Dems losing battle on Iraq

Donald Lambro:

This has not been a good month for the Democrats who are more dispirited, divided and in disarray than ever before about what to do in Iraq.
When a party's leadership is unable to unite behind a clear position on the No. 1 national security issue facing America, it is not ready to govern. And that is the situation in which the Democrats now find themselves.
Last week Democratic leaders produced an election year agenda that said nothing about fighting the war on terror. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi blurted out the reason: "We don't even have a party position on the war," she told reporters.
Then there was a series of House and Senate votes last week to test just how much support the Democrats' push for a precipitous withdrawal of U.S. troops could muster. All went down to overwhelming defeat.
The noisiest position coming out of the antiwar wing of the Democratic Party, fueled by an Internet army of left-wing bloggers, is for swift military withdrawal of U.S. forces. That is the view of Democratic Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, the party's newest hero who declared on "Meet The Press" Sunday, "We can't win a war like this."
He has been joined by Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, the Democrats' indecisive 2004 presidential nominee who has been on just about every side of the Iraq debate that one can possibly be. First he was for the war. Then he was partially for the war if it was done right. He was against it before he was for it. Now, seeing the support Mr. Murtha is getting from the party's antiwar base, Mr. Kerry -- plotting another run for the presidency -- has proposed a pullout, too, a position the Senate shot down last week.

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This is a party at war with itself over the most important national security issue of our time. The image it is sending is not just one of confusion and discord but of a party that shifts and retreats with the changing winds of public opinion, a party that has no deep abiding core convictions when the going gets tough -- as it often can and has and will in the global war on terror.

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It is the fight or flight snydrome. Right now they are fighting about what time the flight should leave instead of offering ideas about winning. They are arguing over semantics of whether they are cutting and running or jogging or improbably winning. All of this while we are so clearly winning that even the enemy recognizes it.