So now the pivotal question becomes: will the dramatic anti-war comments of the top Democrat on military spending — a long-respected, decorated Vietnam veteran — prove to be a turning point in Congressional and public opinion on the Iraq war, or just another rhetorical blip on the media-saturated U.S. screen?
At issue are the comments of Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), hardly the kind of person that can be accused of being unpatriotic….although that suggestion came later yesterday (see below). He sent major ripples through the news media, elite circles and both parties yesterday when he publicly broke with the administration over the wear and called for an immediate withdrawal. A video of the speech IS HERE. The Washington Post:
“Our troops have become the primary target of the insurgency,” Murtha said in a Capitol news conference that left him in tears. Islamic insurgents “are united against U.S. forces, and we have become a catalyst for violence,” he said. “. . . It’s time to bring them home.”
Murtha’s action, coupled with stinging rhetoric from the White House, was the catalyst for a remarkable outpouring of rage on Capitol Hill about Iraqi war policy, an issue that for months was relatively dormant but now is dominating congressional debate.
In sometimes vitriolic terms, Republican leaders accused Democrats of siding with terrorists, and Democrats countered that Bush deceived the nation in starting a war that he has no strategy for ending. The bitter exchanges came as polls show Americans are increasingly eager to have Iraqis assume control so U.S. troops can come home.
Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) declared: “Murtha and Democratic leaders have adopted a policy of cut and run. They would prefer that the United States surrender to the terrorists who would harm innocent Americans. To add insult to injury, this is done while the president is on foreign soil.”
And President Bush? He’d never accuse political opponents of anything while abroad. Wait...a correction:
Bush, traveling in South Korea, told reporters he agrees with Vice President Cheney’s view that politicians who criticize the administration’s handling of prewar intelligence are engaging in “dishonest and reprehensible” behavior.
Murtha has definitely taken the strongest opposition line possible: immediate withdrawal, versus setting a somewhat distant timetable. But the GOP’s line clearly is that any Democrats — and by implication centrists, independents, and Republicans as well — who aggressively question the wisdom of U.S. war policy are in bed with terrorists (and by implication don’t care if terrorists kill Americans). Whether that’ll work remains to be seen but the bigger question is whether Murtha is going to be the true symbol of growing dissatisfaction over the war and a kind of turning points.
But turning points do occur. The most famous: Walter Cronkite and the Vietnam war:
As the TET offensive continued into February, the anchorman for the CBS evening news, Walter Cronkite, traveled to Vietnam and filed several reports. Upon his return, Cronkite took an unprecedented step of presenting his “editorial opinion” at the end of the news broadcast on February 27th. “For it seems now more certain than ever,” Cronkite said, “that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate.” After watching Cronkite’s broadcast, LBJ was quoted as saying. “That’s it. If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost middle America.”
Will Murtha prove to have the same impact on the nation? Or, if he doesn’t, is he a foreshadowing of more things to come — or is this an isolated instance that’ll be a flash in the media pan for a day or two? You know how it’ll play among partisans (Democrats applaud it; Republicans move into discredit and demonization mode). But is there a bigger significance of what’s unfolding at a seemingly accelerating pace? Is it a manifestation of something happening nationally?
Writes Washington Post columnist EJ Dionne, Jr.:
This will be remembered as the week when President Bush lost control over the Iraq war debate. His administration has perhaps six months to get things right. If the situation in Iraq fails to improve significantly, public pressure for withdrawal will become irresistible.
There was a political thunderclap across the capital yesterday when Rep. John Murtha — Marine veteran, defense specialist, longtime hawk and traditional supporter of presidential prerogatives in foreign policy — called for pulling American troops out of Iraq. American soldiers, he said, “have done all they can in Iraq.” Continued engagement by American troops was “not in the best interest of the United States.”
To understand what these words meant coming from this tough, moderately conservative Pennsylvania Democrat, try to imagine Bush calling for increasing taxes on the rich or Arnold Schwarzenegger criticizing bodybuilding. Support for the administration’s war strategy is crumbling.
Murtha’s comments came just days after the Senate sent Bush a signal of its own. Only five of 44 Democrats voted against the party’s amendment to the defense bill calling for estimated timetables on withdrawing from Iraq. The tally pointed to the end of Democratic fear of retaliation from Bush on national security issues. The political shock and awe that the administration regularly deployed after Sept. 11, 2001, no longer works.
But it seems as if the political shock and awe, plus the best-defense-is-a-good-offense style of the administration is how the White House intends to respond to this later salvo.
Here’s the statement issued by White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan:
Congressman Murtha is a respected veteran and politician who has a record of supporting a strong America. So it is baffling that he is endorsing the policy positions of Michael Moore and the extreme liberal wing of the Democratic party. The eve of an historic democratic election in Iraq is not the time to surrender to the terrorists. After seeing his statement, we remain baffled — nowhere does he explain how retreating from Iraq makes America safer.
