend will continue. Attacks and killings in Baghdad have dropped by 80 per cent since Iraqi and US forces launched their security plan for Baghdad, Iraqi army spokesman Qasim al-Musawi said today.
"Terror operations in Baghdad dropped by 80 per cent," since the Iraqi Government officially launched a broad plan aimed at snuffing out sectarian violence in the capital, Mr Musawi said.
"The morgue was receiving 40-50 bodies per day before and now has received only 20 in the last 48 hours," said the spokesman for Lieutenant General Abboud Gambar, who commands a joint force of Iraqi soldiers and policemen. ...
I don't know whether or not any news organizations will deem it relevant to refer to this report when reporting the non-binding resolution debate in the Congress, but I have a feeling (call it a hunch) that if violence was UP 80 percent, they would be making the connection.
*** Hillary: Sound Retreat In 90 Days, Or Else
Ed Morrissey
Hillary Clinton, stung by attacks from the Left on her vote to authorize the war in Iraq, has heeled around and now demands an immediate end to the effort. A video on her campaign web site demands that the US begin its retreat in 90 days, or else Congress will force a Constitutional showdown with George Bush: U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, the early front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, has called for a 90-day deadline to start pulling American troops from Iraq. ...
"Now it's time to say the redeployment should start in 90 days or the Congress will revoke authorization for this war," the New York senator said in a video on her campaign Web site, repeating a point included in a bill she introduced on Friday. ...
This kind of ultimatum is, I believe, completely unprecedented in American history and serves as a new low for an out-of-control Congress. ...
The worst part about it is its nakedly political purposes. ...
It's not even clear that such a demand would be Constitutional. Congress can suspend the funding for the troops, but Congress has never actually revoked an AUMF before while hostilities continued. An attempt to do so would probably meet a Presidential veto, which Congress would be unable to override. Even if it did, the White House would sue the Congress and demand a Supreme Court decision on the legality of such a move -- which would take weeks, at the least, ...
Again, watch for Joe Lieberman on this issue. He has made it clear that his loyalty to the Democrats ends at a bug-out. Hillary's demand, if pushed, may change the entire calculation in the Senate and leave Harry Reid with the title of Minority Leader. The line Lieberman drew in the sand now approaches, and Hillary apparently wants to push the Democrats far past that and over a political cliff -- and take our entire efforts against terrorism with them. ...
*** Why the Iraq war is turning into America's defeat
Mark Steyn (Hat tip: Jules C.)
The week's news from Iraq: According to the state television network, the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, Abu Ayyub al-Masri, was wounded in a clash with security forces just north of Baghdad. A senior deputy was killed.
Meanwhile, the punk cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has decided that discretion is the better part of mullahs and has temporarily relocated to Iran. ...
... Reporting the sudden relocation, the New York Times decided -- in nothing flat -- that it was yet another disastrous setback. In Iraq, no news is good news, and Sadr news is badder news: ...
"Democratic leaders have rallied around a strategy that would fully fund the president's $100 billion request for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan but would limit his ability to use the money. . . . The plan is aimed at tamping down calls from the Democrats' liberal wing for Congress to simply end funding for the war.
"The Murtha plan, based on existing military guidelines, includes a stipulation that Army troops who have already served in Iraq must be granted two years at home before an additional deployment. . . . The idea is to slowly choke off the war by stopping the deployment of troops from units that have been badly degraded by four years of combat."
So "the Murtha plan" is to deny the president the possibility of victory while making sure Democrats don't have to share the blame for the defeat. But of course he's a great American! He's a patriot! He supports the troops! He doesn't support them in the mission, but he'd like them to continue failing at it for a couple more years. As John Kerry wondered during Vietnam, how do you ask a soldier to be the last man to die for a mistake? By nominally "fully funding" a war you don't believe in but "limiting his ability to use the money." Or as the endearingly honest anti-war group MoveCongress.org put it, in an e-mail preview of an exclusive interview with the wise old Murtha:
"Chairman Murtha will describe his strategy for not only limiting the deployment of troops to Iraq but undermining other aspects of the president's foreign and national security policy."
