rjzeller

Okay, I gotta admit, Murtha pulled a clever one today.

Over the past several months, President Bush, Condolezza Rice, and Donald Rumsfeld have all stated, either clearly or indirectly, that they expect Iraq to be ready to handle their own defense by year's end and that the US will likely begin withdrawing troops sometime later this year.

Though that has gotten some coverage in the media, it hasn't been a major talking point. Instead, what has been presented over and over are the Democrat's persistent demands that we begin planning to withdraw trroops.

So long as the latter gets more airtime than the former, the majority of people are going to interpret things as, "the Democrats want us to get out of Iraq because Bush has no such plan."

Murtha, clearly understanding that the well-spoken word can be mightier than the simple facts, Issued a "prediction" this morning that the US will withdraw from Iraq by year's end, "as a result of the political pressure."

In other words, he's taken what he already knows the White house is planning to do, and used it to his advantage to make the administration look weak and to suggest that the Democrats were victorious in their quest to push us out of Iraq.

I know some will take issue with this, but it's really that simple. Murtha made a brilliant ploy here. It'll be interesting to see how the other end of the avenue responds....

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There are 10 kinds of people in the world: Those who understand binary and those who do not.

Rgale

Or you could look at it this way, maybe Murtha is tired of getting bashed for stating that we should phase out the involvement in Iraq, since it was going to happen anyway no matter what Bush did. Look how many soldiers have been there two or three times. Unless you go to the draft- political suicide- we were gonna start pulling out soon anyway.

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Listen to your inner voice before it says ,"I told you so".

rjzeller

that's a good possiblity, but I haven't heard many people harping on Murtha lately. Generally, in politics, if you've gotten hammered for your stance on something and the dialogue have moved on, the best course is to stay away and ignore it.

Murtha didn't, so I'm betting it was a calculated move on his part. And it IS a smart one....

__________________
There are 10 kinds of people in the world: Those who understand binary and those who do not.