The McGoverning Dems

Last week, culminating in the House Democrat "Retreat", (how appropriate), Democrat candidates for President speechified, falling over each other in their zeal to pander to their anti-war, hard-Left base. And if they didn't indulge in a Deaniac anti-war scream, they talked tough as they traded our security for the nomination of their peacenik party. Their national security bona fides, the few they had, are degenerating rapidly into "mini-me commander" yammering.

Victor Davis Hanson, NRO, RCP exposes their thin foreign policy portfolio:

Fourth, there is the “what next?” dilemma. It is fine for Democrats to talk of “redeployment” out of Iraq, “engagement” with Syria and Iran, more soft power, Europeans and the United Nations, organizing “regional interests,” etc. — until one realizes that we did mostly just that for most of the 1990s.

And? We got Syrian absorption of Lebanon, Afghanistan as an al Qaeda base, a Libyan WMD program, worldwide serial terrorist attacks, Oslo, a Pakistani bomb, a full-bore Iranian nuclear program, Oil-for-Food — and 9/11. If one doubts any of this, just reflect on why the Democrats have not offered any specific alternative plans. And when pressed, they usually talk only of “talking” and thereby bring embarrassment to even their liberal questioners.

And here's the crux:

We are in a rare period in American political history, in which the battlefield alone will determine the next election, perhaps not seen since 1864. The economy, scandal, social issues, domestic spending, jobs, all these usual criteria and more pale in comparison to what happens in Iraq, where a few thousand brave American soldiers will determine our collective future.

That is why it is so important to back our troops. That is why the liberal Washington Post blogger aroused such revulsion. That is why Democrat leaders' words are so destructive to the welfare and security of our country, giving comfort to our enemies, and harming the morale of our troops at a time when they need and deserve America's full support. Senators voted unanimously to confirm the president's new commander, Gen. Petraeus, yet now Democrat Senators and some Republicans undermine his mission with their weasel words and craven posturing.

They offer nothing better.

And rather than irresponsibly and callously threatening to cut off funds to our troops, Democrats should support this effort. They voted for General Petraeus, the expert on the strategy of secure, hold and build, who successfully implemented it in his sector of Iraq early on, and seeks now to extend it in the surge:

Bush, as part of his strategy, has asked Congress for an additional $1.2 billion in reconstruction aid for Iraq. Significantly, that figure includes $350 million for the Commander's Emergency Response Program and $400 million for a civilian version of CERP -- flexible pools of money that local commanders and U.S. government representatives in Iraq can spend at their discretion. After the State and Defense departments reached a deal to embed Provincial Reconstruction Teams with U.S. military units -- thus settling an acrimonious dispute between State and Rumsfeld over security for the teams -- Bush also included $414 million in proposed spending to nearly double the number of PRTs in Iraq. The Iraqi government has also promised to contribute $10 billion to the reconstruction effort.

If we want to bequeath to our children a world where America remains the land of the free, we need to remember we are the home of the brave.

And the bravest of us all are our troops.

So far the McGoverning Dems once again suffer by comparison, and fail the test. America can not afford to place our trust in those who would abandon our honorable effort in Iraq so easily.

We can not afford to grant leadership to those who do not even have the courage to cover our troops' backs as they protect us and our way of life.

UPDATE: Sen. John McCain has the straight talk right when he describes Senators pushing the no-confidence resolution as intellectually dishonest. I would also say they are moral cowards. Yahoo, RCP:

Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record) sought to weaken support for a resolution opposing President Bush's Iraq war strategy Sunday, saying proponents are intellectually dishonest.

On the eve of a possible congressional showdown on Iraq strategy, McCain contended the bipartisan proposal amounted to a demoralizing "vote of no confidence" in the U.S. military.

The measure criticizes Bush's plan to add 21,500 troops in Iraq yet offers no concrete alternatives, he said.

"I don't think it's appropriate to say that you disapprove of a mission and you don't want to fund it and you don't want it to go, but yet you don't take the action necessary to prevent it," said McCain, top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee and a 2008 presidential candidate from Arizona."

UPDATE: Dennis Byrne on the tug between Congress and the president.