The GOP baited a political hook for the Democrats. The Democrats didn’t bite.
And in the end independent voters who carefully watched it all unfold on C-SPAN may conclude that perhaps this was a case of the worms themselves baiting the hook…
In one of the most clumsy, politically transparent and possibly counterproductive political operations since the GOP Congress inserted itself into the Terri Schiavo affair, Republicans set up what at first glance looked like a major political trap:
Wouldn’t Democrats, fearing facing the wrath of their party’s leftist base, vote for a resolution calling for the immediate withdrawal from Iraq? Wouldn’t it accentuate splits within the Democratic party? Wouldn’t it then set the Democrats up to be on the record as the party that wants to “cut and run” from Iraq (a phrase broadly used by many in the GOP now to define those who seek a withdrawal — ignoring the fact that a general is now suggesting the same thing to the Bush administration)?
The answers: No, no and no.
In the end, the Democrats saw the hook and refused to bite: The Washington Post:
Differences over policy on the Iraq war ignited an explosion of angry words and personal insults on the House floor yesterday when the chamber’s newest member suggested that a decorated war veteran was a coward for calling for an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops.
As Democrats physically restrained one colleague, who appeared as if he might lose control of himself as he rushed across the aisle to confront Republicans with a jabbing finger, they accused Republicans of playing political games with the war.
GOP leaders hastily scheduled a vote on a measure to require the Bush administration to bring the troops home now, an idea proposed Thursday by Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.). The Republican-proposed measure was rejected 403 to 3, a result that surprised no one.
The idea was to force Democrats to go on the record on a proposal that the Bush administration says would be equivalent to surrender. Recognizing a political trap, most Democrats — including Murtha himself — said from the start they would vote no.
But the maneuvering exposed the chamber’s raw partisan divisions and prompted a tumultuous scene, which Capitol Hill veterans called among the wildest and most emotional they had ever witnessed.
Non-lockstep voters have to ask themselves this question:
What kind of political malpractice has allowed polarization in this country to reach this kind of heights (or lows)? And it gets worse:
Though even many Democrats think Murtha’s immediate withdrawal plan is impractical, it struck a chord in a party where frustration with the war and the Bush administration’s open-ended commitment is mounting fast. Murtha galvanized the debate as few others could have. He is a 33-year House veteran and former Marine colonel who received medals for his wounds and valor in Vietnam, and he has traditionally been a leading Democratic hawk and advocate of military spending.
Murtha’s resolution included language the Republicans wanted to avoid, such as “the American people have not been shown clear, measurable progress” toward stability in Iraq. It also said troops should be withdrawn “at the earliest practicable date,” although Murtha said in statements and interviews Thursday that the drawdown should begin now.
Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) drafted a simpler resolution calling for an immediate withdrawal of troops, saying it was a fair interpretation of Murtha’s intent. Members were heatedly debating a procedural rule concerning the Hunter resolution when Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-Ohio) was recognized at 5:20 p.m. Schmidt won a special election in August, defeating Iraq war veteran Paul Hackett, and is so new to Congress that some colleagues do not know her name.
She told colleagues that “a few minutes ago I received a call from Colonel Danny Bubp,” an Ohio legislator and Marine Corps Reserve officer. “He asked me to send Congress a message: Stay the course. He also asked me to send Congressman Murtha a message: that cowards cut and run, Marines never do.”
Democrats were outraged and Schmidt later, in effect, apologized. But how will THAT play to the people in the United States who don’t change their political positions at the drop of a hat to be in sync with George Bush and the White House or who don’t pepper any conversation about George Bush with the word “liar” as much as a Valley girl uses the word “whatever…”
The likely impact: the contrast between Murtha, clearly agonizing over his position, and Schmidt, face twisted with rage, calling him a “coward” will be a sound bite played over and over.
And it may get WORSE: according to reports, GOPers now want — you guessed it — an ethics investigation of Murtha.
Note that there was no call for an investigation of him BEFORE he broke with the administration.
But now he has broken with them, so some apparently feel it’s vital that he be investigated. Translation: he’s a threat so he needs to be politically taken out or, at least, discredited.
If this is true, then that, coupled with the GOP’s manuever today in trying to pass off its own amendment as Murtha’s (then backtracking), the campaign against Murtha, him being called a coward brings to mind the famous quote Special Counsel for the Army Joseph N. Welch made to Senator Joseph McCarthy:
“Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”
An exaggeration? Just read this Reuters report and it again undescores the fundamental INACCURACY and seeming dishonesty of how the issue was being portrayed by the GOP to the American public today:
The action by House Republicans was the latest volley in an offensive launched by President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney last week to attack war critics as unpatriotic and hypocritical.