The components of this response seem to be (we will use the word) modern-day McCarthyism being applied to an American Congressman who disagrees with the administration:
- The official statement could have taken on his specific points and argued why, in specific policy and/or conceptual terms, they are wrong. It could have used his speech as a chance to restate the goals for the U.S. being in Iraq, where the war is now in comparison to six months and/or a year ago, and in what direction the military effort is now heading. It did none of that.
- It lumps him in with Michael Moore and the Democratic far left. Do they really believe it? Or is this a ham-handed effort to discredit him? Take a guess which one seems more likely.
- It nixes any attempt for a dialog over any serious exit strategy — even one that wouldn’t have a timetable — and simply equates someone who says U.S. policy is wrong as wanting to surrender to terrorists.
- Nowhere in the White House statement does it specifically state how remaining there makes America safer. Some specifics would have helped.
So the White House response, in one paragraph, frames it: It isn’t just about war policy. Once again it’s “us” versus “them.”
But this tactic may not work this time. So far polls show that Bush & Co. seem to be losing Middle America — just as LBJ sensed he was starting to lose it. Just going after Democrats as a party, painting them all as Michael Moore groupies, and suggesting that Murtha or others who take the position for immediate pullout — one NOT taken by all Democrats by a longshot — are in effect in bed with terrorists is unlikely to score points among the more than 60 percent of the population that now has serious doubts about the war.
Are the bulk of Americans that poll after poll shows has doubts about the original decision to go into Iraq, the trustworthiness of intelligence, and the efficacy of the war effort as it’s being conducted thinking that way because they were swayed by listening to Howard Dean or suddenly had little light-bulbs appearing over their heads as they gasped “AH! Now I get it!” while listening to Al Franken?
Hardly. They’ve followed the news. They listed to both sides — and they’re beginning to feel the impact of the war in their communities.
Just mouthing “stay the course” isn’t effective salesmanship — or leadership. And just as it’s losing the center and independents, the administration seems to be losing Middle America — and veterans such as Murtha. The Los Angeles Times:
When he came home from Vietnam, John Murtha had two Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star and — unlike many other vets — no desire to protest the war.
After he won a U.S. House seat from Pennsylvania in 1974, he became one of the most hawkish Democrats in Congress, using his position on the House Appropriations Committee to help lavish the armed forces with money. And when President Bush decided to wage war on Saddam Hussein, perhaps no Democrat was a firmer ally.
So it sent a jolt through Congress on Thursday when the same John Murtha stood before a bank of television cameras and announced, tearfully, that he had decided it was time to start withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq. And not soon. Now.
“Our military’s done everything that has been asked of them. The U.S. cannot accomplish anything further in Iraq militarily,” he said. “It’s time to bring the troops home.”
USA Today gives these details about the man who McClellan suggests is interested in surrender and hopping into bed with terrorists who murder Americans and others:
Democrats have long assailed President Bush’s Iraq policy. But this is the top Democrat on the House panel that pays for Pentagon programs, a former Marine who was the first Vietnam veteran to serve in Congress and one of the most influential members of his party on military matters.
“It’s a turning point in the growing opposition to the war,” said Rep. John Conyers, a liberal Democrat from Michigan. He said Murtha’s time in military hospital wards “had a profound impact on him, and he’s finally come to the point where he cannot rationalize us staying over there any longer.”
Murtha voted to authorize the 1991 Persian Gulf War. He voted with 80 other House Democrats to give Bush the authority to use military force against Saddam Hussein in 2002. But his doubts about the administration’s handling of the war have steadily mounted.
In September 2003, he stood with liberal House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to criticize the Pentagon as stinting on equipment and body armor for the troops. In May 2004, Murtha warned his party that the war was unwinnable unless more U.S. and coalition forces were sent to Iraq.
But his call to pull out rises above a growing chorus of lawmakers questioning the war. It comes days after a Senate vote calling on Iraqis to take the lead on security and the Bush administration to make its exit strategy clear.
And the GOPers in Congress? They used the usual tactic of trying to discredit him by questioning his motives (i.e., a smear campaign).
Republicans lashed out. Rep. Deborah Pryce of Ohio called Murtha “highly irresponsible.”
Rep. Steve Buyer, R-Ind., suggested that Murtha spoke out in hopes he’ll become chairman of the powerful Appropriations Committee if Democrats regain control of the House. “He is conflicted between his ideals as a Marine and as an American and the anti-war crowd that dominates his party,” said Buyer, an Army reservist. “He has to play against his principles, and it must eat him inside.”
But there is indication from his history that he is, in fact, not playing against principles. Rather, he seems to be someone who has agonized and is following his principles and laying them out for the country in a very public way.
