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January 30, 2005
All Democrats Can Talk About Is Running Away

I had no idea how influential our Democratic Senator from Minnesota, Brave Sir Mark Dayton, had become on his party's leadership. On a day when the force of American power and will allowed a long-oppressed people to defy Islamofascists and choose their own representative government, Democrats could only discuss bugging out. That continued with prepared remarks by Senate minority leader Harry Reid (D-NV), who demanded a timetable for retreat on the occasion of our tremendous victory:

In a pre-State of the Union challenge to President Bush, Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid intends to call Monday for the administration to outline an exit strategy for Iraq. ...

"The president needs to spell out a real and understandable plan for the unfinished work ahead: defeat the growing insurgency, rebuild Iraq, increase political participation by all parties, especially moderates, and increase international involvement," Reid will say, according to his prepared remarks.

"Most of all we need an exit strategy so we know what victory is and how we can get there; so that we know what we need to do and so that we know when the job is done."

I don't know why the Democrats have become so enamored of so-called "exit strategies"; they didn't need one for the Balkans, where mismanagement has kept Kosovo stagnant for almost six years now. Exit strategies go by another name in military circles: retreat. The only exit strategy acceptable to a nation at war is victory, and after today's win over the Islamofascists, the insistence on retreat from leading Democrats such as Ted Kennedy and Harry Reid reveals them as defeatists and petty ankle-biters.

Their timing could hardly be worse. It's as if the entire party decided to follow Howard Dean's example of claiming that Saddam's capture was essentially meaningless in December 2003. Being cautious is one thing, but this coordinated theme from Democrats looks less like caution and much more like a lack of intestinal fortitude.

Perhaps I am a bit too credulous when it comes to estimating the intelligence of the Democratic leadership, but I can't believe that they thought it smart to come out and play the dog in the manger on such a historic event. They should have just acknowledged the good fortune of the Iraqis and let the day go by without much more comment than that. Instead, they've once again proven that they cannot be trusted with national-security concerns or war leadership. In fact, they cannot even be trusted to operate in their own interest. The party leadership of Boxer, Kennedy, and Reid promises to transform the Democrats into the Whigs of the 21st century.

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Posted by Ed Morrissey at January 30, 2005 9:11 PM

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