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On Iraq, Dems in Disarray
By TimChapman
Dec 5, 2005
Iraq. This was supposed to be the issue that united the Democrats. It was supposed to be the ticket to the promised land of majority status.
Instead, it is proving to be anything but.
Weeks ago previously unknown Pennsylvania Congressman Jack Murtha, a decorated military veteran, proposed immediate troop withdrawal from Iraq. Initially, Democratic Party leaders like Pelosi did not embrace the plan. A vote was held on the notion and it failed miserably in the House of Representatives.
Weeks later, Murtha is still pushing his proposal and now Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has embraced the plan even though one of her top lieutenants, Steny Hoyer opposes the idea.
By making it official, Nancy Pelosi may have given the GOP an early Christmas present. As Bill Kristol points out, prior to the Pelosi decision Democrats looked to be in good shape to do well at the polls in 2006 – perhaps well enough to retake the House. Now, Pelosi's miscalculation, whether she likes it or not, will speak for her entire party to a certain extent.
Meanwhile, on the Senate side of the Capitol, Democratic Senators are having their own issues. Failed 2004 Presidential candidate John Kerry continues to insist on being his party's messenger. After President Bush's Iraq speech last week, Reid had tapped RI Senator Jack Reed to give the rebuttal, but Kerry would have none of it, and worked his way on the air to deliver a terribly muddled rebuttal devoid of direction and consistency. His rebuttal was so bad, even the Party's grassroots activists have run out of patience. They know he is the wrong messenger, no matter what veteran credentials Kerry plays up.
All the while, Hillary Clinton, the presumed 2008 frontrunner is hedging her bets. Correctly sensing that the American people, while tiring of war, are not cut from the "cut and run" cloth that so many of her colleagues are, Hillary assumes a hawkish stance with her eyes on the prize – 2008. But in the next breath, Clinton bashes anything and everything the Administration does in Iraq – she has her cake and eats it too.
And then there is Lieberman. Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman stands virtually alone in the Democratic Party right now as a voice of moderation and reason. While his colleagues are bashing the war effort, he actually went to Iraq to see for himself the work being done by our troops on the ground. What he found, he liked. Lieberman's message: "Stay the course, have patience, we are doing the right thing, don't politicize this effort…" Lieberman must be a lonely man in the party of Moveon (a name that is more apt now than ever before).
It's not just the politicians who can't come up with a unified message either. In today's Washington Post we learn that the Democratic foreign policy elite are all over the map in regards to coalescing around a unified Iraq policy. As a result, a viable Democratic alternative does not exist.
Find this story at: http://www.townhall.com/blogs/capitolreport/TimChapman/story/2005/12/05/177827.html
By TimChapman
Dec 5, 2005
Iraq. This was supposed to be the issue that united the Democrats. It was supposed to be the ticket to the promised land of majority status.
Instead, it is proving to be anything but.
Weeks ago previously unknown Pennsylvania Congressman Jack Murtha, a decorated military veteran, proposed immediate troop withdrawal from Iraq. Initially, Democratic Party leaders like Pelosi did not embrace the plan. A vote was held on the notion and it failed miserably in the House of Representatives.
Weeks later, Murtha is still pushing his proposal and now Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has embraced the plan even though one of her top lieutenants, Steny Hoyer opposes the idea.
By making it official, Nancy Pelosi may have given the GOP an early Christmas present. As Bill Kristol points out, prior to the Pelosi decision Democrats looked to be in good shape to do well at the polls in 2006 – perhaps well enough to retake the House. Now, Pelosi's miscalculation, whether she likes it or not, will speak for her entire party to a certain extent.
Meanwhile, on the Senate side of the Capitol, Democratic Senators are having their own issues. Failed 2004 Presidential candidate John Kerry continues to insist on being his party's messenger. After President Bush's Iraq speech last week, Reid had tapped RI Senator Jack Reed to give the rebuttal, but Kerry would have none of it, and worked his way on the air to deliver a terribly muddled rebuttal devoid of direction and consistency. His rebuttal was so bad, even the Party's grassroots activists have run out of patience. They know he is the wrong messenger, no matter what veteran credentials Kerry plays up.
All the while, Hillary Clinton, the presumed 2008 frontrunner is hedging her bets. Correctly sensing that the American people, while tiring of war, are not cut from the "cut and run" cloth that so many of her colleagues are, Hillary assumes a hawkish stance with her eyes on the prize – 2008. But in the next breath, Clinton bashes anything and everything the Administration does in Iraq – she has her cake and eats it too.
And then there is Lieberman. Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman stands virtually alone in the Democratic Party right now as a voice of moderation and reason. While his colleagues are bashing the war effort, he actually went to Iraq to see for himself the work being done by our troops on the ground. What he found, he liked. Lieberman's message: "Stay the course, have patience, we are doing the right thing, don't politicize this effort…" Lieberman must be a lonely man in the party of Moveon (a name that is more apt now than ever before).
It's not just the politicians who can't come up with a unified message either. In today's Washington Post we learn that the Democratic foreign policy elite are all over the map in regards to coalescing around a unified Iraq policy. As a result, a viable Democratic alternative does not exist.
Find this story at: http://www.townhall.com/blogs/capitolreport/TimChapman/story/2005/12/05/177827.html
