WASHINGTON -- Wherever they are I hope the authors of our
Constitution are pondering the spectacle now bedazzling Capitol
Hill. In the admirable governing document that the Founding Fathers
fashioned they made the president "Commander in Chief" of our
military. Yet, according to the novel reading of the newly elected
Democratic majority, the Founding Fathers denied the president the
instrumentalities to be commander-in-chief. For over two centuries,
through wars large and small, American presidents have been
equipping armies, deciding strategy, and sending those armies into
battle. Now, however, along come the Hon. Nancy Pelosi, the Hon.
Harry Reid, and the incomparable Hon. John P. Murtha with their
exegesis of the Constitution.
Past presidents were in error. They acted unconstitutionally
when they in their impertinence had their generals and admirals
train and equip our forces. Those duties, according to this trinity
of fantasists, were to be left to committees on Capitol Hill, even
committees dominated by a president's opponents. Thus Speaker of
the House Pelosi has charged Murtha to divine the conditions under
which reinforcements will fight in Iraq. The Democrats approved of
putting Lieutenant General David Petraeus in charge of Coalition
forces in Iraq, but they do not approve of his strategy of "surge."
Thus he will apparently have to sit tight until Murtha, an opponent
of the war, decides how General Petraeus's troops will be armed and
trained.
Does this sound a bit fla fla? Has any war ever been fought this
way? What are the Democrats thinking of? They are thinking of more
electoral victories in 2008. If they can effectively hamstring our
efforts in Iraq, they somehow think the American electorate will
blame the whole thing on the Republicans. The worse the sectarian
violence becomes, the better for Democratic prospects. The more
Iraq descends into anarchy, the more likely the American people
will whoop it up for the political party that, as the
Washington Post has put it, linked "support for President
Bush's war-funding request to strict standards of resting, training
and equipping combat forces."
Frankly I think the Democrats are taking reckless chances with
their fate. For a certitude, they are treating our military even
more recklessly. The Democrats' political meddling in this war is
obviously dragging it out and endangering our troops. In fact, the
rancorous way they have moved from support of the war to opposition
has had to encourage our enemies in Iraq and elsewhere.
You might recall in the aftermath of 9/11 as we drove the
Taliban from Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq,
serious observers of world events such as the British historian
Niall Ferguson questioned American resolve. Ferguson seemed to
believe that in light of this new threat of international terror
originating from the Middle East's rogue states the United States
would demonstrate the resolve to overcome this new threat to the
democracies.
Well, Professor Ferguson, you underestimated the partisan nature
of contemporary American politics. So eager for high office are the
Democrats that they would endanger our war effort to gain political
advantage. They voted for war in 2002. They sneered at the handful
of anti-war activists led by the likes of Professor Noam Chomsky
who opposed it. Then they suffered the disturbing sense that their
support of wartime president George W. Bush marginalized them and
helped him in his 2004 re-election bid. Of a sudden, they
fabricated a complaint, to wit, "Bush lied to us about WMDs."
That bogus complaint now justifies them in harassing his
execution of the war. Note that the Democrats are not actually
calling for retreat. They might eventually, but for now all they
want to do is take on Constitutional powers that no other Congress
has ever taken on, the power to manage a war. It is disgraceful and
it is very stupid. It assumes that the American people will not
hold them accountable when bad consequences follow upon their bad
behavior.
President George W. Bush is in a difficult situation in Iraq.
Yet from the looks of it he will be saved, if not by General
Petraeus then by the Democrats' shameful political tactics in time
of war.
topics:
Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Constitution, Founding Fathers, Military, Iraq
