**UPDATE Mark Noonan posits several critical questions for Pelosi and Reid.
Last September, a group of St. Louis Cardinals fans would call local sports talk shows and say they hoped the team wouldn’t make the playoffs. They commented similar sentiments on various Cardinals forums and blogs. When the Cardinals lost a game, they’d gloat, making fun of the “kool-aid guzzlers” who wanted the team to make the playoffs. Claiming that losing was in the team’s best interest, they cheered for any team the Cardinals played, including the Chicago Cubs. These traitors to Cardinal Nation simply knew better than the rest of us, they said. “If you had half a brain,” one wrote, “or was [sic] a true Cardinal fan, you’d agree with me.”
I can only assume these idiots are Democrats. If so, they must enjoy the news that their party’s Congressional leaders sent a letter to the President today admitting that they want the US to lose the war in Iraq. (See Outside the Beltway and judge for yourself.)
For two years, Democrats have demanded more troops on the ground in Iraq. Since liberals will lie and say that Democrats do not want more troops, I point to this story on MSNBC.com filed December 6, 2006:
In a surprise twist in the debate over Iraq, Rep. Silvestre Reyes, the soon-to-be chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said he wants to see an increase of 20,000 to 30,000 U.S. troops as part of a stepped up effort to “dismantle the militias.”
And on December 18, 2006, now Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told CNN:
The incoming Senate majority leader, however, offered qualified support for a troop surge, saying it would be acceptable for a few months as part of a broader strategy to bring combat forces home by 2008.
In June of 2005, both Kerry and Biden called for more troops while making the Sunday talk show rounds:
Sen. John Kerry, Bush’s Democratic opponent in last year’s presidential election, told NBC’s “Today” show that the borders of Iraq “are porous” and said “we don’t have enough troops” there. Sen. Joseph Biden Jr., appearing on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” disputed Bush’s notion that sufficient troops are in place.
“I’m going to send him the phone numbers of the very generals and flag officers that I met on Memorial Day when I was in Iraq,” the Delaware Democrat said. “There’s not enough force on the ground now to mount a real counterinsurgency.” Biden argued, “The course that we are on now is not a course of success. He (Bush) has to get more folks involved. He has to stand up that army more quickly.”
And some liberal bloggers (Cryptogon.com) even expected Democrats to continue to beg for more troops:
Democrats have been calling for additional troops for years. Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) proposed an increase of 40,000 troops during his 2004 campaign against Bush, only to be dismissed by the administration.
We have established irrefutably that from 2004 through December 2006, Democrat leaders wanted more troops in Iraq. So when the President announced his intentions to deploy 20,000 troops to secure Baghdad, the Democrats shouted “It’s about damn time,” right?
Wrong.
Democrats shouted, “No, Mr. President.� That might cause the US to win, and we don’t want that.”
You lefties really should find another country to live in. This one has work to do.
UPDATE
The Astute Bloggers express appropriate sentiment