The WashPost questions the patriotism of the Democrats

Coming on the heels of the LA Times' crusher, the Washington Post all but accuses Nancy Pelosi of playing the war for political gain. From "The Pelosi plan for Iraq - It makes perfect sense, if the goal is winning votes in the United States."

Congress should rigorously monitor the Iraqi government's progress on those benchmarks. By Mr. Bush's own account the purpose of the troop surge in Iraq is to enable political progress. If progress does not occur, the military strategy should be reconsidered. But aggressive oversight is quite different from mandating military steps according to an inflexible timetable conforming to the need to capture votes in Congress or at the 2008 polls. Ms. Pelosi's strategy leads not toward a responsible withdrawal from Iraq but to a constitutional power struggle with Mr. Bush, who has already said he will veto the legislation. Such a struggle would serve the interests of neither the Democrats nor the country.

Captain Ed adds: "The Democrats have no answer for this, no strategy, no plan, other than to pander for votes in 2008. The Post correctly points out their utter lack of foresight and comprehension." Which leads to this question: in what way are the Congressional Democrats relevant to U.S. policy in Iraq? They're not going infringe on executive power in any meaningful way and they don't have the votes within their own caucus to cut off funding. So, instead, we're going to have a year-and-a-half of heated rhetoric on Iraq...unless things improve. Then, as John Edwards and Hillary Clinton and John Kerry and others have demonstrated, they'll stick a finger in the wind and declare: "These are my core principles and if you don't like them I have others."