Democrats call the President a liar, demand we cut and run, introduce bills to reinstate the draft, force closed-door sessions in the Senate… and Republicans are the ones engaging in “political theater?”

My God, they called for an actual vote! A vote, in a legislative body! Have they no souls?

Zomby, the resolution actually up for vote was setting up such a disasterous concept that even Democrats could see it, regardless of our opinions of the war.

Rep. Murtha’s resolution (you know, the one that never made it to the floor for a vote) was incredibly reasonable and only called for a withdrawal “when practicably possible” rather than the GOP version’s “immediate.”

Vast difference in the phraseology of the two resolutions.

Wrong. The “practicable” in the Murtha resolution referred to the redeployment of the troops. The actual language was less reasonable than you’d have us believe:

The deployment of United States forces in Iraq, by direction of Congress, is hereby terminated and the forces involved are to be redeployed at the earliest practicable date.

Which means, Matt, that active combat missions such as those recently run near the Syrian border would not be initiated. Hence the “terminated” clause.

Nothing in Murtha’s resolution says that if they get shot at, don’t shoot back. Or if someone blows up a bomb, don’t blow them up in response. Or even, as someone (although I forget exactly who) said something along the lines of “Drop your guns and run, boys. It’s a full retreat right now.” And nor does it say that we would not complete our obligation to train and advise the still-in-the-works Iraqi military.

Just simply an admission that our military might alone will not suffice to accomplish the mission at hand. That we need, for our own reasons, to draw back away from the front line.

Disregarding that--because, without a beer in hand, I don’t have the stamina tonight to write out my feelings on the subject, which, yes, is a bit of a copout, but it’s been a long week--my biggest issue isn’t with whether either of the ideas are good or bad. My issue is that the Democrats telegraphed a response that was patently false: vote against the resolution, regardless of merit or principle, because they didn’t like being put into a difficult situation.

Democrats said it was a political stunt and quickly decided to vote against it in an attempt to drain it of significance.

Not vote against it because it was a bad idea or because they didn’t agree with the thing, but because they wanted to drain it of political significance.

It’s sort of similar to my mental response when Bush signed McCain-Feingold while saying that he thought aspects of it were unconstitutional. He put aside his principles for the political expedience of handing the problem off to the courts. Of course, that’s a pretty slender take on the offense, but the point is that I almost fell completely off the Bush wagon because of this one move. How could someone sign into law something that they consider to be unconstitutional.

In this case, how could Democrats admit to voting against something regardless of their own personal views on the subject at hand? Something this important?

Here’s a guy (Ron Jacobs--a man who is, in most ways, the polar opposite of me politically) who expressed something pretty close to my views on the vote:

Now, excuse me if I don’t get it, but it seems to me that if one is against the war and wants to see an immediate withdrawal of US forces from Iraq, then one votes for immediate withdrawal, no matter who sponsors the legislation

And, for the record, I do believe that there can be legitimate and reasonable opposition to the war and it doesn’t bother me that the situation in Iraq has raised passions the way it does. The decision to go to war isn’t an easy one and should be subject to serious scrutiny. What bothers me deeply is an unwillingness to stand up for those principles when the potential political cost is high.

This is why I actually respected Dennis Kucinich during the run up to the election. He stuck by his anti-war stance religiously, saying precisely what he believed on the subject. Most of the rest of the pack danced around and played games with their answers to questions while Kucinich was the only truly reliable anti-war candidate. I still thought he was wrong, but damned if I didn’t respect the guy for sticking to his non-violent guns.

In this case, how could Democrats admit to voting against something regardless of their own personal views on the subject at hand? Something this important?

Simple, zomby. They recognized that this would be The Big Stick that the NRCC would use to beat them over the head with come the midterms next year. Anyone with the political awareness of a mashed turnip could sense that one coming a mile away.

And it was a Catch-22 from the start for the House Democrats. Either be on-record with a vote for a (GOP-authored) resolution supporting the withdrawal, or get hit with the old for-it-before-they-were-against-it song and dance from last year’s presidentials. With just a bit of effort, the various campaign spin machines could’ve twisted the first option in ways never before dreamed, what with all these Iraq veterans floating around these days. The second option, at least, is a known quantity, albeit htat it will be seen from different approaches due to the en masse departure from the house that Pelosi built.

So Murtha wanted combat missions immediately terminated and the Republican resolution called for combat missions to be immediately terminated. What was the difference again?

Democrats rant and rave about being lied to, about our troops dying for nothing, and scream that we need to leave NOW. When called on it, though, they won’t actually vote for it. They fall back to parsing language: “‘Practicable’ means we need to stay as long as it takes.” Which is what Bush said from the get go.

Sorry, all those he-voted-for-it-before… ads are already in the can. Now they can tack on a coda ...and-then-he-voted-for-it-again-before…

They recognized that this would be The Big Stick that the NRCC would use to beat them over the head with come the midterms next year.

And this illustrates the Democrats’ bankruptcy. Their response to this is basically, How dare you use our attempt to score political points off you, to score political points off us!?

For the Republicans it was a win-win situation, and the Democrats set it up for them.