Prediction: The White House strategy of not addressing the CONCERNS but going after its critics could backfire and future polls may basically show support mainly from listeners of the Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity shows and the decreasing number of Republicans who will follow the Bush administration lock-step no matter what.
BUT THAT’S JUST OUR VIEW. THERE ARE MANY OTHER VOICES ON THIS STORY AND HERE’S A CROSS SECTION. These are EXCERPTS so please read the entire posts.
—Glenn Reynolds, aka InstaPundit:”WHY IS MURTHA’S STATEMENT ON THE WAR NEWS when he said basically the same thing a year and a half ago?” (And he gives you a link.)
–Great Minds Think Alike Dept: Kevin Drum agrees that the White House response is not a wise one:
I also think the Rove/Cheney/Bush counterattack is going to backfire. Congressional Republicans are looking for cover right now, and I don’t think they believe that a ferocious partisan attack from the White House is what they need right now. The public is looking for answers, not administration attack dogs on the evening news every day, but this particular White House doesn’t know any other way. It’s going to cost them.
–New England Republican explains here why he feels disgust at Democrats AND Republicans.
I must admit to being for the most part unconvinced by arguments for immediate withdrawal, but when someone like this lays it out as he did yesterday, it makes sense to pay attention. Alternatively, you could ignore him and smear him from here to eternity. Guess which path most Republicans went down?
Showing their desperation, the White House even issued a statement comparing Murtha to Michael Moore. Expect ads any day now morphing his head and that of Osama bin Laden, and for Anne Coulter to put on her best pair of…shoes and stamp her little feet. I’m sure Murtha is terrified.
–
—Blogs For Bush’s Mark Noonan fisks Murtha’s arguments and concludes:
What Mr. Murtha hopes to accomplish with this statement is a mystery to me – given that he is a good patriot and a war veteran, I can only put it down to a complete misunderstanding on Mr. Murtha’s part about what has been going on in Iraq; not just in the sense of what events have transpired since 2003, but the fundamental US policy regarding Iraq since 1998. Mr. Murtha, good man that he is, is wrong about Iraq and his opinions must not be adhered to.
It seems to me it would be more helpful if Republicans and conservatives offered positive arguments for how to do better instead of attacking every critic as a wuss, unpatriotic, inconsistent, or worse. Murtha spent 37 years in the Marines. He voted for the war. But, unlike some, he kept his eyes open and he’s reflecting genuine, real, patriotic worries about the war among many Americans. If he’s worried, we all should be. It doesn’t speak very well of the pro-Bush right that their first instinct is to ignore him and their second to dismiss him. But it’s no big surprise by now, is it?
—D-Day:
I put nothing past the folks in the White House, but on issues of war and peace, this guy is as close to unassailable as you can get. I don’t think a Swift Boating will carry the day this time. Simply put, to lose Murtha, and to lose Johnstown, on this war is to lose the heartland of America. Johnstown is a very conservative place… This is a patriotic, flag-on-the-front-stoop kind of town. If they’re questioning the efficacy of the war, if they’re looking at reports from the battlefield and wondering why we’re still over there, if they’re doubting, the whole country is. Recent opinion polls bear that out, but a guy like John Murtha isn’t going to step in front of cameras and make an emotional plea for withdrawal if he didn’t a) believe it in his heart, and b) know it was the prevailing opinion.
Ever since last week, W. has morphed into a poor man’s version of RMN – Dick Nixon himself….These neo-Nixonians are losing the war. Not necessarily losing the war on the ground in Iraq, but rather the war at home. By lashing out at their opponents instead of providing the truth, the Bushies are undermining public support for the war. If the Iraqis are abandoned, the fault will lie at the doorstep of this President both for failing to have an effective post war plan and for pushing his political opponents to an anti-war stance.
–Ed Morrisey has a long post that must be read in FULL but here are a few highlights:
Cutting and running is surrender, no matter who proposes it. I don’t care if Murtha has a chest full of medals — telling the national media that American troops can’t handle Islamofascist terrorists and must be withdrawn from their range of action is cowardice….Now, of course, the Democrats have the political cover to say that they disagree with Murtha, but they have a more reasonable proposal for a fixed timeline for surrender than Murtha’s — and the media will treat them like “centrists”…The Iraqis have more courage in their (purple) finger than Murtha has in his entire hysterical body. Shame on him, and shame on his party.
–Michelle Malkin’s Bryan Preston:
I’m tired of the GOP panic on the war. And I’m way past tired of the Democrat lies about this war. I’m tired of the likes of Andrew Sullivan, whose overwrought, emotional blog writing now meets the McCain definition of torture, and I’m tired of the likes of the Clintons. And frankly I’m past treating the left with anything resembling due respect. The present situation can come to no good. We have the formerly security savvy party running for the door at light speed. We have the moonbat party aiding and abetting the enemy. And we have a pernicious, ambitious enemy fighting against our troops in the field and plotting to kill us right here.
