Quote of the day

From the San Franistan fishwrap:

Democratic Senate leaders knew going into Wednesday's procedural roll call on their proposal to withdraw most U.S. forces from Iraq that they didn't have the votes to win, but victory wasn't their goal.

What else is new?

Left wants withdrawal from Afghanistan

I wonder what took them so long? Anywho, Allahpundit breaks it down:

A.k.a. home of the “real” war on terror, the good fight that the left had been spoilin’ to win before Bush went and distracted them with that “fake” war that’s killed ten times as many troops. “You don’t hear people saying, ‘We need to get out of Afghanistan,’” declares Russ Feingold, followed immediately by a bunch of people saying we need to get out of Afghanistan.

Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii), a senior defense authorizer, wants the U.S. out of Afghanistan immediately, calling operations there “futile” in trying to effect political change in a country with a tangled history…

“There is no useful purpose for our troops there,” Abercrombie stated in a recent interview. “The military should withdraw now,” he said, though he stressed that the U.S. could keep “isolated pockets” of special operators.

Instead of using the military to effect political change, the U.S. should have a complete diplomatic re-engagement in the region, “with an understanding that our role there should change,” Abercrombie added…

Rep. Diane Watson (D-Calif.), a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee and a staunch opponent of the war in Iraq, said that it is time for the U.S. military to start leaving Afghanistan and the Middle East altogether.

“We are not securing America by being there,” she pressed. “The longer we are there, the more plots start growing in our country.”…

Meanwhile, several anti-war members, including Reps. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.), Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), stress that any troop withdrawal from Afghanistan is inextricably linked to the military’s first leaving Iraq.

“I’d like to get out of Iraq first and look at Afghanistan and if it does not work … we should be impatient,” Woolsey said, adding that she is not prepared to give a timeline for withdrawal. “There was a reason [for being] there, but now we really need to reassess what we are accomplishing. It depends on what our mission is in Afghanistan; if our mission is to find Osama bin Laden, that is one thing.”

It’ll be darkly amusing watching the Democratic leadership try to be Afghan hawks and Iraq doves simultaneously, on the one hand demanding a troop presence in Kabul to prop up the fledgling Afghan government while on the other demanding withdrawal from Baghdad so that we don’t have to prop up the fledgling Iraqi government. The difference, you see, is that Iraq’s in a hopeless civil war whereas the suicide bombs and guerrilla raids in Afghanistan by Taliban Afghans and Pakistanis is...a minor rebellion? Let’s call it an insurgency. Actually, the real difference is that Al Qaeda’s leadership is in Afghanistan, not in Iraq … although it’s actually not in Afghanistan at all, but in Pakistan, and of course top AQ leaders have been seen, and even caught, in Iraq. Maybe the difference is that Iraq has become a magnet for jihadis from around the region whereas Afghanistan is still basically a closed theater. Or maybe not.

It seems there’s still quite a lot of nuance to be parsed here. They’ll figure it out.

Murtha says he’s not ready to throw in the towel yet because we still have “a chance” of winning but he’s going to revisit the issue in September when they take up the next war supplemental. A sneak preview from the mind that brought us the Okinawa redeployment plan: “We should have never gone to Iraq, because we would have been out of Afghanistan [by now].” QED.

"The longer we are there, the more plots start growing in our country." Because, you know, no such plots existed before we went in there or anything, right?

Al Qaeda cites Democrats as allies

Well, at least we know who Al Qaeda likes. But don't think the Dems are soft on security or anything, just because the AQ camelhumpers like them! From Ace:

Above the Fold Update: Al Qaeda knows who its allies are.

Mohamad al-Janabi, a reputed al-Qaeda member in the nearby city of Salman Pak, said in a interview that he was unable to contact his comrades in Mahmudiyah to determine whether they were responsible for the attack.

But he added: "I can assure you that we will start pressuring Bush in a new way at the same time he is facing pressures from the Democrats and the American people. And there will be no problem to sacrifice 10 soldiers in order to abduct a single American soldier and get him on television screens begging for us to release him."

