How About a NEW YEARS Ramble?

My friend Seth and I like to talk about the moments that might have gone unrecognized but were really the great "tipping points" in domestic politics. For me there is no doubt the "unsung hero" of the Democrats continued demise was the Jack Murtha debacle.

A bit of history. The Dems thought they'd landed a great one with the advent of Cindy Sheehan. Sure she was clearly a loon but, hey, with the New York Times, et al, in their pocket, they could portray this lunatic leftist using her son's death for personal and political gain as some sort of "peace mom."

Of course the leftists knew that Sheehan's demand to "just talk with the President" was a lie, as the President had already met with Sheehan (who had then been quoted offering the President high praise), but they were confident enough in their control of information to think they could keep this from the people.

Sure, the Times knew that Sheehan's entire family (including Sheehan's own husband who had also lost his son in Iraq), considered Sheehan to be out of her mind, but, still, they're the New York Times, they'd be able to bury that truth.

So sure of their position as "purveyors of the truth" the Times even commissioned Maureen Dowd to write a piece in which any questioning of Sheehan's motives or mental state was an outrage. Dowd wrote that Sheehan's "moral authority" is "absolute."

Unfortunately for the Times (and the Dems as a whole), this was not 1985 or even 1995. The year was 2005 and the leftist media no longer held a total monopoly on information.

Thanks to Fox News, center-right talk radio and the emergence of the blogesphere, Sheehan was quickly exposed as the lunatic lefty that she was, spouting such insanities as "Louisian is occupied territory!"

Quotes from the loonie leftist played uncut and in their entirety showed her to be just a little to the left of, say, Michael Moore and Howard Dean, and just a little less well-groomed than the former and a little more hysterical than the latter.

The Dems needed to manufacture someone new...and fast.

Enter Jack Murtha -- the previously unknown backbencher. Having tried to sell the "peace mom," the Dems invented the "warrior dad" who had "come to his senses." Murtha's "moral authority" was to go unquestioned because he had done a nice job fighting in a previous war.

But, like all inventions, Murtha wasn't up to the task. He stumbled through words that were clearly written for him by others, made a fool of himself even on the most soft-ball laden leftist TV shows and quickly had to have surrogates stand in for him to say that he didn't really mean what he'd actually just said.

THE moment, though, came when, after sponsoring a bill demanding that America cut-and-run immediately from a war that most people recognize we are winning, and, after hours of listening to the usual suspects of far-leftists engaging in an unprecedented degree of lies, hate and vitriol, the Democrats went on to vote AGAINST the Murtha bill in a vote that totaled 406-3.

Even Jack Murtha voted AGAINST the Jack Murtha bill!!!

At this moment it became literally impossible for any but the willfully blind to not recognize that, not only were the Democrats (yet again) playing politics with the lives of our citizens but doing so in the most hateful way anyone had ever seen our Congress.

This was John Kerry's voting FOR the money to support our troops before he voted AGAINST it only a thousand times worse. For this wasn't just one idiot who happened to be the party's "standard bearer," this was the entire Democrat party.

That this took place in counterpoint to a speech given by the President in which he offered consistent, reasoned, mature policy in front of not braying Democrats but Americans from across the political spectrum who know the real situation in Iraq better than anyone -- our troops -- served as a perfect metaphor for the choices Americans face in their local, state and national elections.

One need not agree with every position the President takes. Lord knows I don't. But given the choice between the mature, thoughtful, respectful and consistent positions of the President -- and the support he receives from the grownups who know the truth -- versus the political game-playing, childish attacks and vitriol from the children who throw one tantrum after another (and then vote AGAINST exactly what they were saying!!!) the desired outcome is clear.

And that's why the Jack Murtha debacle -- the "I voted FOR cutting and running before I voted AGAINST cutting and running" episode -- was a turning point and a tipping point and just one more nail in the leftists' coffin.