DEMS AT SEA
NEW YORK POST
Editorial
June 25, 2006
Like their counterparts in the House, the members of the U.S. Senate last week overwhelmingly rejected Democratic attempts to force a timetable for pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq - but not before New York's Hillary Rodham Clinton accused Republicans of playing politics on the issue.
By an 86-13 vote that included a majority of Democrats, the Senate voted down an amendment by former presidential candidate John Kerry and future White House hopeful Russ Feingold that would have set a date of July 2007 for full withdrawal.
Then, by 60-39, the senators turned back a non-binding resolution calling for some level of troop pullout to begin by the end of this year. Unlike their House collegues, which last week endorsed a call to "complete the mission" in Iraq, few Senate Democrats strayed from the party line on the second resolution.
Passing either bill would have sent a clear signal to the terrorists that America lacks the will and resolve to see the mission through.
Overall, the votes reflected the Democrats' continued confusion on Iraq - and their desperate attempt to position themselves for November's midterm elections and the 2008 presidential contest.
They think that, for political gain, they can paint the war as a disaster and say America has no business there - but when push comes to shove, even most of them know that quitting prematurely would be catastrophic.
All of which makes Sen. Clinton's accusations of GOP politicking not just self-serving, but downright absurd.
"They may not have a war strategy, but they do have an election strategy," Clinton whined. "The politically motivated resolutions put forth by leading Republicans to gain tactical advantage are a disgrace."
Except, of course, that it's the Democrats who pushed the bitter debate forward by introducing their pull-the-rug-out-from-under-the-troops resolutions.
And the GOP rightly answered them by proposing its own motions demanding that the Democrats put themselves on record regarding the U.S. mission in Iraq.
But, as noted, the Dems have no clear strategy or constructive ideas on how to deal with Iraq. The party remains divided - though, ultimately, the Democrats' proposals amount to little more than "cut, run and try to hide."
Many Dems - especially those with their eyes on the White House - are more concerned with appeasing the party's ever-more-shrill radical wing, which opposed the entire War on Terror from the get-go.
And so they're trying to finesse their positions in a way that mollifies the far left - while avoiding a blatant endorsement of surrender.
No one has managed this neat trick better than New York's junior senator, whose political balancing act on Iraq has been so cautiously executed that she might want to consider auditioning for that new reality TV show "America's Got Talent."
Trying to take a leaf from hubby Bill's political playbook of "triangulation," she rejected the idea of "a rigid timetable that the terrorists can exploit" but endorsed "an open timetable that has no ending attached to it." (Go figure.)
Clinton insists that Congress, had it known what it knows now, would never have authorized the war. But she fails to specify whether she herself would have voted differently.
All of which leaves the distinct impression that her only firm conviction is that . . . she should be president.
She and fellow Democrats would do well to consider the message offered by Sen. Christopher Bond (R-Mo.): "My son returned from over a year in Iraq and is preparing to go back again with another Marine unit. And he said, 'Dad, none of us are wild about going to Iraq, but I'll tell you, it's a heck of a lot better than cutting and running and letting Iraq disintegrate and chaos resume.' "
Indeed.
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