Notice Al Qaeda is not pressuring us to stay, which is odd, because I keep being told that Al Qaeda loves having American troops in Iraq and Bush is "playing right into their hands."

I don't think this is going to have the effect Al Qaeda seeks. It's getting harder and harder for the media to pretend that Al Qaeda isn't the major source of violence and terrorism in Iraq -- and the biggest cause of US troop deaths -- and they're going to have a hard time avoiding using the words "Al Qaeda" when they run these tapes.

Question: Would these tapes be considered a "coordinated" media buy for the Democrats under McCain-Feingold? Will the FEC investigate?

Maybe that's the way to get the media remotely perturbed at Al Qaeda -- we can sell them on the idea that "Al Qaeda is swift-boating Iraq." They really do seem to despise "swift-boating."

Consequences of losing in Iraq

OK, so I'm doing back-to-back posts dealing with defeatism and Iraq. So sue me. Besides, this is important. Thanks to Kanaka Girl for alerting me to this. Full column here (please read it), excerpts follow:

If Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is right, nearly 60 percent of Americans agree with him that the war in Iraq is already lost. And if he is correct in saying that losing the war will increase Democrat majorities in future elections, then it may be fair to conclude that Americans now love losers. I'm not buying any of it -- and neither are the troops who are fighting this war.

In the days since Reid announced "this war is lost," I have heard from dozens of the soldiers, sailors, airmen, Guardsmen and Marines that I have covered in eight trips to Iraq and two to Afghanistan for FOX News. Some of those who correspond with me are there now, others are home. Some are preparing to deploy again. None of them agree with Reid's assessment.

Now I did go to Florida State, but if my remedial math class served me well, I infer that the "dozens" who disagreed with Reid's defeatism outnumber the seven that Vince N. purportedly heard from who agree with Reid. To quote my liberal visitor: "I'll take their word over any statistic I see any day."

Continuing:

What would losing the war in Iraq mean? It's a picture so dark and depressing that it makes the collapse in Vietnam, 32 years ago next week, look like a Sunday school picnic. The fall of Saigon was horrific for the people of Vietnam and their neighbors in Cambodia and Laos. More than 5 million became refugees and by the most conservative estimates at least a million others perished.

For most Americans, the consequences were minimal. The vast majority of the 2.8 million of us who had fought and bled there mourned the loss of 58,253 of our comrades, swallowed the bitterness of defeat and got on with our lives. Our nation spent a few hundred million tax dollars on refugee relief and resettlement, and tried to forget what people in Reid's party called "the long nightmare of Vietnam."

But classified U.S. intelligence assessments, military contingency plans and staff studies evaluating the consequences of a precipitous U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, coupled with the lack of funding for political reform measures, as contained in the legislation just passed by Reid's party, paint a far more dismal picture than anything that happened after Vietnam.

(Intel's retreat consequences here...READ IT! - Ed.)

Reid and his cohorts in Congress who believe "this war is lost" have acted to ensure that it will be. No one asked them: "If we lost, who won?" The answer should be obvious.

It's a simple question, folks: If we lose in Iraq, then who wins? Answer: Al Qaeda...and the Democrats. That's a damning testament as to whose best interests the Dems are serving.

Lowry commends Reid's honesty

As I mentioned before, and Rich Lowry echoes, Harry Reid didn't say anything that his party doesn't truly believe. From Lowry:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had a bright, shining moment of honesty when he said that the war in Iraq is lost.
He unburdened himself of what he and many of his colleagues have long believed about the war. Now if only Democrats saw fit to continue with their truthtelling. Then they would acknowledge that their mandate for a U.S. withdrawal beginning in October is a policy predicated on our defeat, and that they don’t think anything can or should be done about Iran and al Qaeda feasting on a prostrate Iraq and the country possibly descending into genocidal bloodletting.

