Friday, February 23, 2007

The Murtha Plan “May Be All But Dead”!   [Rich Lowry]

That didn't take too long. Apparently Murtha did himself no favors by clumsily announcing his not-so-ulterior motive on that left-wing web site. From the Washington Post here:

Party leaders in the House are likely to present a proposal for binding legislation to the Democratic caucus next week, according to lawmakers in that chamber. But lawmakers and senior Democratic aides said Murtha's plan would have to be scaled back dramatically, after a week-long Republican assault.

Murtha, chairman of the Appropriations defense subcommittee and a leading critic of the war, had intended to fully fund Bush's $100 billion war request for the remainder of this fiscal year. But under his plan, those funds could be spent only to deploy combat troops deemed fully rested, trained and equipped.

After nearly four years of combat, most military units would not be able to meet those standards. Although the war would be fully funded, the policy would prevent some of the 21,500 additional combat troops from being deployed, and some troops already in Iraq would have to be sent home.

But that approach may be all but dead, according to several Democratic lawmakers. Murtha doomed his own plan in part by unveiling it on a left-wing Web site, inflaming party moderates.

"Congress has no business micromanaging a war, cutting off funding or even conditioning those funds," said Rep. Jim Cooper (Tenn.), a leading Democratic moderate, who called Murtha's whole effort "clumsy."

Cooper's position underscores the challenges now facing the House Democratic leadership. While the caucus's liberal wing is demanding legislation to end the war almost immediately, moderates such as Cooper say Congress should focus on oversight of the war and stay away from legislation that encroaches on the war powers of the president.

Democrats are moving to the re-/un-authorization routine. This won't work either. If it's vague and general, it won't have any effect, because Bush can continue to order combat operations whether they are semi-authorized or non-authorized or whatever. If it's very specific and tries to ban certain operations, it will be unconstitutional. Again, if the Democrats want to end the war, there is a simple and constitutional way to do it—cut off the funding. Every other clever maneuver will be ineffective or unconstitutional.

02/23 11:50 AMShare