Isn't time we took a hard look at our elected candidates and start holding them accountable? Like it or not, the enemy recognizes that they are at war with us and no, this is not a few Iraqi Insurgents (look up the word). This is an ideological war that will determine whether or not our children live in freedom or theological oppression. Few in Washington seem to care.
This is why I register Independent...
Posted 11/17/2005
Republicans And Iraq: Democrats now call openly for surrender, and al-Qaida can see the prospect of victory. So where is the president's own party in all this?
We wish we could say that it stands shoulder-to-shoulder with George W. Bush, supporting him, supporting the troops, supporting American interests and letting the Democrats dig their own political grave as the Party of Defeat.
What we see instead, especially in the Senate, is a party losing its nerve. With a few noble exceptions — the 13 Republicans who joined with two Democrats this week in voting against resolutions that undermine the Iraq mission — the Senate GOP has joined the antiwar-lite camp. They won't go so far as to demand a timetable for pulling out, but they've raised withdrawal on their priority list, perhaps above victory.
The Democrats, seeing so many weak Republican knees, just get bolder in calling for an end to U.S. involvement in Iraq (which would not end the war, of course; al-Qaida and the rest of the terrorist insurgency would go on fighting).
Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., called Thursday for an immediate pullout of U.S. troops. Murtha is a decorated veteran and an adviser to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. He also voted for the war in 2002. So his party got exactly the news angle it wanted: Hawk turns dove, Vietnam vet turns the tables on draft-deferred Dick Cheney.
The Republicans are up against a lot, no doubt about that. The Democrats know how to play the media, and the media are happy to be played. But the GOP has been up against that combine for decades and has won some big victories against it.
The party also has some powerful resources of its own, such as a loyal base willing to open its wallets for the right cause. And — not to sound too sappy — it has truth on its side. There's no denying that leading Democrats who once supported the war and proclaimed Saddam Hussein to be a threat to the human race have turned tail and are now trying to rewrite their own history.
Bill and Hillary Clinton, Howard Dean, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Evan Bayh, Joe Biden, Jay Rockefeller, Sandy Berger, Madeleine Albright, John Edwards — the Republican National Committee has them all on tape at its Web site (rnc.org) saying the words they now would like everyone to forget. It's good that the RNC is putting this clip on the Internet, but it can do much more.
It certainly isn't hurting for money. The RNC announced Thursday that it has raised $85.7 million in the first 10 months of 2005 — a record for a nonelection year. It had $34 million cash-on-hand at the end of October. So we suggest that it start buying some serious air time. It has the material, which can be edited into punchy 20- or 30-second spots. Millions of Americans who don't routinely prowl the Web would then see where the Democratic Party has been and, in sharp contrast, where it is now.
Would a nationwide blitz of prime-time ads raise howls of protest from Democrats? Of course. Would it work? To judge from the success of the public unions' campaign against Arnold Schwarzenegger in California, we'd say yes. Just as the unions flattened Arnold with a TV ad campaign, the RNC could get the public thinking about what the Democrats are actually proposing — surrender, pure and simple — and put them on the defensive for once.
But to do this takes a will to fight. Does the GOP still have it?
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