Not All Democrats Seek the Highly Prized "U" for Their Party's Name

Democratic Lawmakers Splinter on Iraq
Many Surprised as Pelosi Calls for a Fast Pullout

By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 2, 2005; Page A04

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi's embrace Wednesday of a rapid withdrawal from Iraq highlighted the Democratic Party's fissures on war policy, putting the House's top Democrat at odds with her second in command while upsetting a consensus developing in the Senate.

For months now, Democratic leaders have grown increasingly aggressive in their critiques of President Bush's policies in Iraq but have been largely content to keep their own war strategies vague or under wraps. That ended Wednesday when Pelosi (D-Calif.) aggressively endorsed a proposal by Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq as soon as possible, leaving only a much smaller rapid-reaction force in the region.

The move caught some in the party by surprise. It threw a wrench into a carefully calibrated Democratic theme emerging in the Senate that called for 2006 to be a "significant year of progress" in Iraq, with Iraqi security forces making measurable progress toward relieving U.S. troops of combat duties. Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said last month that "it's time to take the training wheels off the Iraqi government."

What's more, House Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) issued a statement Wednesday that was in marked contrast to Pelosi's. "I believe that a precipitous withdrawal of American forces in Iraq could lead to disaster, spawning a civil war, fostering a haven for terrorists and damaging our nation's security and credibility," he said.

Marshall Wittmann, a former Republican political strategist now with the centrist Democratic Leadership Council, said Pelosi may have resurrected her party's most deadly liability -- voters' lack of trust in the party on national security.

"If Karl Rove was writing the timing of this, he wouldn't have written it any differently, with the president of the United States expressing resolve and the Democratic leader offering surrender," Wittmann said, referring to Bush's top adviser. "For Republicans, this is manna from heaven."

David Sirota, a Democratic strategist in Montana long critical of the party leadership's timidity, fired back: "It is not surprising that a bunch of insulated elitists in the Washington establishment -- most of whom have never served in uniform -- would stab the Democratic Party in the back and attack the courage of people like Vietnam War hero Jack Murtha and Nancy Pelosi for their stand on Iraq."

For Democrats, Iraq presents a political quandary. Americans have clearly turned against the war, with a growing majority disapproving of the president's handling of the conflict and saying the invasion was not worth the costs. What they want done is far less clear.

Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in a speech yesterday that military leaders "have not articulated well enough" to the American public what is happening in Iraq and Afghanistan. In the case of Iraq, he said, top U.S. officers "made a conscious decision" with the formal transfer of sovereignty in June 2004 to "step back a little bit in the press" and let the new Baghdad government "speak for itself publicly."

"But as a result of stepping back," Pace said, "I think we may have stepped back a little too far inside our own country with regard to explaining to our own people what we were doing."

House Republican leaders, meanwhile, are touting a bipartisan poll in November by RT Strategies that found half of registered voters support a withdrawal of troops only when the nation's goals are met, compared with 15 percent who want an immediate withdrawal and 29 percent who want a specific, public timetable for withdrawal. But a Pew Research Center poll in October found that 52 percent favored a withdrawal timetable, while 43 percent opposed one. An additional 1 percent said that U.S. troops should get out now.

Come on guys and gals of the Democrat party, how are you going to be all that you can be as "Dumocrats" if you don't hew to the Pelosi line? I mean certainly Senator Joe Lieberman has all but abandoned his pursuit of the infamous "U." Yes, you young ones of the Democrat party need to be wary of things like having ethics, being truthful, having a moral compass, and worst of all showing integrity. Don't fall for the seductive path which the hapless Senator Joe went down. Imagine the horror your parents will feel when they see you telling the truth. Everyday we hear cries by troubled parents of "Don't be like Senator Joe." and "If you keep behaving ethically your going to turn out like Senatory Lieberman." Just imagine if Democrats began behaving like Americans rather than party hacks. What a horrible thought!

Full Story: Some Democrats In Danger of Developing Spines

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