This position would be unimpeachably logical. It would accept, in the words Reid has repeated a lot lately, “facts and reality,” as Democrats see them. One could strenuously disagree with this position but still see a certain honor in its frankness and internal consistency.

Democrats, of course, are doing nothing of the kind. Instead, after Reid’s “lost” comment, they retreated back into their fog of evasion, contradictions, and groan-inducing implausibilities. The party of defeat has a deep identity crisis because it can’t admit what it is, and thus lives a life of dishonesty and unconvincing denial. (Such dishonesty and deception isn't unique to Iraq, since Dems are dishonest about their true feelings on a lot of issues they know are rejected by normal America. - Ed.)

Reid didn’t disavow his remark, but his spokesman said that in the future he will “couch it more.” Sen. Dianne Feinstein said that Reid had “more a problem of tone rather than of substance.” Democrats therefore have resolved themselves to find euphemisms for the word “lost.” Their current favorite is “there is no military solution in Iraq.”

Asked about his “lost” comment on CNN, Reid said, “I agree with Gen. Petraeus,” because Petraeus has said only part of the war is military. Saying that the war is multifaceted, however, bears no relation to the proposition that it is lost. Pressed on as to what message it sends to the troops to tell them the war is unwinnable, Reid said, “Gen. Petraeus has told them that.” Really? Reid apparently inhabits an alternate reality created by his need to weasel his way out of his own convictions on the war.

Reid doesn’t want to hear it if Petraeus has anything positive to say about the war. “I don’t believe him,” Reid said of Petraeus’s reports of progress. This is not surprising. Like many Democrats, Reid has a faith in defeat that is impervious to all contrary evidence. Acknowledging any fluidity in conditions in Iraq — say, how our position has improved in Anbar province in recent months — is to tacitly admit the folly of making final statements about defeat or victory. So Reid fixates on exactly the indicator that al Qaeda in Iraq wants him to — the spectacular suicide bombings meant to undermine our will.

To compensate for giving up on this war, Democrats conjure an imaginary Iraq War to which they will be utterly committed and which we will fight until glorious victory. That is the war we supposedly will fight against al Qaeda in Iraq — after, of course, we withdraw our troops and hand over the Anbar and Diyala provinces to it. Sen. Chuck Schumer, in Reid cleanup mode, says then we’ll be wondrously positioned to go “after an al-Qaida camp that might arise in Iraq.” Might? We already are engaged in a fight with al Qaeda in Iraq now — to keep it from stoking a full-scale sectarian war and from taking over swathes of Iraq — but the Democrats think that we’ve lost it.

“No one wants us to succeed in Iraq more than the Democrats,” Reid maintains. What a pathetic canard. As if believing a war is lost has no effect on your will to succeed in it. Reid might have been right if he had said the past tense, “wanted.”

Democrats are under no obligation to think the war can be won. But they should feel obliged to their consciences and voters to be forthright about what they believe. Waiting for them to do that seems the real lost cause.

Notice that when Reid thinks he hears Gen. Petraeus say the war is lost, he believes him...but when the same Gen. Petraeus says there is progress in Iraq, Reid doesn't believe him. Why, if I didn't know any better, I'd swear that Reid is believing only what he wants to hear! I know, I know...that's just crazy talk.

The left is just too heavily invested in defeat to concede progress or acknowledge victories that occur along the way. They're like compulsive gamblers who keep pumping their coins into the same slot machine because they just know it's going to pay off any minute now.

Moonbat Murtha: Failure to compromise is an impeachable offense

Failure to compromise is a "high crime and misdemeanor"? I learn something new everyday, and from a moonbat no less! From Hot Air:

Video clip here

Rep. John Murtha suggested the possibility of impeachment to “influence” the President to “compromise” over funding for Iraq. Is it just me or does John Murtha sound like Vito Corleone? Does Murtha not know he is talking about impeaching the President of the United States because he is not compromising with the will of the far-left of Congress? That’s neither a high crime nor even a misdemeanor, which are the behaviors that are supposed to trigger impeachment. Murtha’s suggestion is outside the bounds of what Congress is supposed to do to influence the behavior of a sitting president, to say the least.

