JOSHUA FRANK: The Democrats’ Election Year Stunts

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A Neutering In Full Stride

By Joshua Frank -- World News Trust

You know you are either getting somewhere or losing ground fast when the Democrats begin to exploit your slogans during an election year. Howard Dean, the Democratic National Committee chair, last weekend plugged the necessity of pulling troops out of Iraq by year's end. But his plea couldn't carry less weight -- for the doctor's party doesn't agree with him.

"The Republicans don't have a plan," Dean said in his party's weekly radio address. "'Stay the course' is not a plan. Saying the problems in Iraq will be left to the next president, is not a plan.… We believe that we ought to focus on training, logistics, and counterterrorism, and we can do that with a redeployment of our troops."

It took a while for Howard Dean and a few other Democrats to come around to Rep. John Murtha's call to redeploy troops throughout the region. Yet, even though Dean complains that the Republicans don't have a plan to pull out troops, he fails to address the reality that the Democrats still don't have one either. In fact, most of Dean's colleagues have yet to embrace Murtha's call, as the failed bills in the Senate proved last week. In a round of embarrassing votes, the Democrats heartily embraced Bush's prolonged occupation.

In the first set of tallies, the Democrats overwhelming opposed a timetable for withdrawal, shooting down John Kerry's lethargic proposal to get troops out by July 2007. In the second, even less significant request, Democrats folded again and failed to adopt a plan for redeployment of U.S. armed forces from Iraq.

A broken party, like that of the Democrats, will never be able to challenge the stubbornness of the Republican establishment, which is nearly unwavering in its call for more war and occupation.

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