The Debate Rages On For The GOP

The New York Times today has a story regarding the GOP, and its "sudden" resurgence in the past few weeks. I wouldn't qualify that as a resurgence, per se but it is most definitely welcome. As the Times points out to its readers, they are shaping up this year to be one all about the war.

Just a few weeks ago, some Republicans were openly fretting about the war in Iraq and its effect on their re-election prospects, with particularly vulnerable lawmakers worried that its growing unpopularity was becoming a drag on their campaigns.

But there was little sign of such nervousness on Wednesday as Republican after Republican took to the Senate floor to offer an unambiguous embrace of the Iraq war and to portray Democrats as advocates of an overly hasty withdrawal that would have grave consequences for the security of the United States. Like their counterparts in the House last week, they accused Democrats of espousing "retreat and defeatism."

That emerging Republican approach reflects, at least for now, the success of a White House effort to bring a skittish party behind Mr. Bush on the war after months of political ambivalence in some vocal quarters. As President Bush offered another defense of his Iraq policy during a visit to Vienna on Wednesday, Republicans acknowledged that it was a strategy of necessity, an effort to turn what some party leaders had feared could become the party's greatest liability into an advantage in the midterm elections.

The approach might yet be upended by more problems in Iraq, as Republicans were reminded this week with reports about two American servicemen who were abducted, tortured and apparently killed. Some polls show a majority of Americans continue to think that entering Iraq was a mistake, and pollsters say independent voters are particularly open to the idea of setting some sort of timetable for withdrawal, the very policy Democrats have embraced and Republicans are now fighting.

The GOP originally set out to make this year one in which immigration reform was going to be the staple issue. Unfortunately for the nation neither house of Congress could seem to agree on the thing, so it was dropped. For the Times to state that now the GOP is starting to embrace the war seems a bit foolish to me. I know of no other predominant issue that is sitting at the forefront of anyone's mind other than the war. Daily we are bombarded by death tolls and bad news, and none of the news outelts seem fit to report on the good news overin Iraq. (While FOX does show people that there is good going on over there, it isn't enough to help change the course of the debate.)

Now we have the debate in the Senate over the Kerry/Feingold or Levin/Reed withdrawal options. Both initiatives are basically the same except that the Levin/Reed bill doesn't have a firm, set date for withdrawal. And yesterday the Republicans did stand up, and with one voice they stated decisively:

There will be no withdrawal. There will be no retreat. We will stay until the mission is over.

The Democrats, in an effort to jump on the back of polls conducted showing public support waning on the war (polls, I might add, that I don't buy. These polls are falling within the margin of error, and I can't believe that many people no longer support the mission), have jumped on the John Murtha bandwagon, and are calling for the total withdrawal of US combat troops from Iraq. They think that this year this will be their winning strategy. And what is sad is that they can't see that this idea is a loser. What I don't think they get is that while many people may have grown tired of the war, they still support the troops, and that means that they support the mission.

The Democrats can't hope to possibly win on the platform of being doves. Our enemy is brutal and exacting, as the discovery of those two servicemen in Iraq showed us this week. Not only were their throats slit, but in the A-typical, barbaric fashion, they gouged out the soldiers' eyes, as well. This is our enemy, and they are who the Democrats want us to run from. Somewhere along the way this party forgot the last time we ran from al Qaeda. It was 1993 in Somalia. And after running, the attacks simply increased. We thought the USS Cole would be the culmination of attacks from al Qaeda. We were wrong.

And the Democrats have shown that they are ill-suited to handle a war. Rather than going after our enemies with 500 lb. bombs, they'd rather go after them with subpoenas. Instead of rounding up the bad guys, they'd rather issue indictments. The democrats seem to think that a counter-proposal to war is to let the lawyers loose. (Here's smething for them to chew on. I know a lawyer in Afghanistan right now with the Rangers. And he isn't chasing down bad guys with a briefcase and a handful of papers. He smoking them with his weapon because force is what our enemy recognizes.) These people, these animals, can't be reasoned with or negotiated with. They'll never do so in good faith just as Mohammed didn't do so 1400 years ago.

The Democrats want to retreat. 2500 lives on the battlefield is too much for them. (I'm surprised it wasn't too much for them on D-Day.) They want out. OK. Fine. We'll play the game. We'll listen to the debate, and we'll listen to their gripes. In the end they're going to lose the vote for both initiatives. And while we still have solid ground to stand on, they're slowly sinking into the sea. They weren't strong on the war to begin with, and they're even weaker now by picking which bill they prefer rather than rejecting both; in doing that they could save themselves the "cut-and-run" accusations, and they might be able to save their political hides.

Publius II