But then again, Jack “Abscam” Murtha has never been one to hold the law in high regard.

Earlier this month, Bryan wrote about Murtha receiving calls from his constituents telling him to impeach President Bush.

Transcript:

BOB SCHIEFFER: Are you seriously talking about contemplating an impeachment of this President?

MURTHA: What I’m saying is there are four ways to influence a President.

SCHIEFFER: — and that’s one of them?

MURTHA: [unintelligible] and the fourth one is –

SCHIEFFER: — that’s an option that’s on the table?

MURTHA: I’m just saying that’s one way to influence the President.

Sure, that will influence the prez: "Sir, go along with us or we'll impeach you!" That would go over like a fart in church, I imagine.

Al Qaeda quoting Reid's defeatism

You lefties can spin this all you like, but the inescapable conclusion is that Harry Reid, the Senate Majority Leader of the United States, has emboldened Al Qaeda, who is the greatest enemy to America today (and yes, moonbats, they are more of an enemy than George Bush!).

From Weasel Zippers:

Islamic State Of Iraq: The Cross Worshippers And Their Henchmen Plans Have Collapsed Apr 25, 2007 By Ubaidah Al-Saif, Jihad Unspun Arabic Source: Al-Fajr Media As usual, this was followed by a swift visit by the new (American) Defense Minister “Gates” who said, “The American support to the Maliki government is not unlimited”, insinuating that the American administration is impatient with the Maliki government that is incapable of handling the strikes of the Mujahideen. This comes on the heels of an important statement by House Majority Leader (sic) Harry Reid who previously said, “The Iraqi war is hopeless and the situation in Iraq is same as it was in Vietnam.”

Will someone explain to me how Reid's actions don't meet the Constitution's definition of "treason"?

Lieberman blasts Senate's Iraqi Surrender Bill

Joe wastes his time by using facts. Excerpt from NRO:

My colleague from Nevada (Reid - Ed.), in other words, is suggesting that the insurgency is being provoked by the very presence of American troops. By diminishing that presence, then, he believes the insurgency will diminish.

But I ask my colleagues—where is the evidence to support this theory? Since 2003, and before General Petraeus took command, U.S. forces were ordered on several occasions to pull back from Iraqi cities and regions, including Mosul and Fallujah and Tel’Afar and Baghdad. And what happened in these places? Did they stabilize when American troops left? Did the insurgency go away?

On the contrary—in each of these places where U.S. forces pulled back, Al Qaeda rushed in. Rather than becoming islands of peace, they became safe havens for terrorists, islands of fear and violence.

So I ask advocates of withdrawal: on what evidence, on what data, have you concluded that pulling U.S. troops out will weaken the insurgency, when every single experience we have had since 2003 suggests that this legislation will strengthen it?

Joe, you've been a Democrat long enough to know that your guys don't ever need evidence to support anything. Evidence gets in the way of feelings.

Dems backing off from Reid's "war is lost" sentiment

Sure, they believe the war is lost. But they're not completely stupid. They don't want to be portrayed (accurately, I might add) as being anti-troop, and Marines like Pat Dollard calling out Reid certainly doesn't bolster the left's facade of "supporting the troops". From Politico:

Several leading Democrats said this week that they did not agree with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's recent statement that "the war is lost" in Iraq, even while they support his broader message.

But they did agree that Reid's wording was clumsy and potentially damaging. Even the Nevada Democrat himself appeared to be backing away from his remark.

Jim Manley, Reid's spokesman, said earlier that the "war is lost" comment was not in Reid's prepared text for the news conference last Thursday. But from now on, Manley said, the senator will "couch it more": The mission in Iraq is not working and must be changed.

