[url=http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20070327_republicans_to_their_peril_stand_with_bush/]
Republicans, to Their Peril, Stand With Bush
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Now the war belongs to the Republican Party.
That is really what happened in the House the other day. All but two Republicans opposed the Democrats on the vote in favor of a war funding measure that seeks to wind down American military involvement with a set of political benchmarks the Iraqi government and Bush himself have long espoused but never attained.
The same is about to occur in the Senate, when it votes this week on a war spending bill that includes a “goal”—but no requirement—of bringing U.S. combat troops home in a year. Having first blocked even debate on a nonbinding resolution on Iraq in the Senate, Republicans there now will be almost unanimous in opposing this more robust bill.
They are standing with Bush.
And so, just as Vietnam-era war protesters and later Jimmy Carter’s Iranian hostage crisis tarred Democrats with public perceptions that they were dangerously incompetent on foreign policy in general and in military matters in particular, Iraq may leave an indelible mark of political shame on Republicans. The Pew Research Center, in its annual survey of American political values, reveals plummeting Republican fortunes across the board.
With the Iraq votes as the backdrop, the shift in public sentiment about the proper course of U.S. foreign and military policy is striking.
