My favorite military and geopolitical historian, Victor Davis Hanson has written a brilliant article for NRO titled ‘The Crying Game’ that’s aptly harsh on Democrats.

“The president misled us.” “Still no WMDs.” “If I had only known then what I do now…”
This is the intellectual level of Democratic wartime criticism about the Bush administration as we near the third Iraqi election, the one that will finally give faces to the first truly elected parliamentary government in the Arab world. So what is behind this crying game at home, when we are so close to achieving our goals abroad?

Yes, Prof. Hanson, that is the ‘intellectual’ level at which the Democratic Party ‘engages’ Republicans at. Fortunately for America and the Iraqis, Republicans engage at a more intelligent level, including basing their policies and opinions on verifiable information and actual reports from military leaders.

Put another way, Democrats have chosen to debate this in terms of political expediency instead of debating it on what’s the best longterm policy for Iraqis and Americans.

My belief is that Americans are noticing the difference because of several recent events, starting with the President’s Veterans’ Day speech, then continuing with Vice President Cheney’s speech, then crystalized by John Murtha’s Retreat speech. The administration has kept the heat on ever since, pressing forward, with a special assist going to J.D. Hayworth’s insistence on a ‘put-up-or-shut-up’ vote on what I mockingly call the Murtha Doctrine. Ever since getting challenged, Murtha’s been in full-fledged, unconditional retreat from his original statements.

For the record, Murtha started off by saying that we needed to tell IRaqis that we’d be “immediately redeploying” our troops, then retreating to the position of semi-expedited troop withdrawal over the next 6 months to finally saying that his press conference was intended to start a dialogue on the issue.

With over 2,000 American dead in Iraq, the politicians think their own brilliant three-week war was ruined by George Bush’s 32-month failed reconstruction. But the Democratic establishment’s anger is even more complicated than that since it is not yet quite sure of the mood of the fickle American people.

As Dr. Hanson rightly states, Democrats haven’t shown any leadership on the policy because they’re a poll-driven political party. This fits in perfectly with what former Democratic pollster Pat Caddell once said “Democrats are for whatever is inevitable.” In other words, if they have to fight for something based on what they believe in, don’t expect a fight.

…up until now, Democrats had an embarrassing paper trail that in the era of Google searches made it hard to claim that the war was Bush’s alone and not their own. Indeed, as long as casualties were considered “tolerable” and the polls stable, most Democrats continued to talk in accordance with their own past votes and wanted to bask in the success of ending the Hussein nightmare.

In other words, they said things that they didn’t believe in wholeheartedly but agreed for political expediency. The American voting public demands more than cheap speechifying. Instead, they won’t settle for anything less than genuine leadership that’s both visionary and practical. While plenty of Americans don’t agree with Bush’s foreign policy, they know he’ll fight for what he believes in and he’ll keep them safe.

Even though no one has mentioned that we haven’t been attacked since 9/11, you can bet that the American people have noticed.

Cross-posted at BoxerWatch

1. Where do the Cut and Run Dem’s get the idea the rest of the world is stupid and that they are the smart ones. There is no evidence for this - they haven’t any new ideas for how things should be done, and they prove time and again they didn’t read or understand the pre-war intelligence. And how smart is it to not want to do whatever is necessary to protect one’s country from obvious terrorist activity? It’s about freedom and the future, stupid ones!

   Comment by Robert — November 29, 2005 @ 10:30 am