Must have been a Kerryesque "botched joke" (which, coincidentally, also maligned the troops), right? Continuing:

Democrats have long tried to shed their image of being soft on national defense. Recent polls suggest they are making strides, showing that more voters trust congressional Democrats than they do the president to handle the situation in Iraq.

But statements such as Reid's -- while delighting those who have turned against the war -- provided Republicans an opportunity to shift focus from the merits of President Bush's Iraq war strategy to the level of support from Democrats for the troops.

If the Democrats would spend a fraction of the time coming up with a non-defeatist strategy of their own, instead of poormouthing our fine soldiers, then such efforts by the GOP to portray them (accurately, I might add) as being soft on defense would fail worse than Ted Kennedy at sobriety. Continuing:

None of almost a dozen Democrats contacted by The Politico said they agreed with Reid's statement. Instead, they support what they believed was his overall theme: The war cannot be won militarily, and the president must adjust his strategy. They just wouldn't have said it as Reid did.
...
Some launched into Clintonesque explanations.

"I think it depends entirely on what your definition of 'lost' means. That sounded familiar, didn't it?" former senator John Edwards, a Democratic presidential candidate, said to laughter on Ed Schultz's radio talk show Monday. "What I mean is, I don't think there is winning or losing in Iraq. There is certainly no military victory if it's used in that regard. The only way there can be security and peace on the ground in Iraq is for there to be a political solution."

We can always rely on the left to complicate simple terms like "sex", "is", and "lost", can't we? Nicely done, Silky Pony.

Finally, this nugget:

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) deflected the question, saying that the war was never defined and that his 2002 vote should not have been construed as a green light to invade Iraq.

Right. You voted to authorize the president to go to war, then you have the nerve to tell us that your vote shouldn't have been construed as a vote to go to war. Bubba and Silky Pony might be able to get away with such creative word-mangling, but you can't, Harkin.

Marine not feeling the Dems' love

If the left purports to "support the troops", they aren't very good at showing it. This Marine seems to, shall we say, vehemently disagree with "douche" Harry Reid's assessment that the war in Iraq is "lost". From Pat Dollard:

yeah and i got a qoute for that douche harry reid. these families need us here. obviously he has never been in iraq. or atleast the area worth seeing. the parts where insurgency is rampant and the buildings are blown to pieces. we need to stay here and help rebuild. if iraq didnt want us here then why do we have IP’s voluntering everyday to rebuild their cities. and working directly with us too. same with the IA’s. it sucks that iraqi’s have more patriotism for a country that has turned to complete shit more than the people in america who drink starbucks everyday. we could leave this place and say we are sorry to the terrorists. and then we could wait for 3,000 more american civilians to die before we say “hey thats not nice” again. and the sad thing is after we WIN this war. people like him will say he was there for us the whole time.

Semper Fi, sir. Please be aware that most of us do not share Senator Douche's anti-soldier defeatist sentiments.

Dems see mandate in giving terrorists rights

No, by "mandate", I am not talking about Barney Frank's weekend plans. From the Washington comPost:

Despite the [veto] threats, Democratic lawmakers expect to open new fronts against the president when they return from their spring recess, including politically risky efforts to quickly close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; reinstate legal rights for terrorism suspects; and rein in what Democrats see as unwarranted encroachments on privacy and civil liberties allowed by the USA Patriot Act.
"I suppose there's always a risk of going too far," said House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.), "but the risk of not going is far greater."

Backed by a unified party and fresh from a slew of legislative victories, Democratic leaders appear to believe there is hardly any territory they cannot stray onto, a development that has Republican political operatives gleeful and some Democrats worried. Rep. Tom Cole (Okla.), chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, warned of a "political price" at the polls: "If they let their constituents and their ideology drive them past the point where the American people are comfortable, they will find how quickly the voters will react."

This is what the Dems think the American people put them in power for? Yeah, sure, the message from November 2006 from the electorate was loud and clear: "We will NOT sleep until al Qaeda gets creature comforts and access to the John Edwardses of the world!"

