RUSH: ‘Congressional Democrats pulled back Tuesday from a final series of votes on Iraq policy before the August recess, hoping a month spent at home with voters frustrated by the course of the war would persuade more Republicans to join Democrats in supporting a troop withdrawal.’ The Democrats also said that the Murtha proposal — the typical Murtha proposal; don’t need to go into details — is dead. And Murtha stormed off the House floor yesterday when they killed his proposal. Party leaders ultimately decided the disadvantages of waiting until September to bring these votes back outweighed any advantage. ‘The strategy reflects a calculation by Democrat leaders in both the House and Senate that the best approach politically is to deny Republicans the opportunity to put themselves on record against the current policy in Iraq.’ What utter and total spin. They don’t have the votes to pass these resolutions, and they don’t have the votes to override a presidential veto. Every time they take these votes they end up losing votes in the Senate and in the House. But the Drive-Bys are spinning this for them, oh, yeah, we want to deny the Republicans a chance to go on record, distancing themselves from the White House.
All right. Let’s accept that just for the sake of this discussion. Fine. Then the whole thing is political. Exactly as we’ve told you. If they really thought you wanted out of Iraq, if they really thought you wanted to lose, if they really thought they could pull it off, they wouldn’t be waiting. If that’s what they really wanted. They are trying to weaken the presidency, weaken morale of the troops, secure defeat, they’re trying to scare Republicans into joining them. And now they say, ‘We want to deny the Republicans a chance to go on record,’ distancing themselves from the president. Republicans aren’t going to do that! The Republicans haven’t done that yet! The fascinating quote here from the Progressive Caucus member, this is the arch libs in the House — Jan Schakowsky, Democrat, Illinois, they met Tuesday morning, agreed that they would not support any Iraq measure that does not include a firm timetable for withdrawal. ‘We don’t want to see any retreat.’ They don’t want to see any retreat? (Laughing.) The Progressive Caucus is not going to give an inch. They’re not going to surrender on their desires to get out of this — and yet they want us to surrender and lose in Iraq.
Now, the New York Times’ treatment of this, kinda interesting. They take the Democrats at their word that this is just a strategy. The media spinning for them. ‘Congress not expected to vote on Iraq policy before recess.’ You also have to factor the surge here. The surge, if it wasn’t working, would they be doing this? The fact that the surge is working is a problem. Then, TheHill.com. Capitol Hill newspaper. ‘Lawmakers, aides say Murtha, Iraq-withdrawal proposal is dead.’ That’s the Progressive Caucus. They wanted a firm timetable. They wouldn’t budge. They wouldn’t surrender. They’re not going to retreat, yet that’s what they want the country to do. That aspect didn’t make the New York Times story. If you go to the end of this, the story in The Hill, ‘The Democrats expressed concern that the measures, especially Abercrombie-Tanner…’ this is Neil Abercrombie from Hawaii, ‘… would give Republicans ‘cover’ to say they’d voted for a change in course in Iraq without taking concrete steps to remove troops. Abercrombie said that argument doesn’t hold water. He said Democratic leaders should have scheduled a vote on his bill ‘if the Democratic Party wants to go home and say they did something on Iraq.”
So the Progressive Caucus is all angry. Murtha storms off the floor. They’re just upset as they can be that their whole proposal was tabled. And believe me, folks, it’s not about the fact that the Republicans were being denied a chance to distance themselves from Bush. They don’t have the votes. They don’t have the votes to override. They couldn’t pass anything if they tried now, and it would look like a bunch of bumbling, do-nothing, do-nothing-good congress-people messing around. Again, the Democrats would show themselves as ineffective. Harry Reid and Pelosi both are two of the most incompetent leaders in the history of Democrats that ran the House and ran the Senate. These two are just bumbling, incompetent boobs.