The Democratic strategy to use the ongoing violence in Iraq to their political advantage in the run-up to the 2008 elections requires some skill and nuance. But it's growing harder to believe Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid -- Nevada's own -- actually possesses those skills. ...
Enter Sen. Reid, flopping around in big red shoes like Bozo the Clown.
A few weeks ago, Sen. Reid said on a major weekend talk show that he favored a firm deadline for withdrawal of all forces from Iraq. When members of his own caucus said, "What? First we've heard," the senator went into damage control mode -- the kind that starts out with staffers explaining, "What the senator meant to say was ..."
But last week he was back at it. As the Democratic House voted 215-199 Thursday to uphold legislation ordering troops out of Iraq next year, Sen.
Reid appeared in public to declare the war in Iraq is "lost." ...
And in time of war, it's at least incredibly stupid to tell the enemy a fixed date by which the ammo and other supplies of the American troops will be cut off, encouraging the enemy to merely lay low and hold on. ...
Friday morning, the majority leader returned to the Senate floor, supposedly to reiterate his Thursday comments. Yet this time Sen. Reid carefully avoided using the word "lost." Less than 24 hours after declaring Iraq a lost cause, Sen. Reid insisted, "No one wants us to succeed in Iraq more than the Democrats."
Um ... what? ...
But it doesn't "hurt our troops" to tell them -- and the enemy -- that our Marines and G.I.s are risking their lives in a lost cause before they even suit up and start their engines for this morning's patrol?
