Democrats labored long and hard to frustrate and hamper the war effort in Iraq, a job the troops want to finish, but at the end of the day even the likes of Jack Murtha couldn’t pull the trigger on voting “no” on continued funding for the men and women in the field. Continuation of the war effort – at least, for long enough to give Gen. Petraeus and the rest of the military leadership and rank and file the time to make some real headway under the “surge” strategy – ended up garnering broad, bipartisan support, with only a handful of left-wing extremists (and a few Republicans casting votes of protest at pork in the bill) voting no. In the Democrat/Socialist-controlled Senate, for example, the vote to fund the troops was 80-14.
But consider that the few extremists who voted against it and against the mainstream consensus includes the top two Democrat contenders for president, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. John Edwards and Bill Richardson also voiced their support for a “no” vote (Chris Dodd, rumored to be conducting a 2008 campaign, also voted no). In 2004, of course, John Kerry famously tried to get out of a vote of this nature by saying he voted for it before he voted against it. The odds are pretty strong that the next nominee of the Democratic party will once again end up going before the general electorate in search of some mealy-mouthed excuse for taking the McGovernite position. Or maybe by next year, they won’t even bother to hide the fact that the far left will be calling the shots if they win the White House next November.