Boozman

“There haven’t been gains, Wolf,” the speaker replied. “The gains have not produced the desired effect, which is the reconciliation of Iraq. This is a failure. This is a failure.

Those were the words from Speaker Nancy Pelosi while speaking to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Sunday. While we come to expect such dismal prognostications from her - especially after going 0-60 on trying to change the policy in Iraq, and the public dissing of her masters at MoveOn after the Petraeus ad, her statement stands in stark contrast to another statement released over the weekend:

“There were almost 600 fighters in our sector before the tribes changed course 360 degrees . . . Many of our fighters quit and some of them joined the deserters . . . As a result of that the number of fighters dropped down to 20 or less.”

The author laments a reduction in force, due to an increase in pressure from the enemy.

It was written by a man named Abu-Tariq. Mr. Tariq just happens to be a member of al-Qaeda.

Not sure which opinion to go with here…

From Bill Kristol in The New York Times on how a certain candidate for the presidency who had to suspend disbelief to believe General David Petraeus is claiming some success for the improving situation in Iraq:

Yesterday, on “Meet the Press,” Hillary Clinton claimed that the Iraqis are changing their ways in part because of the Democratic candidates’ “commitment to begin withdrawing our troops in January of 2009.” So the Democratic Party, having proclaimed that the war is lost and having sought to withdraw U.S. troops, deserves credit for any progress that may have been achieved in Iraq.

That is truly a fairy tale. And it is driven by a refusal to admit real success because that success has been achieved under the leadership of … George W. Bush. The horror!

The Speaker of the House of Representatives seems a bit frustrated, so much so that she cast this aspersion toward House Republicans:

“The grassroots are justifiably disappointed, and I am too, that we could not do something to end this war. The assumption that I made, that the Republicans would soon see the light and listen to their constituents, was not an accurate one.”

“They like this war. They want this war to continue…”  (Press Conference, 12/13/07)

Wonder if this statement will be [redacted].

[We] await an apology.

How exactly can House Speaker Nancy Pelosi defend the obstruction of $200 billion in emergency combat operations funding for our forces in Iraq and Afghanistan when one of her closest cronies, the Vietnam vet she tried to install as House majority leader, now believes America is winning the war there?

So posits Investor’s Business Daily in an editorial entitled “Murtha’s Muddle.”

The piece goes through many of the same points found here. However, it concludes:

Democrats have invested everything in losing the war in Iraq and blaming it on President Bush, and now they’ve been proved wrong. Murtha has admitted it; other Democrats, one by one, will follow.

How much faith can Americans place in a party so committed to a national failure — and now so discredited?

If we are to learn anything from the case of Rep. Brian Baird it is that MoveOn has no problem eating their own. To wit:

Rep. Brian Baird’s (D-Wash.) recent conversion on the Iraq war is beginning to affect more than the national dialogue. On Wednesday, liberal group MoveOn.org announced an ad campaign against the congressman in his own district.

Baird recently returned from a trip to Iraq and reversed his position on a withdrawal timetable, citing military progress in the four-year-old war.

MoveOn is calling the move a “flip-flop” and says it goes against the views of his constituents.

The ad does not make specific reference to Baird’s conversion. Instead, it features a soldier who served in Iraq talking about the amount of resistance troops encountered and at the end asks viewers to tell Baird to bring the troops home.

This begs the question as to what MoveOn will do with the icon of the anti-war movement in the House of Representatives: John Murtha.

“I think the ’surge’ is working,” Mr. Murtha, a Democrat, said in a video conference from his Johnstown office, describing the president’s decision to commit nearly 30,000 additional troops at the beginning of the year.

Will the authors of the infamous “General Betray-us” advertisement be consistent in their disdain for Democrats who are able to accept reality?

Inquiring minds would like to know.

Michelle Malkin asks the same thing.

Meanwhile, the Politico has a retrospective of Chairman Murtha’s less than supportive words on the efforts of our military prior to his most recent statement.

“This could be a real headache for us,” said one top House Democratic aide, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “Pelosi is going to be furious.”

Glad to see the priorities are straight in the Caucus…

The Politico points out the oh-for-40 record of House Democrats when it comes to changing things in Iraq.

As the congressional session lurches toward a close, Democrats are confronting some demoralizing arithmetic on Iraq.

The numbers tell a story of political and substantive paralysis more starkly than most members are willing to acknowledge publicly, or perhaps even to themselves.

Since taking the majority, they have forced 40 votes on bills limiting President Bush’s war policy.

Only one of those has passed both chambers, even though both are run by Democrats. That one was vetoed by Bush.

Indeed, the only war legislation enacted during this Congress has been to give the president exactly what he wants, and exactly what he has had for the past five years: more money, with no limitations.

It is now expected that vote number 41 will be offered this week, despite the fact that the surge is working, and troops are coming home - on a timeline set by generals, not congressmen.

From the Associated Press this morning (we fully expect the NY Times to contradict this at its earliest convenience):

BAGHDAD (AP) — October is on course to record the second consecutive decline in U.S. military and Iraqi civilian deaths and Americans commanders say they know why: the U.S. troop increase and an Iraqi groundswell against al-Qaida and Shiite militia extremists.

Here is what one battle zone commander - Lt. Col. Val Keaveny, 3rd Battalion, 509th Infantry (Airborne) - had to say:

“People are fed up with fear, intimidation and being brutalized. Once they hit that tipping point, they’re fed up, they come to realized we truly do provide them better hope for the future. What we’re seeing now is the beginning of a snowball,” said Keaveny, whose forces operate out of Forward Operating Base Kalsu, about 35 miles south of Baghdad.

Today a motion to censure California Democrat Rep. Pete Stark for his remarks about soldiers getting “their heads blown off for the President’s amusement,” failed as 196 House Democrats voted to table a motion offered by Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio.

The resolution stated:

“Resolved, that the Member from California, Mr. Stark, by his despicable conduct, has dishonored himself and brought discredit to the House and merits the censure of the House for the same.”

Here is what Rep. Stark’s hometown newspaper said of his remarks:

San Francisco Chronicle:

“A new low point … The Ugly Moment of the Week goes to Rep. Pete Stark, the Fremont Democrat who has made a career out of minimalist accomplishment and optimal bombast.”

Iowa Democrat Dave Loebsack says he is seeing progress in Iraq, according to the Des Moines Register:

“Certainly, in Anbar province, there’s no doubt some progress has been made,” said Loebsack, an opponent of the war. The question is how much, and how much political progress has been made, as well, he said.

“The military has done a fantastic job, as always,” he said. Loebsack met with members of the Iowa Army National Guard’s 833rd Engineer Company, based in Ottumwa, and other Iowans serving in Iraq.

Apparently, Speaker Pelosi doesn’t much care for protesters.

“Look,” she said, the chicken breast on her plate untouched. “I had, for five months, people sitting outside my home, going into my garden in San Francisco, angering neighbors, hanging their clothes from trees, building all kinds of things — Buddhas? I don’t know what they were — couches, sofas, chairs, permanent living facilities on my front sidewalk.”

Unsmilingly, she continued: “If they were poor and they were sleeping on my sidewalk, they would be arrested for loitering, but because they have ‘Impeach Bush’ across their chest, it’s the First Amendment.”