The Slow Bleed

I've pulled this entirely from the Best of the Web email I get every day from the WSJ-

'A Slow-Bleed Strategy'

"Top House Democrats, working in concert with anti-war groups, have decided against using congressional power to force a quick end to U.S. involvement in Iraq, and instead will pursue a slow-bleed strategy designed to gradually limit the administration's options," reports The Politico:

Led by Rep. John P. Murtha, D-Pa., and supported by several well-funded anti-war groups, the coalition's goal is to limit or sharply reduce the number of U.S. troops available for the Iraq conflict, rather than to openly cut off funding for the war itself.

The legislative strategy will be supplemented by a multimillion-dollar TV ad campaign designed to pressure vulnerable GOP incumbents into breaking with President Bush and forcing the administration to admit that the war is politically unsustainable.

As described by participants, the goal is crafted to circumvent the biggest political vulnerability of the anti-war movement--the accusation that it is willing to abandon troops in the field. That fear is why many Democrats have remained timid in challenging Bush, even as public support for the president and his Iraq policies have plunged.

So the idea is to keep the troops in harm's way but take all steps possible to prevent them from prevailing, in the hope that the Democrats will benefit politically from American defeat. According to a press release this morning from the House Republican Conference, yesterday the Web site MoveCongress.org announcing an event this morning, declared:

Chairman Murtha will describe his strategy for not only limiting the deployment of troops to Iraq but undermining other aspects of the president's foreign and national security policy.
This language has since disappeared from the site, but a reader first alerted us to it late yesterday afternoon.

You don't have to agree with the president's policies to find this appalling. If Murtha thinks he has a better way, let him run for president next year and make the case. To pursue a strategy of subversion instead is cowardly and despicable.

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I don't have much to add, but these Congresscritters who think they know better than OUR GENERALS on how to prosecute this war scare me. But I know that it's not about the war at all, it's about power. Even more than about making the President look bad. It's ALL about power and men like my husband (not to mention thousands of Iraqis) will pay the price.

Tags- Politics,GWOT