Fighting, Anti-Failure Dems

If you accept the premise that Democrats are soft on defense, don't support the troops, and want Al Qaeda to win, why is it that the vast majority of Iraq War veterans running for Congress are Democrats?

Driven by the unique relevance their experience has to current events and inspired by Paul Hackett’s near victory in an against-all-odds race in Ohio, soldiers back from the Middle East are scrambling to get their names on congressional ballots for 2006.

(David) Ashe is running again for the House in Virginia, and Hackett is taking a shot at the Senate. Andrew Duck is running for Congress in Maryland, Tim Dunn in North Carolina, and Patrick Murphy and Brian Lentz in Pennsylvania: Iraq vets all. Tim Walz, a veteran of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, is running in Minnesota, and two veterans who played crucial roles in the Iraq War stateside are running in Pennsylvania and New York.

Another similarity is this: Ashe, Duck, Dunn, Murphy, Lentz, and the others are, like Hackett, Democrats. In total, 10 Democratic vets are running, or considering a run, for Congress. (A few more may declare in the coming weeks.) The Republicans, by contrast, can only commit to two. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the organ of the Party establishment responsible for recruiting and running candidates, explains the phenomenon by citing the failures of Republicans in Washington. "We have a Republican-controlled Congress that has failed to provide for troops returning from Iraq, and failed to provide on promises on health care and services for families," says spokeswoman Sarah Feinberg. "[The vets] are naturally running in an opposite way."

There's a reason Americans generally like to elect war veterans to Congress: they'd like someone who's been there to be charged with the ultimate responsibility of committing troops. And this crop of candidates have seen the mismanagement of the current war policy from the White House and intend to do something about it. I loved this quote:

Most take a page out of Hackett’s play book, running on a pro-troops, anti-Bush platform but hedging on the war itself. ("I’m not anti-war, I’m anti-failure," is how one candidate put it.)

It's going to be hard for Republicans acknowledge that Democrats don't share the same goals in the war on terror when you have so many front-line soldiers on the other side. Not that they won't try it, but it'll be hard to make that case.

Meanwhile, after screaming "coward" and "cut & run" and stamping their little feet about staying the course and ginning up deceitful votes, we now learn that, of course, the White House is going to draw down troops. I mean, there's an election year coming up!

WASHINGTON--Barring any major surprises in Iraq, the Pentagon tentatively plans to reduce the number of U.S. forces there early next year by as many as three combat brigades, from 18 now, but to keep at least one brigade "on call'' in Kuwait in case more troops are needed quickly, several senior military officers said.

Pentagon authorities also have set a series of "decision points'' during 2006 to consider further force cuts that, under a "moderately optimistic'' scenario, would drop the total number of troops from more than 150,000 now to fewer than 100,000, including 10 combat brigades, by the end of the year, the officers said.

Despite an intensified congressional debate about a withdrawal timetable after last week's call by Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., for a quick pullout, administration officials say that military and political factors heavily constrain how fast U.S. forces should leave. They cite a continuing need to assist Iraq's fledgling security forces, ensure establishment of a permanent government, suppress the insurgency and reduce the potential for civil war.

A phased timetable for withdrawal from Iraq contingent on political and security concerns. Now where have I heard that before?

What concerns me is that the whole idea is precipitated by the upcoming elections, which means that progress will take a back seat to political expediency. We'll be out whether we're ready or not. And Iraq will go up in smoke.