Lindsey Graham gets the PR war within the war

Washington Times:

Senate Republicans yesterday contradicted top Pentagon officials who say Congress would not injure troop morale by passing a nonbinding resolution critical of President Bush's Iraq war plan.
Sen. Lindsey Graham said he was outraged that Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Peter Pace and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates would say U.S. combat forces "understand" politics back home and won't be disheartened by a symbolic no-confidence vote against the commander in chief.
"It shows a lack of sophistication about how this would play in newspaper headlines throughout the world," said Mr. Graham, South Carolina Republican.
"The war on terror is about headlines," he told The Washington Times. "The last thing we need to do is give [terrorists] a headline by our political action that would embolden them, and by contrast would be hurtful to our men and women in the theater trying to execute the new strategy."
Mr. Graham continued, "The only way we will ever lose in Iraq is if our will to succeed is broken."
Mr. Gates and Gen. Pace did say that a resolution against the president's plan to reinforce forces in Iraq with 21,500 more troops would send the wrong signal to al Qaeda and other U.S. enemies. Still, their remarks about morale undercut one of the chief arguments against the resolutions that would criticize Mr. Bush's troop-surge plan.
Sen. Jon Kyl, Arizona Republican, said Gen. Pace and Mr. Gates were cornered into dismissing the impact on morale during their testimony Wednesday before the House Armed Services Committee.
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House Minority Leader John A. Boehner also said resolutions against the war plan threaten morale, even if they are "nothing more than political theater that means nothing."
"I believe that it demoralizes our troops in the field," the Ohio Republican said. If Democrats "are really serious about their intent to bring troops home, why not bring a real resolution to the floor and have a debate about whether, in fact, they should cut funding or not?"
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The resolution certainly can not help morale, but the worse thing it does is give hope to the enemy who we are trying to convince that his cause if hopeless. That is inarguable. The Democrats seem desperate to get this morale builder for the enemy on the table before our troops and Iraqi allies can demoralize them with a surge. History should judge them harshly for this act of irresponsibility in a time of war.