Once again, prepare for Democrats to be kicked back into a corner by the very essence of our goals and our own arguments. This fall, before the election, maybe a month before or perhaps even a day before election day the American people are going to see this:
You are going to see troops exiting airplanes to be welcomed by families and communities proudly waving flags and exclaiming victory, er, uh, Mission Accomplished.
New York Times headline October 12th 2006:
Troops Coming Home. Victory Is Ours!
Mission Accomplished Part Deux is right after the fold.
It's something I and others have been saying for over a year now; the troops are going to be coming home, mission unaccomplished, but it isn't going to matter, not one bit. What is the first thing we are going to do? We'll start bitching that "no, the mission is not accomplished", and we can expect the right to fire right back "But you said bring the troops home".
An American public who doesn't have the attention span to sit through a commercial break for American Idol will obediently vote for their go-to Republican, all sins are forgiven, after all, this time, Bush means Mission Accomplished.
The military parades, the media declaring victory, I'm here to tell you that that could mean almost certain defeat for a lot of hotly contested seats that we may have the advantage on right now.
I guess my question is this: what do we say? I have no answer, not one that can be transmitted via a single line talking point anyway. How are we going to explain to the public that by pulling the troops out before the job is finished that we are condemning a people to an Islamic Theocracy? How do we explain Murtha's plan (which should have been implemented years ago) in a simple talking point?
Be prepared for "flip flopper", "oh, Democrats don't know what to do", and most of all be prepared for our own congressional leadership to not even be in tune with each other. This mess is going to fall right into our laps, the media hound dogs are going to be sitting in the dog house just waiting to jump on this issue. It's not going to be good.
Personally, I don't think this will play well for the Democrats; it's going to show a deep divide. Part of us wants them all home and part of us know we have to finish what we've started. We owe it to the Iraqi people. And by finish what we started, I by no means, mean continue on the same path, I mean finish using Murtha's plan.
As a veteran I am already preparing to be offended (not that I am not every day), the Bush administration has time and time again used the troops as political toys, but this will take the cake. Our men and women deserve to be held with the utmost of respect and most importantly they deserve to not be used as political pawns in a mid-term election.