California Conservative

Based on this AP article, it looks like Senate Democrats are floating their own ’slow bleed’ trial balloon. Here’s the details of their trial balloon:

While these officials said the precise wording of the measure remains unsettled, one draft would restrict American troops in Iraq to combating al-Qaida, training Iraqi army and police forces, maintaining Iraq’s territorial integrity and otherwise proceeding with the withdrawal of combat forces.

I suspect that this is the Senate following through on Carl Levin’s statement that they were going to modify the AUMF that was passed in October, 2002. The good news for Democrats is that this option is constitutionally solid. The bad news is that they’ve got to get it past a Republican filibuster. If they do that, then they’ve got to get the House to approve it in a vote. If they pass those hurdles, then they’ve got to hope that the President doesn’t veto it.

In other words, this modified AUMF wouldn’t stand a snowball’s prayer in hell of going into effect. I suspect that Senate Democrats don’t want anything to do with Murtha’s original slow bleed legislation. I further suspect that they want to be seen doing something by their anti-war allies as doing something substantive without really doing anything.

Another danger for Democrats is that a piece of defeatist legislation like this is that it’s likely to push Joe Lieberman into the Republican Party. As I pointed out here, Lieberman has made it clear that his loyalty to the Democrats isn’t unlimited. Here’s what he told the Politico’s Carrie Budoff:

“I have no desire to change parties,” Lieberman said in a telephone interview. “If that ever happens, it is because I feel the majority of Democrats have gone in a direction that I don’t feel comfortable with.”

Asked whether that hasn’t already happened with Iraq, Lieberman said: “We will see how that plays out in the coming months,” specifically how the party approaches the issue of continued funding for the war. He suggested, however, that the forthcoming showdown over new funding could be a deciding factor that would lure him to the Republican Party.

Lieberman knows that this legislation is simply another way of making defeat inevitable, something that I’m certain he won’t stand for.

These observations are based on the Democrats writing a modified AUMF. If they attach these conditions to an appropriations bill, then the conditions could be construed as micromanaging the war, something that the President could ignore after signing the supplemental appropriation.

Another curious thing in the article are these sections:

Any attempt to limit Bush’s powers as commander in chief would likely face strong opposition from Republican allies of the administration in the Senate and could also face a veto threat.
——————–
Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said she expects the next challenge to Bush’s war policies to come in the form of legislation requiring the Pentagon to adhere to strict training and readiness standards in the case of troops ticketed for the war zone. Rep. John Murtha, (D-PA), the leading advocate of that approach, has said it would effectively deny Bush the ability to proceed with the troop buildup that has been partially implemented since he announced it in January.

David Espo doesn’t mention that these ‘options’ might be unconstitutional. Either Mr. Espo doesn’t know that they’re unconstitutional or he doesn’t care that they’re unconstitutional. Neither option paints a flattering picture of Mr. Espo or for his editors. Every blogger who’s commented on the Murtha slow bleed appropriations plan has said that his plan aims at micromanaging the war, something that the Constitution explicitly prohibits.

Something is very apparent. Rush said today that “Democrats own defeat.” Here’s the key portion of his monologue on the subject:

[RUSH:] Remember Senator Schumer gleefully talking about how the Democrats are going to recreate Vietnam? They’re going to flood the administration with resolution after resolution after resolution. What was Vietnam? It was a loss for America. Schumer gleeful, Democrats happy, they want to recreate Vietnam where we lost and millions of innocent people died. You want to know what will happen in Iraq if we pull out of there as we did in Vietnam? Check Cambodia, check South Vietnam. The Democrats, in addition, were shellacked in elections for years, despite Watergate. Jimmy Carter was it for them after Vietnam until Bill Clinton came along in 1993, when he was inaugurated. Yet they look at this as a moment of greatness in their past. How convoluted can this be? The only thing I can think is that their desire to recreate a Vietnam out of Iraq is that they think that Vietnam and the way they prosecuted that forced Nixon eventually out of office, which they would love to do to George W. Bush.
But here’s the thing. As much as the left and the Democrat Party will try to pin this on Bush or the Republicans, it won’t work. Schumer and these Democrat candidates have staked out positions that they will rue. Mark my word and take comfort in what I’m telling you. Their words today, just as their words back in Vietnam, will be their undoing tomorrow. The American people do not like genocide. The American people don’t like the nut job who runs Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The American people don’t like Hezbollah. The American people don’t like Palestinian terrorists. They resent Americans who do end up supporting these terrorist groups. These groups, groups like Hezbollah and the Palestinian terrorists will be empowered if we leave Iraq. And, of course, the enemy will have gained territory, the enemy will have gained resources and momentum, the likes of which they could never have dreamed, and it will all have been handed to them by the Democrats, if the Democrats succeed in getting us to defeat ourselves in Iraq.

Rush is right. Democrats will rue the day that they embarked on this risky strategy. The greatness of America lies in its ability to rise to whatever challenge it faces. Our generations are steeped in a tradition of overcoming whatever obstacle is put in our way. That’s why Reagan saw America as that spectacular “shining city on a hill.” We’ve been blessed with an attitude that says “We’ve overcome greater obstacles before. We’ll do it again.” Democrats don’t understand that. Therefore, they’re placing themselves on the wrong side of the American people.

We see them taking the wrong side on issue after issue. When reporters talk about how we’ve mistreated terrorists and pundits tell the American people that our policies have fanned the flames of jihad, they might as well be telling their audience that we’re inherently evil. The American people know better.

Technorati Tags: John Murtha, Carl Levin, Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, Defeatocrats, Jihadists, Ahmadinejad, Joe Lieberman, Rush Limbaugh, Election 2008

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

This entry was posted on Friday, February 23rd, 2007 at 1:42 am and is filed under Author: Gary Gross, Election 2008, Foreign Policy, Iraq, Military, Pelosi, Special Interests, Terrorism, W. 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.