Just a short comment on the vote lastnight. The House, as you know, rejected a resolution requiring the immediate withdrawl of U.S. troops from Iraq by a vote of 403-3.

I watched a good deal of the debate on CSPAN, and most interesting as well as somewhat hilarious, was watching Democrat after Democrat complain that the Republicans were actually calling them on their nonsense, with a recorded vote on whether to actually pull our troops immediately from Iraq. How dare Republicans actually require the Democrats to go on record! Another theme was the ineffective and tired Democratic technique of declaring that anyone who questions or doubts their prescription for our national security is questioning their patriotism. And of course, Rep. Charles Rangel asserted that Rep. John Murtha has "earned" the right to credibly speak on whether the U.S. should pull out of Iraq because he served his country, thereby ludicrously suggesting that those of us who have not do not have such a right.

After months of calling the president and vice-president liars, Democrats rose to loudly inform the American people that it is perfectly fine and well for them to hurl the most scurilous and unsupported charges at George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and other high ranking members of the administration, but it is unacceptable for Republicans to ask them to put their money where their mouth is, for all of the American people to witness.

Virtually none of the House Democrats, as Tom Bevan observes, had the fortitude to vote the way they truly believe. Excuses that the resolution was not the "real" Murtha resolution don't cut it. A large majority of these congressional Democrats want out of Iraq NOW, and that is precisely what the resolution stated. If the Democrats believe so strongly that the American people have become intractably fatigued with Iraq then they should have easily been able to vote for lastnight's resolution with no hesitation whatsoever. They couldn't do that because they know that the American people do not overwhelmingly want an immediate pullout, and they know that such a pullout would be a grave insult to the memory of those who have both died fighting, and those who have been maimed and otherwise injured in Iraq.

The Democrats will scream and spit over the next few days, and on the Sunday shows tomorrow, that Republicans altered the original Murtha resolution. But never forget that lastnight's resolution called for precisely what a majority of them have wanted, and they didn't even have the courage to stand up and back their own convictions in public and for the historical record with a "yes" vote.