The Mistake That Wasn't

So now you have Democrats running around beating their chests, wearing hair-shirts and singing mea culpas over the "mistake" they made in voting for the wra in Iraq. I was there--I remmeber, don't you? I remmeber that no one--no one from the inside--of these Monday Night penitents ever said anything to forestall the vote on the War.

They didn't ask questions, they didn't say stopm, "let's think about this before we make a mistake." No, they did it because they wanted to go along to get along. They wanted to llok tough and patriotic and save their image so they could hold on to their jobs.

Ricahrd Cohen today in the Washington Post puts it well:

But so, too, are those from Democrats who say they made a "mistake" in supporting the war. What sort of mistake? It's not a mistake to be misled. But it is a mistake, if that's even the right word, to lack the courage of your convictions, to get swept up in the zeitgeist and dig in your heels even harder -- not as a consequence of hardening conviction but of accumulating doubt. This is a mistake of great consequence, a failure of judgment or political courage, and it needs to be explained.

That's right. Without putting too fine a point on it, the Democrats are gutless, spineless shills that every politican from every party in the US is. The Democrats should be doing more than simply living parasitically off the decayed corpse of the Bush war plan. They should be thinking creatively and big ideas to get us out of this mess.

And if there's one person who I believe has really truly shown courage in this debacle it is John Murtha--who voted for the War but has had the guts and honesty to really realize how much of a mistake he made and how of a mistake this war was and is. He has also presented a real plan--a plan for real victory, taking on the terrorists for real instead of spreading fear and deceit all over the globe.