Redstate

By streiff Posted in Democrats — Comments (8) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

I’ve commented before that schadenfreude is my particular vice. So you can well imagine that today’s editorial in the Washington Post started my day off right.

Reading it one is reminded of the classic 1931 movie Frankenstein in which Dr. Frankenstein creates a monster from a hodgepodge of parts (including, jumping some decades into the future, the brain of Abby Normal) and loses control of his creation.

Read on.

Jack Murtha is a media creation. He’s a tired, scandal-stained pol who is riding the anti-war bandwagon to avoid indictment. The media has referred to Murtha as a “hawk” who somehow saw the light on Iraq. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Murtha’s hawkishness has always been limited to what was available in the appropriations trough. Back in 1993, Murtha counseled President Clinton to pull out of Somalia granting al Qaeda, according to the 9/11 Commission, a key propaganda triumph.

Murtha’s usefulness has been his military record which was used by the media, much as Kerry’s military record was used, to allow them the perceived protection of the reflection of that service.

Today the WaPo is upset because Murtha isn’t following the script. Jack Murtha is plundering though the countryside, frightening peasants and molesting the livestock.

REP. JOHN MURTHA (D-Pa.) has a message for anyone who spent the week following the House of Representatives' marathon debate on Iraq: You've been distracted by a sideshow. "We have to be careful that people don't think this is the vote," the 74-year-old congressman said of the House's 246-182 decision in favor of a resolution disapproving of President Bush's troop surge. "The real vote will come on the legislation we're putting together." That would be Mr. Murtha's plan to "stop the surge" and "force a redeployment" of U.S. forces from Iraq while ducking the responsibility that should come with such a radical step.

We'll return to Mr. Murtha's plan, but first it's worth considering the five days of debate that he so breezily dismissed. […]

The House vote does matter: It ought to increase the pressure on Mr. Bush and the Iraqi government to follow through on their pledges to accompany the military campaign with tangible steps toward political accords and economic reconstruction. […]

Unfortunately for the Post and for the nation, the buffoon they have elevated to the level of a national conscience has other plans.

Mr. Murtha has a different idea. He would stop the surge by crudely hamstringing the ability of military commanders to deploy troops. In an interview carried Thursday by the Web site MoveCongress.org, Mr. Murtha said he would attach language to a war funding bill that would prohibit the redeployment of units that have been at home for less than a year, stop the extension of tours beyond 12 months, and prohibit units from shipping out if they do not train with all of their equipment. His aim, he made clear, is not to improve readiness but to "stop the surge." So why not straightforwardly strip the money out of the appropriations bill -- an action Congress is clearly empowered to take -- rather than try to micromanage the Army in a way that may be unconstitutional? Because, Mr. Murtha said, it will deflect accusations that he is trying to do what he is trying to do. "What we are saying will be very hard to find fault with," he said.

Interestingly, they pick up on another observation that we’ve been making for about a year. Jack Murtha is a profoundly stupid man.

Mr. Murtha's cynicism is matched by an alarming ignorance about conditions in Iraq. He continues to insist that Iraq "would be more stable with us out of there," in spite of the consensus of U.S. intelligence agencies that early withdrawal would produce "massive civilian casualties." He says he wants to force the administration to "bulldoze" the Abu Ghraib prison, even though it was emptied of prisoners and turned over to the Iraqi government last year. He wants to "get our troops out of the Green Zone" because "they are living in Saddam Hussein's palace"; could he be unaware that the zone's primary occupants are the Iraqi government and the U.S. Embassy?

And finally:

It would be nice to believe that Mr. Murtha does not represent the mainstream of the Democratic Party or the thinking of its leadership. Yet when asked about Mr. Murtha's remarks Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) offered her support. Does Ms. Pelosi really believe that the debate she orchestrated this week was not "the real vote"? If the answer is yes, she is maneuvering her party in a way that can only do it harm.

And there you have it. Finally the light comes on over the head of the WaPo editorial board and they start to realize they have been thoroughly punked. They finally realize what we have been saying for months that the agenda of many in the Democrat caucus is not to force a change of strategy on the part of the Administration but rather to engineer an American defeat in Iraq and to do so without leaving fingerprints.

Now that they realize it, what will they do about it? My guess is that they will, as they have consistently in the past, slavishly fall in line and defend the monster they’ve created.