"Undermining"? Why not? To the Slow-Bleed Democrats, it's the Republicans' war. To an increasing number of what my radio pal Hugh Hewitt calls the White-Flag Republicans, it's Bush's war. To everyone else on the planet, it's America's war. And it will be America's defeat.
*** Video: Hume smacks down Murtha;
doesn’t know “what the heck is going on in the world”
Ian Schwartz
Brit Hume smacked down John Murtha on this morning’s edition of Fox News Sunday. The Fox News host started his sizzling with “it’s time a few things be said about him.” Indeed. Continuing, Hume said Murtha is not “well informed about what’s going on over there [Iraq]” and he doesn’t have the “foggiest awareness of what the heck is going on in the world.”
Transcript: HUME: That sound bite from John Murtha suggests that it’s time a few things be said about him. Even the “Washington Post” noted he didn’t seem particularly well informed about what’s going on over there, to say the least. Look, this man has tremendous cachet among House Democrats, but he is not — this guy is long past the day when he had anything but the foggiest awareness of what the heck is going on in the world.
And that sound bite is naivete at large, and the man is an absolute fountain of such talk, and the fact that he has ascended to the position he has in the eyes of the Democrats in the House and perhaps Democrats around the country tells you a lot about how much they know or care about what’s really going on over there. ...
*** Video: Hillary says, start the pullout in 90 days — or else
Allahpundit
She can’t/won’t apologize to the left for her Iraq vote so she’s going to make it up to them on the back end. Obama wants the pullout done by March ‘08; here she one-ups him by demanding that it start by June. No particular reason why, except as a demonstration of her supposed urgency. And if Bush doesn’t comply? She’ll call on Congress to revoke the Authorization to Use Military Force, which I think would be constitutional and Captain Ed doesn’t, although we both agree it doesn’t have a hope in hell of passing with the two-thirds majority needed to override the inevitable veto (and maybe not even the 60 votes needed to invoke cloture). Which, in fact, might explain why she’s willing to push it: if the left managed to force a pullout before the surge had a fair chance to work, the GOP would accuse them of having cheated us out of victory when it was within reach. If they let it play out but push hard for doomed-to-fail withdrawal measures, they eliminate that charge while also proving their anti-war bona fides to their base. It’s an empty threat, in other words, and Hillary knows it, but it gives her what she needs at the moment. ...
*** Reid Hails Courage of Democrat Non-Binding Non-Vote
by Scott Ott
(2007-02-18) — Moments after Republicans in the senate blocked a Democrat attempt to vote on a non-binding resolution expressing disapproval of a U.S. troop surge in Iraq, Majority Leader Harry Reid hailed the non-vote as “perhaps the greatest Democrat military accomplishment of the past 40 years.”
“History will celebrate the moment that our brave new Democrat majority forced an unsuccessful cloture vote on the filibuster of a measure that would have symbolically ended the troop surge,” said Sen. Reid. “And in November 2008, when Americans go to the polls, they’ll ask themselves ‘Who stood up for our freedom to express displeasure and very nearly secured it?’.” ...
*** 
The Democrats' Dilemma
John Hinderaker
Investors Business Daily has a hard-hitting editorial denouncing the Congressional Democrats and their "slow bleed" strategy. It begins:
The party of John Murtha shamelessly seeks to defund and defeat U.S. troops on the battlefield and snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. The Congress the terrorists wanted is doing their bidding.
And that's not the hard-hitting part! More important, IBD has a poll that highlights the danger the Democrats face: [image]
The Democrats evidently believe that November's election was a mandate for them to lose in Iraq, but that's not how most Americans see it. In the end, how much this matters probably depends on events on the ground. If things go from pretty bad to worse in Iraq, the Democrats may not pay a price for their defeatism. (Of course, the "slow bleed" strategy is designed to ensure that that happens.) On the other hand, if the "surge" continues to produce results, and the voters' optimism grows, the Democrats could find themselves dangerously at odds with the public's mood.
Via Michelle Malkin.
See next: New Surrendercrat Strategy: Betray The Troops -- Update 6
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