The Divided Democrats

Well, it's official. The GOP may have its internal divisions, but the Democrats have managed to split right down the middle, and on the most important issue in politics. As much as people want to rip the GOP and President Bush on Iraq, it's a little tough to do so when the other party has no clue what it thinks...

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi's embrace Wednesday of a rapid withdrawal from Iraq highlighted the Democratic Party's fissures on war policy, putting the House's top Democrat at odds with her second in command while upsetting a consensus developing in the Senate.

For months now, Democratic leaders have grown increasingly aggressive in their critiques of President Bush's policies in Iraq but have been largely content to keep their own war strategies vague or under wraps. That ended Wednesday when Pelosi (D-Calif.) aggressively endorsed a proposal by Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq as soon as possible, leaving only a much smaller rapid-reaction force in the region.

What's more, House Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) issued a statement Wednesday that was in marked contrast to Pelosi's. "I believe that a precipitous withdrawal of American forces in Iraq could lead to disaster, spawning a civil war, fostering a haven for terrorists and damaging our nation's security and credibility," he said.

Marshall Wittmann, a former Republican political strategist now with the centrist Democratic Leadership Council, said Pelosi may have resurrected her party's most deadly liability -- voters' lack of trust in the party on national security.

"If Karl Rove was writing the timing of this, he wouldn't have written it any differently, with the president of the United States expressing resolve and the Democratic leader offering surrender," Wittmann said, referring to Bush's top adviser. "For Republicans, this is manna from heaven."

David Sirota, a Democratic strategist in Montana long critical of the party leadership's timidity, fired back: "It is not surprising that a bunch of insulated elitists in the Washington establishment -- most of whom have never served in uniform -- would stab the Democratic Party in the back and attack the courage of people like Vietnam War hero Jack Murtha and Nancy Pelosi for their stand on Iraq."

...Aides to Pelosi said yesterday that they are confident she and Murtha speak for a broader group. Since Murtha announced his position, he has received 14,000 e-mails, faxes and phone calls, 80 percent in support, aides said. Over Thanksgiving week, Murtha received a standing ovation in a Dallas Starbucks.

Well, that last point sure confirms that Starbucks is a wretched hive of scum and villiany. But that aside, the Dems inability to take a concrete position on Iraq is probably because there's a wide gulf between the loudest portion of the Democratic base, which shares its lattes with Moveon.org, and moderates within the party who think (a) Iraq was a mistake, but we still need to win, or (b) Iraq wasn't a mistake, though the Administration hasn't done a good enough job fighting the war, but we still need to win. Joe Lieberman's a good example of the folks I'm talking about in (b). There's also fence-straddlers like Hillary, who want to take both sides of the position, and Kerry, who automatically tries to take both sides of the position.

The President threw down the gauntlet with his speech at the Naval Academy last week, spurred on in part by Murtha's proposal. This coincides with increased confidence in the war, in advance of the upcoming elections in Iraq.

Instapundit's belief that this a reverse-war-I-won't-mention is making more sense by the day. The only real consistency is that the Democrats seem willing to continue to try and get themselves portrayed as the weak-kneed party on national security.