Posted on 11/17/2005 4:20:47 PM PST by churchillbuff
Don't know how many of you caught Rep. John Murtha's very angry, very moving speech just now in which he called on the White House to institute an immediate withdrawal of US troops from Iraq. CNN didn't air the entire thing, but as I listened to it, I could feel the ground shift. Murtha, as you know, is not a Pelosi-style Chardonnay Democrat; he's a crusty retired career Marine who reminds me of the kinds of beer-slugging Democrats we used to have before the cultural left took over the party. Murtha, a conservative Dem who voted for the war, talked in detail about the sacrifices being borne by our soldiers and their families, and about his visits out to Walter Reed to look after the maimed, and how we've had enough, it's time to come home. He was hell on the president too.
If tough, non-effete guys like Murtha are willing to go this far, and can make the case in ways that Red America can relate to -- and listening to him talk was like listening to my dad, who's about the same age, and his hunting buddies -- then the president is in big trouble. I'm sure there's going to be an anti-Murtha pile-on in the conservative blogosphere, but from where I sit, conservatives would be fools not to take this man seriously.
(Excerpt) Read more at corner.nationalreview.com ...
Roll Call Staff
May 6, 2004
Signaling a new, more aggressive line against the Bush administration’s policy on Iraq, Rep. John Murtha (Pa.), the House Democrats’ most visible defense hawk, will join Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) today to make public his previously private statements that the conflict is “unwinnable.”
Scroll up to Kathryn Jean Lopez's post at 3:41PM
I'm more concerned about how a withdrawal would affect the people in Iraq, not Bush.
I disagree with Dreher and Murtha. We cannot pull out immediately. We have to remain until a stable democratic regime and capable Iraqi forces. That has always been and always will be the "strategy". Things are moving in a positive direction. December 15 will be elections of a permanent government under the new Iraqi popularly approved constitution. Iraqi forces are taking over responsibilities as they get trained up. There is nothing more the President can do than he is already doing on these two fronts, and at this point to set a timetable would be counterproductive vis-a-vis the insurgency. Murtha is extremely irresponsible here, as is Dreher for praising him. Moreover, Murtha has been bad-mouthing the war effort for at least a year and a half.
Where? It's not in THIS article.
--John Murtha, when asked his opinion on the president and vice president's comments about the Democrats' lying short and selective memory about the run-up to this war
John Murtha can kiss my commoner redneck ass.
"unwinnable"
Yes, unwinnable in the sense that we've already won.
Murtha needs to redefine war.
We have established a democracy in the heart of Islam.
We've already won that war.
We need to win the GWOT.
Murtha is not helping.
Dreher's a smart guy, but a bit of an oddball.
I should have looked at your date more closely.
Figures that the lamestream media would continue to mispreport (intentionally) the story.
Hey, the Democrats have always been the cut and run party.
African Americans would still be toiling in the fields if Democrats had gotten their way and won the election (during the Civil War). Or at least spent another couple of decades in slavery.
Your so anti-Bush that I am sure you loved every minute of Murtha's comments.
He is getting old, a lapdog of Pelosi, and you think that most of us in Middle America are going to pay attention to Murtha -- think again -- people calling in the radio are mad. He is nothing more than a mouthpiece for Pelosi.
He has now joined the side of the traitors and and might as well have said our military who died would have died for nothing with his cut and run statement. As Speaker of the House Hastert said after Murtha's outburst, that these people have forgot what happened on 9-11! Also Murtha is a member of the House Leadership which means his credibility is zero, zip, nada!
I'm more concerned how a withdrawal will encourage attacks against us.
WARD Churchillbluff: Murtha breaks Wind and a few hundred thousand calls and emails cascaded into his office condemning his assinine remarks.
I love Bush's tax cuts (and Alito rocks).
Oh,I think we take the whole thing seriously. Especially, the Republicans who are abandoning the ship in a storm. I really fear for this country if there are no REAL MEN left that will stand up and fight the biggest threat this country has ever known. Thank God there are still REAL MEN in the military,the WH,on Freeper's and one next to my side at night. God help this country if we lose our nerve in this fight.
Typical Dreher—tells us all that the sky is falling, then tries to barricade himself against criticism for his flabby, defeatist attitude by predicting that criticism in advance. So very very brave of Rod. “A pox on those conservative bloggers and their reactionary response to reason,” he practically squeals. “Why won’t they just resign themselves to the truth?—that when a ‘crusty’ retired Marine begins making impassioned speeches about surrendering in Iraq, well, it’s game over, man. Game over!”All rather transparent, I think.
To me, what is so insulting about posts like Dreher’s is that they strain so very hard to appear dispassionate; and yet, one really need not be part of the evil VRWC Dreher seems tacitly to believe is alive and well and living on the right side of the blogosphere to be able see through such barely concealed panic and rhetorical hamfistedness.
Here’s the thing: It’s okay to say you are now for withdrawing the troops, Rod. Really— there’s no need to soften us with a lot of heavyhanded talk about defining moments and ground shifts.
But what you shouldn’t do is insult our intelligence. It’s quite possible to take someone like Murtha seriously (perhaps he truly is passionate in his convictions, irrelevant though that may be) and to find him absolutely and unabashedly wrong at the same time. At which point, our taking him seriously on the strength of his emotional appeals has very little whatever to do with how we should regard the war in Iraq, which, from a truly dispassionate standpoint, we simply cannot afford to lose.
Dreher suggests that he is simply warning conservatives that once they lose people like Murtha, the war effort is in trouble. But the fact of the matter is, the war effort is only in trouble if people like Dreher—writing for the National Review—continue to make a big deal out of losing every Democrat like Murtha, who has clearly allowed emotionalism to cloud his better judgment.
The war in Iraq is right because it is right. And that’s all there is to it, really. We must stay until the war is won. Anything short of that would prove a terrible strategic blow to this country, and would make us less safe for years to come.
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