Apparently, Dem advisers who aren't fitted for tinfoil hats see the potential perils with this absurd track:

Leon E. Panetta, who was a top White House aide when President Bill Clinton pulled himself off the mat through repeated confrontations with Congress, sees the same risk. He urged Democrats to stick to their turf on such issues as immigration, health care and popular social programs, and to prove they can govern.

"That's where their strength is," Panetta said. "If they go into total confrontation mode on these other things, where they just pass bills and the president vetoes them, that's a recipe for losing seats in the next election."

And Dems wonder why they have a reputation as being pansies on national security?

That's your House Speaker

Some of you may have seen this late last week, so my apologies for weighing in on it now. The VP had a slight problem with the Murtha-Pelosi "cut and run...er, redeploy 5000 miles away from the war zone...or the money's gone" plan, and replied to their idea thusly:

"I think if we were to do what Speaker Pelosi and Congressman Murtha are suggesting, all we will do is validate the al-Qaida strategy," the vice president told ABC News. "The al-Qaida strategy is to break the will of the American people ... try to persuade us to throw in the towel and come home, and then they win because we quit."

In other words, Al Qaeda's stated strategy has been to break the will of the American public, and the Pelosi-Murtha plan would, in his opinion, achieve that goal (perhaps, or not, unwittingly).

So how did the nation's first female Speaker respond? Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

Pelosi, at a news conference in San Francisco, said Cheney's criticism of Democrats was "beneath the dignity of the debate we're engaged in and a disservice to our men and women in uniform, whom we all support."
...
"And you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to call the president and tell him I disapprove of what the vice president said," Pelosi said. "It has no place in our debate."

Nothing says "I'm a serious leader and I demand respect!" quite like whining like a bitch and running to go tattle-tale on the mean ol' Veep.

As Reverse Vampyr observes:

Typical liberalism.

Claim to support the troops.

Attempt to insure America's (and therefore, Bush's) defeat.

Shame any opposition into silence.

Act insulted that their patriotism might be in question.
...
The only thing she forgot to do was claim that Murtha's defeatist plan was "for the children."

The VP may not have questioned her patriotism, but I damned sure do.

The Jackass Party, drunk with their new power, is weary of publicly supporting Murtha's plan

Depends on the meaning of the word "bipartisan", plus a House Resolution parody

An analysis of Clintonesque word-parsing by Stuart Rothenberg:

Moments after the House voted against President Bush's additional deployment of troops to Iraq - the so-called surge, if you are for it or trying to be neutral, or the so-called escalation, if you are opposed to it - House Democrats sent out a flurry of e-mails crowing about the "bipartisan" support for it.

House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel's release was titled, "Emanuel Statement on Bipartisan Approval of Iraq Resolution," while House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer's was headlined an only slightly different, "Bipartisan Majority in U.S. House Votes Against the President's Plan to Escalate the War in Iraq."

On the House floor, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, staying true to her party's talking points, also referred to the resolution as "bipartisan."

In fact, support for the Iraq resolution was bipartisan only in the technical sense that the vote on the resolution was not completely along party lines. But it was awfully close to that, and referring to the final vote as bipartisan has more to do with Democratic strategy and nervousness than reality.

Only 17 Republicans - or 8.4% of GOP House members - joined 225 Democrats in voting for the resolution, while over 90% of Republicans opposed passage of the resolution. Republicans constituted just 7% of the 242 House members who supported the resolution. Only two House Democrats voted with 185 Republicans against the resolution. (Using Pe-loose-screw's "logic", doesn't the fact that two Democrats voted against the resolution mean that the vote against the resolution was also "bipartisan"? - Ed.)

Democrats had enough votes to pass the resolution without any GOP support, and given national polls showing widespread dissatisfaction with the Bush policy, just 17 Republican votes for the resolution is stunningly small, and little or no indication of a bipartisan consensus.