—James Joyner’s post needs to be read in full. He criticizes Murtha for using the “chickenhawk” argument about Cheney, then writes:”That said, (House Speaker Dennis) Hastert’s nonsense, “They want us to retreat. They want us to wave the white flag of surrender to the terrorists of the world,” is also contemptible. There’s no doubt there are those in that camp; Murtha ain’t one of them. Ad hominem is just a lousy way to advance an argument in a civilized society. I disagree with Murtha’s views here but his position should be debated on substantive, not personal, grounds.”
I don’t believe it’s possible for there to be a Cronkite moment anymore. Back during the Viet Nam war most Americans got their news from one of the three TV networks and none of the major network news anchors had the credibility with Main Street that Uncle Walter had….Today’s media environment is radically different….Hence, there won’t be a single moment in which public opinion flips the way a light switch does. Instead, I think the appropriate metaphor is that of the little Dutch boy trying to plug holes in the dike. Or, if you prefer, the death of a 1000 cuts. The ground won’t shift, so much as slowly slide. I’m guessing the process has now become inexorable.
—Americablog:”This speech should mark a turning point for the debate on the Iraq war for the Democratic Party and the Congress.”
—Digby:
In all seriousness, this may be a turning point…And the Republicans are predictably lashing out wildly with shrill accusations of “surrender.” They are getting very nervous. This isn’t 2002 and the codpiece isn’t riding an 80% approval rating. The GOP still haven’t yet absorbed the fact that his manufactured popularity was always a mile wide and an eighth of an inch thick. Their patented jingo schtick is suddenly as starkly out of fashion as The Macarena.
–Donklephant’s Denise Best:”Congressman John Murtha’s press release calling for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq is no doubt being viewed by the insurgents as a victory, while at the same time with puzzlement and disbelief by our military currently deployed…The irony is that by following Murtha’s recommendations, more lives could be placed at risk; more sacrifice and loss has the potential to occur by taking a reactive, tactical approach than the strategic approach that is so desperately needed at this point in time.”
The kindest theory I can come up with is that this fool’s suffering from delayed-onset PTSD and is no longer capable of understanding that some wars really are necessary and we’re in the middle of one of those now. What seems much more likely, though, is that he’s simply joined the growing list of sleaze-ball politicians who consider short-term political expediency more important than doing what’s right for the country. Does this scum-bag even care that by encouraging the jihadis to hope we’ll eventually give up and go home he’s prolonging the war in Iraq and costing American lives?
—Colonel Hunt has a post that needs to be read in full. A small taste:
…When combat veterans speak about what they know, it is best to listen. I didn’t say agree; I said listen. There have been so many errors made by our government in the last 29 months, so many failures of leadership by both the civilian and military that it would fill a large book. It is time to start doing things right.
…Let’s be clear, if anyone can criticize our handling of this war while holding the feet and balls of incompetent political and military leaders to the fire, combat vets can. Who better? It’s kind of hard to call them unpatriotic and whoever throws the next rock had better damn well have a purple heart attached to it.
—Mousemusings:”How many of us are still content to drink this koolaid? Propaganda techniques. This song is over.”
I’m sure Mr. Murtha is sincere and that his heart is in the right place. But his heart has overwhelmed his head….My own preferences are that Congressional Democrats should alter their current trajectory from withdrawal to establishing a lasting peace in Iraq, the White House (and Congressional Republicans) should alter their stance from counter-confrontation to fixing whatever is wrong and speeding the pace of strengthening the Iraqi government’s position (even if doing that has political cost), and that bloggers would start confronting each others’ arguments rather than each other. Tain’t gonna happen.
It is really strange when a US representative says something like this few weeks after the elected Iraqi government demanded from the UN to extend the mission of coalition forces for another year; apparently my government (and I) do not think that US military presence is harmful for us and the Arab League also thinks that an immediate withdrawal would be disastrous for Iraq and the region.
And correct me if I’m wrong but I think I heard a few days ago that the US senate rejected a law that demanded setting a timetable for troops withdrawal (58 vs. 40, right?) let alone an immediate one However, I agree with Mr. Murtha that some people in Iraq would benefit from an immediate withdrawal but that would be al-Qaeda and there are also countries in the region that would benefit from that too but these would be Syria and Iran!
–
THE HERETIK NOTES the desperation so often found in those who have had their own way for so long. Always in their heads is a belief they are more right than others but also an equal fear the truth of their conviction is not enough. How else to explain the aid and comfort to the enemy line of attack? If you look at history, the aid and comfort to the enemy line is always offered in domestic politics by the side that is sure the victory is snatched away just as it arrives. The American people could do with a little fewer such “victories� and await more honesty.
–Jack O’Toole notes our comments above and has some advice for George Bush.