“Instead of hearing the anguish of a majority of Americans who have soured on the Iraq war, instead of searching in good faith for some reasonable way forward – or back— the House Republicans turned instead to a game of playground double-dare. Murtha was asking for a series of hearings, for a national dialogue, some sort of bi-partisan search for a policy that starts getting us of out of Iraq. Instead, the GOP leadership bastardized and mocked his notion and put forward a surprise resolution — designed to fail– asking for immediate and unconditional withdrawal. The bogus resolution put forward last night was engineered solely in an attempt to blackmail and embarrass Democrats rather than find some way to stop the bloodshed.

What makes the Republican ploy particularly repugnant is that it comes precisely on the same day that we learn that the top American military commander in Iraq has presented Donald Rumsfeld with a plan to begin withdrawing U.S. military troops — as soon as a handful of weeks from now.

In other words, Democrats who propose a withdrawal are aiding and abetting the enemy, even though the White House and the Pentagon are secretly drafting a plan to do the same.” (marccooper.com)