Lynn Woolsey and the giant sucking sound

By gaining control of Congress, the Democrats suddenly found themselves with a problem. It’s one thing, when you have to power to effect changes, to demand that the US withdraws from Iraq; it’s another thing, when power is yours, to have to figure out a way to make that withdrawal happen without creating the type of chaos that results in anarchy and religious genocide within Iraq itself.

It’s rather fun to watch Democratic contortions now that they have to own the problem. Lynn Woolsey, though, who represents (where else?) Marin County in Congress, doesn’t feel any such constraints, though, and has leapfrogged over Pelosi to demand that the US withdraw completely from Iraq by mid-year:

Unwilling to wait for Democratic Party leaders to act, Rep. Lynn Woolsey introduced legislation Wednesday that would require withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq within six months and prohibit continued funding except for redeployment. Woolsey, D-Petaluma, moved forward on her own without getting a green light from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco.

“It is not my job to ask the permission of my leadership to do what I know to be right,” Woolsey said.

Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill said his office hadn’t seen the “particulars” of the bill.

He added that Pelosi will continue to look to Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., for leadership on the issue. Murtha, a former Marine, in November 2005 called for withdrawal of U.S. troops within six months.

Hammill said Pelosi is reluctant to cut funding “because there are soldiers in the field.”

Contrary to the more practical Pelosi, Woolsey insists that everything will be sweetness and light once the evil US has withdrawn from the field:

But Woolsey said that if Democrats delay ending the war – by cutting off funds if necessary – the lives of hundreds of U.S. troops and thousands of Iraqis will be at risk.

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Woolsey insists that it is the U.S. military presence in Iraq that is fueling the violence there.

Woolsey’s really not as naive as she sounds. Instead, she comes across as one of the most cynical politicians I’ve seen in a long time. Thus, Woolsey realizes that, given enough time, Americans will recognize that the Dems don’t have a plan, and may well look to the Republicans in 2008. By creating a bloodbath in Iraq now, which can be blamed on the Bush presidency, Woolsey hopes to create a clean slate for a total Democratic victory in 2008:

“It is clear to me and to many that if 2008 comes around and we have not dealt with Iraq, it will be too late for any Democratic candidate or Democratic Congress,” Woolsey said. “The reason we gained control of the majority on Nov. 7 was because the public spoke out loudly to change course in Iraq and bring our troops home.”

Woolsey isn’t alone in this attempt to abandon the Iraqis to position the Democrats to regain the White House. Sixteen other Democrats, including the always reprehensible Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Berkeley, and Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Los Angeles — signed on to her proposed legislation.

UPDATE: If you need a reminder about what happens when America yields to liberal political pressure at home and abandons a half-fought war, Jeff Jacoby will give you that reminder:

Senator Edward Kennedy likes to label Iraq “George Bush’s Vietnam,” as he did last week when he introduced legislation to give Congress, not the commander-in-chief, the final say on troop levels in Iraq.

Bush played no role in the fall of South Vietnam and Cambodia to the Communists in 1975, of course. But Kennedy did. He helped lead the congressional drive to cut off financial aid to the pro-American governments in Saigon and Phnom Penh, brushing aside President Gerald Ford’s warning that “the horror and the tragedy that we see on television” would only grow worse if America deserted its allies.

But Kennedy and the Democrats spurned Ford’s request, and the result was unspeakable agony — Cambodia’s killing fields, Vietnam’s re-education camps, waves of “boat people” hurling themselves into the sea. Having seen the results of US abandonment in Indochina, how can Kennedy advocate the same policy in Iraq?

“If we cease to help our friends in Indochina,” Ford said, in words worth recalling today, “we will . . . have been false to ourselves, to our word, and to our friends. No one should think for a moment that we can walk away from that without a deep sense of shame.” Ford, a decent man, couldn’t imagine deliberately abandoning a friend in dire straits. Kennedy, it would seem, is not so inhibited.

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