“The best strategy to keep America safe is to continue taking the fight to the terrorists, not to retreat in the face of the despicable attacks of a determined enemy,” the White House said in a statement.
Unlike Murtha’s proposal calling for troops to be withdrawn “as soon as practicable,” which he expected would be about six months, the Republican resolution said deployment of the U.S. forces should be “terminated immediately.”
Democrats said no one advocated an immediate pull-out without ensuring the safety of troops, and that it was a meaningless resolution that ducked serious debate on the situation in Iraq. It was defeated 403-3.
“To take this proposal and trash it, trivialize it, is outrageous,” said Rep. John Spratt, a South Carolina Democrat.
Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California said Republicans had “stooped to a new low even for them.”
Many Democrats have called on Bush to present a plan to end the war and an estimate of when U.S. forces can start to be withdrawn based on conditions on the ground. Only a few have called for a set timetable for withdrawal.
You could make the case that this could help the GOP: it could fire up the base, which truly enjoys easy-to-wage battles where all Democrats are painted as hating America (and independents and moderates are total wusses for wanting more thoughtful dialogue, bipartisan cooperation and less political bile).
But, more likely than not, it will prove to be a huge political mistake.
Aside from the fact that the Democrats didn’t bite the hook, if you watched the debate, it served as a vehicle to give lots of air time to people who got wider exposure than ever before to detail their reservations about this administration’s conduct of the war — and the way critics of the war are being defined as somehow un-American. Most GOPers, in turn, basically argued “stay the course” and equated seeking an end to the war as undercutting the troops (code words for unpatriotic).
The problem the White House and GOPers now face is that there is an erosion in support of people who back the war and believe the establishment. So what NEW ARGUMENTS did the GOPers offer in this debate? Stay the course? And what could the Democrats offer? An expanded national news forum for Murtha, and a stage on which he could be labeled a coward by a Congresswoman who later had to back off from those comments. The irony: most Democratic lawmakers do NOT go as far as Murtha in calling for an immediate pullout. They are defending him in the face of GOP/White House rhetorical overkill.
Murtha is what Hollywood calls “high concept:” he has a colorful, easy-to-grasp-quickly life narrative and, to all but conservative partisans who now suddenly hate him due to him coming out against the war, he oozes sincerity when he speaks.
And then there is the bottom line: in the end, Democrats didn’t vote for withdrawal. In fact, as the LA Times notes, Murtha even voted against it:
Murtha was among the vast majority of Democrats joining Republicans in voting against the resolution.
“This resolution is not what I envisioned, not what I introduced,” he said.
In the end, what matters will be the sound bites and images that’ll linger in the short and long term: of Murtha, GOPers arguing to stay the course, GOPers suggesting those who question the war are undercutting the troops — and respected veteran Murtha being called a coward by a GOPer who resorted to name-calling in the absence of constructive policy ideas.
UPDATE: Oxblog’s David Adesnik doesn’t agree with Murtha on an immediate withdrawal but he has some things to say about Schmidt’s comments.
UPDATE II: A differing perspective on what happened, what it means and what should come next from Wizbang’s Kevin Alyward.
UPDATE III: The All Spin Zone also has a post that must be read in full. MAKE SURE YOU WATCH THE 16 MINUTE MSNBC CLIP which includes debate excerpts, Schmidt’s comment, her withdrawing her comment — and Newsweek’s Howard Fineman (who says White House backed GOPers will try to take Murtha out on an ethics investigation as retaliation). A small part of the ASZ post:
There have been many political stunts pulled in the history of this country, but it’s hard to point to one that backfired with the ferocity of Duncan Hunter’s ill-advised (and certainly, White House directed) counter-Murtha maneuver yesterday. In introducing and debating a simplisticly stupid “immediate withdraw from Iraqâ€? resolution, the GOP didn’t just shoot themselves in the foot – they blew the whole damn leg off.
The clips from the Friday night debate will be playing for days on TV. I watched part of the proceedings on CSPAN. My initial reaction was despair, that the representative leadership of this country could stoop to such demogoguery and nastiness. After a night’s worth of reflection, though, and reviewing some clips of the debate this morning, I’m feeling better….
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Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.