The Democrats Retreat

Yesterday the Democrats and Republicans debated on demanding a timetable to cut and run from Iraq. Kerry had proposed an amendment demanding that very thing but chickened out of offering it for a vote by saying that he may want to make revisions……sure thing Mr. Flip Flopper.

But the Republicans would not let them get away with it. Mitch McConnell from Kentucky offered the language as his own with Frist calling it the Kerry Amendment.

Vice President Cheney stated the obvious about Kerry’s change of heart:

Vice President Cheney weighed in, taking note of Kerry’s statement earlier this week urging fellow Democrats who joined him in authorizing force in 2002 to acknowledge that the war is a mistake. “I’m not surprised at John Kerry switching his position yet again,” Cheney said on Sean Hannity’s radio talk show. Kerry is charging “that somehow he was misled,” the vice president said. “He wasn’t misled. He saw the same intelligence all the rest of us saw. He knew what an evil actor Saddam Hussein was.”

Hastert had one of the best sound bites during the whole debate:

“We in this Congress must show the same steely resolve as those men and women on United Flight 93; the same sense of duty as the first responders who headed up the stairs of the twin towers,” said Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.). “We must stand firm in our commitment to fight terrorism and the evil it inflicts throughout the world.”

That was yesterday, today the House just finished voting on a resolution that that praises U.S. troops, labels the Iraq war part of the larger global fight against terrorism and says an “arbitrary date for the withdrawal or redeployment” of troops is not in the national interest.

It won by a 256-153 margin.

You can see who voted for and against here.

3 Republicans voted against, Duncan, Leach, & Paul. More important to the Democratic party is that 42 of their own ran from their side and voted for the resolution. Whether they did this only because of a tough re-election campaign coming up or because they really believe the words to be true remains to be seen but you can be sure the KOSkiddies will be burning them at the stake by this evening.

While all of this hand wringing is going on, Iraq continues to move daily to becoming a true Democratic country:

Iraq’s deputy prime minister says Iraq has an agreement to take over security responsibilities from Australian, British and Japanese forces in southern Iraq this month.

Deputy Prime Minister Salam Zikam Ali al-Zubaie was responding to a Japanese news report that Australia, British and Japanese troops will transfer security responsibilities in southern Iraq to Iraqi authorities next week, and soon withdraw from the area.

“There is an agreement to take over the security responsibilities from the British, Australian and Japanese forces in southern Iraq during this month,” al-Zubaie said.

“There is such a plan and such news is not based on nothing. We hope that the Iraqi security forces will live up to their duties there. It is the dream of all Iraqis that our forces will handle security issues all over Iraq.”

At a defence meeting of the three countries last week in London, British officials told their counterparts that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki will announce the transfer of security authority in southern Iraq next Tuesday, Kyodo News agency reported, citing coalition sources.

This news coming on the heels of the death of Zarqawi, the formation of the Iraqi government, the letter recently discovered that showed the complete disarray of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, and the visit to Iraq by President Bush.

I’m sure our MSM will try to spin this handover of the south as some kind of retreat but the majority of free thinking people (read non-lefties) will understand the meaning of this handover.

And now the country has on record those who want to cut and run, and those who want to finish this mission. As Mark Steyn puts so eloquently:

We’re talking about the great lion of the Democratic Party, Ted Kennedy. We’re talking about their last presidential candidate, John Kerry. We’re talking about the so-called father of the Senate, Robert C. Byrd. I mean, we are talking about very eminent figures here. And what I think people should understand is that whatever the argument for going into Iraq, once you’re in it, you’ve got to have even better arguments for getting out of a was without victory. And I think for America to actually announce an exit strategy, to say you’re right, this is a disaster, we’re getting out of here, we’re going home, it would end the American moment. If America cannot even withstand in fact what is a relatively successful operation in Iraq, if even that is too traumatizing for a society of 300 million, then that’s the end of the American moment. There’s no reason for Russia and China to pay any attention to America ever again. Not only that, there’s no reason for Belgium or Luxembourg to take America seriously ever again. It’s over. You go the John Kerry route, it’s over. And if Americans really want to be the kind of defeatist loser nation that Kerry-Kennedy & Co. paint them as, so be it. I don’t think they are, and in fact, I would say you know, despite the best efforts of the Republican Party to shoot themselves in the foot and in the hand and in the kneecap and everywhere else, that the Democrats will not do well this November, and the Republican Party will hold Congress.

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