Clearly, the vote on the resolution was very much partisan, though with a handful of defections. We can argue over what would constitute a truly bipartisan vote, but 92% of Republicans voting against something and 99% of Democrats voting for it surely doesn't come close to passing the threshold. By insisting, whether in a press release, in statements on the floor or in interviews after the fact, that the vote was bipartisan, Democratic leaders look silly. (Remember when former Congressman James Traficant (D-OH) was the only Democrat in the House to vote for Dennis Hastert (R-IL) to be Speaker? Could the GOP have argued that Hastert's election to House Speaker was a "bipartisan" vote? - Ed.)

But if the vote was overwhelmingly partisan, why don't Democrats just say so? What's the big deal?

The likely answer is that Democrats are trying so hard to avoid allowing Republicans to label their criticism as merely partisan that they won't even acknowledge the obvious. Instead, they are looking for any opportunity to portray their opposition to the President's policies as part of the nation's dissatisfaction with the administration's Iraq policy.

While that's understandable - one of the few ways Democrats could screw up during the next year and a half would be to appear to be basing their opposition on possible political gain and a petty desire to punish Bush politically - there is no indication that Democrats have been too aggressive in criticizing the President or his policies so far.

In fact, a partisan division over the war probably would help Democrats by further damaging the Republicans between now and next year's Presidential election. After all, if it isn't merely President Bush, but also his entire party, that supports the war and ignores public opinion, Democrats would seem to benefit.

Obviously there are a handful of high profile Republicans who have opposed the Bush policy in Iraq for a considerable time - most notably Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska in the Senate and Rep. Walter Jones of North Carolina in the House - and a number of GOP members of Congress have over the past couple of months sounded increasingly critical of Bush policies.

But the House vote demonstrates that Republicans still have not left the President's ship, even though it clearly seems to be sinking, and Democrats ought not be so wedded to their talking points' emphasis on bipartisan opposition to the war that they refer to a "bipartisan resolution" that clearly was nothing of the sort.

Considering that the House worked really hard on telling us their opinion instead of governing (an act of grandstanding), it should surprise no one that the Dems are giving us this dog-and-pony show called "bipartisanship" to go along with their vote to...do nothing.

Well, thanks to our friends at The Nose on Your Face, we see the real motivation behind the Dems' House resolution:

Publicly, the text of today’s Congressional rejection of the troop surge in Iraq appeared to be a simple 2 point resolution:

1. Congress and the American people will continue to support and protect the members of the United States Armed Forces who are serving or who have served bravely and honourably in Iraq; and

2. Congress disapproves of the decision of President George W Bush announced on January 10 2007, to deploy more than 20,000 additional United States combat troops to Iraq.

TNOYF has learned, however, that Congress included several additional points to the resolution that were not shared with the media. They are:

3. Congress asserts that, while Points 1 and 2 might appear to be contradictory, they are, in fact, not. To the soldiers in Iraq who ask how this is possible, Congress replies, it is a highly complicated, multi-layered issue which your lack of education makes it difficult for you to understand. (Thanks, John Kerry! - Ed.)

4. Congress understands that they are voting against the reinforcements wanted by the tired, exhausted mercenaries troops in Iraq. Congress wants the troops in Iraq to know that less soldiers means more extravagant perks for the soldiers already there. Congress once again shows that they support the troops. Congress requests a rousing ”Boo-Ya.”

5. Congress understands that this resolution may create feelings of sadness and underappreciation among the 20,000 troops that have been called upon for this effort. Congress wants those troops to know that they should not feel this way. Congress would prefer that they feel uncertain and confused.

6. Congress would like to give a “shout out” to the Iraq insurgency.

7. Congress understands that should the tide turn in the War in Iraq and the United States complete its mission, anyone who voted for this resolution is going to have some splainin’ to do. That is why Congress has decided that this resolution is non-binding.

Bookmark The Nose on Your Face now, or I'll have to call you names...like "you're French"!