Mullings An American Cyber Column By Rich Galen

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Murtha to the Rescue

Monday February 19, 2007

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Dear Mr. Mullings

This last week in Your Nation's Capital was a classic example of why Americans think so little of the leadership in Washington: The House and Senate stopped everything else they were supposed to be doing to have a high-profile, low-effect debate on a non-binding resolution about the President's Surge Plan for Iraq.

To review the bidding, the Senate, about a week ago, was going to take the first crack at a non-binding resolution on the Surge, but Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid (D-NV) couldn't get an agreement on whether or not Republicans would have a say in what was being debated, so the GOP threatened a filibuster and Reid had to pull the resolution off the Floor.

Enter House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). Pelosi saw the opening when the Senate failed to act, and immediately told her boys to bring the House version of the non-binding resolution to the floor.

Because one of the lies the Democrats told in the run up to the 2006 elections was they would have a more participatory democracy in the House; they decided that the Republicans would be prevented from offering their own non-binding resolution.

Pelosi came to the floor with a resolution �

SIDEBAR

Here is the entire text of the resolution:
Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), that:
1. Congress and the American people will continue to support and protect the members of the United States Armed Forces who are serving or who have served bravely and honorably in Iraq; and
2. Congress disapproves of the decision of President George W Bush announced on 10 January 10 2007, to deploy more than 20,000 additional United States combat troops to Iraq.

According to Bill Gates' word counting algorithm, that is 72 words. Total.

END SIDEBAR

� which pledges undying support for the troops (who remain very popular with the American public) but undying opposition to the President (who is, according to the latest Pew Poll, at 33%).

While the Senate wallowed in Senate-tanship, the House proceeded smartly to nearly four days of debate which must have totaled maybe 100,000 time more words than are in the resolution itself.

In the pre-game analysis to the House vote on Friday, it was predicted that perhaps "dozens" of Republicans would defect and vote in favor of those 72 words.

In the end the number was 17 Republicans which was an underreported surprise to the press corps and, one assumes, the Democrats.

Democrats claimed that the extraordinary closing speech by Rep. Sam Johnson (R-TX) changed GOP minds. [A link to the video of Mr. Johnson's speech is on the Secret Decoder Ring page today. You should watch it. With your kids.]

I have been around Washington for the better part of three decades. In all that time I have never heard a single member of the House or Senate say that something someone said on the floor, in the course of a formal debate, cause them to change their mind on an issue.

What happened was Rep. Jack Murtha (D-Pa) who was the first Democrat to seriously challenge the President on Iraq had dropped off the front pages � in fact he had dropped so far out of the press he's not even on the floor of bird cages.

However, Murtha announced he was introducing a bill which , if it were to become law, the Bush Administration "won't be able to continue. They won't be able to do the deployment. They won't have the equipment. They don't have the training and they won't be able to do the work."

Unfortunately for Pelosi, Murtha spoke not to wisely, but too soon and gave credence to the GOP claim that the real Democratic strategy is to cut the funding which supports the troops.

Jack Murtha's desire to get into the newspapers cost the Democrats a huge PR win and exposed the non-binding resolution to what it truly was: A purely political maneuver.

On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: Links to the Sam Johnson video, and coverage of the Murtha bill; a Mullfoto from Alaska and a Catchy Caption of the Day.

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