Say Anything Blog

It’s amazing how quickly the Democrats change their tune when the President comes out and embraces policy they themselves supported, isn’t it?

For many in the Senate, they were for a surge of troops in Iraq before they were against it.

“We don’t have enough troops in Iraq,” Sen. John Kerry, Massachusetts Democrat, said in 2005.

In 2004, he told NBC’s Tim Russert some things he believes “very deeply.”

“Number one, we cannot fail,” Mr. Kerry said. “I’ve said that many times. And if it requires more troops in order to create the stability that eliminates the chaos, that can provide the groundwork for other countries, that’s what we have to do.”

He no longer believes that now. He is among at least a dozen Democratic senators who in the past have called for more troops in Iraq but now support a resolution condemning President Bush’s plan to do just that.

More from a Wall Street Journal op/ed a few weeks ago:

You might have thought President Bush’s announcement yesterday that he intends to deploy several thousand more combat soldiers to Iraq would have been sweet policy vindication for the Democrats. They’re the ones who spent the better part of the past four years using Eric Shinseki--the former Army Chief of Staff who, prior to the war, estimated it would take up to half a million troops to occupy the country--as a cudgel with which to beat this President over the head.

Thus former House minority leader, now Speaker Nancy Pelosi, citing General Shinseki in May 2004, on “Meet the Press”: “What I’m saying to you, [is] that we need more troops on the ground.” Thus, too, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, just four weeks ago: “If it’s for a surge--that is, for two or three months--and it’s part of a program to get us out of there as indicated by this time next year, then, sure, I’ll go along with it.”

Lately the Democrats have been singing from a different hymnal. In a letter Mr. Reid and Ms. Pelosi sent the President last week, they write: “Surging forces is a strategy that you have already tried and that has already failed. . . . Adding more combat troops will endanger more Americans and stretch our military capability to the breaking point for no strategic gain.”

As for Carl Levin, the new Senate Armed Forces Chairman was also one of those who used to call for more troops. But now he is threatening a legislative cap on the number of troops in Iraq if Mr. Bush doesn’t start a significant drawdown of U.S. forces in Iraq later this year. We’ll bet Mr. Levin never has the political nerve to follow through on anything but TV sound-bite criticism.

Isn’t it wonderful how the Democrats seem to put politics, and opposing the President at any cost to the war effort and our national security, above sound policy?

And by “wonderful” I of course mean “gaggingly vile.”