California Conservative

I had to do a doubletake after reading that House Republicans “sought a showdown Friday with Democrats on a proposal by one of their most senior members to force an end to the U.S. deployment of troops in Iraq.” God bless them for showing the Senate GOP (I refuse to call that caucus conservative) that it’s possible to have a backbone AND be a politician. You’ve got to read this:

Rep. John Murtha, (D-PA), offered the resolution demanding a pullout. The GOP-run House was expected to reject it, and make a prominent statement about where Congress stands on Iraq, as the chamber scurried toward a Thanksgiving break. “We’ll let the members debate it and then let them vote on it,” said Rep. Roy Blunt, (R-MO), the acting majority leader. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s office had no immediate comment.

Anyone wanna bet that the usually-talkative Pelosi wants nothing more than to avoid Iraq questions at all costs? Ms. Pelosi not having a sharp-tongued response is a sure sign that she knows this is a debate she doesn’t want to have. I get the impression that she just wanted to pound Republicans with the issue and that she didn’t want any part in a debate on the merits. I’ll just give Ms. Pelosi this advice: Be careful of the debates that you start. You might just get challenged.

Here’s the telling paragraph as to what Democrats feel about the issue of retreat:

Most Republicans oppose Murtha’s plan, and even some Democrats have been reluctant to back his position. Republicans were seeking to force Democrats to stand with the respected 30-year congressman or go on the record against his proposal.

These Democrats don’t want anything to do with supporting Murtha’s proposal. They know that the minute that they support his proposal, they won’t be taken seriously by the American people.

That doesn’t matter to many in the House, where all but a handful of seats are safe seats. Where the rub comes in is if they’ve got statewide or national aspirations. You can bet that their support would be used against them, especially in red states like Ohio, Missouri, Tennessee and even in a blue state like Pennsylvania.

Here’s one last tidbit:

Some members of the House and Senate, looking ahead to off-year elections next November, are publicly worrying about a quagmire there. They have been staking out new positions on the war that has grown increasingly unpopular with the American public, resulted in more than 2,000 U.S. military deaths and cost more than $200 billion.

I ask you this: Does the AP’s reporting in this paragraph square with what the House is doing? If pulling out is the majority opinion in the United States, shouldn’t the Democrats welcome this debate? Yes, I’ll admit that congressmen and women have “been staking out new positions on the war” but I refute the part that “the war that has grown increasingly unpopular with the American public”, at least to the point that the AP is hinting at.

UPDATE:
Bryan Preston rounds up More ‘Backbone’ Blogging

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRing

This entry was posted on Friday, November 18th, 2005 at 3:35 pm and is filed under Author: Gary Gross, Elections, Foreign Policy, Military, Pelosi. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.