Why are they so unhappy with Murtha?

Steve Soto has an excellent post on what's going on in Bush world right now. Go check out the entire thing but I'm going jump on one aspect of it, the reaction to Murtha's resolution.

For purely political reasons they intend to do exactly what Murtha proposed and he beat them to the gun.

When Bush says an early withdrawal from Iraq would be a “recipe for disaster”, this is nothing more than the typical “never admit a mistake” pruneface from this man. There will be a significant troop withdrawal undertaken after the December 15 elections, regardless of how they turn out. The White House will find some new way to spin the withdrawal as being consistent with Bush’s obligation to see things through until stabilization is achieved. If a significant number of forces aren't withdrawn between now and the 2006 elections, the GOP will lose one or both houses of Congress.

In the comments section of the above post backspace hit on the other reason Bush and the Republicans are so unhappy with Murtha.

You're halfway there. The Administration and Republicans in Congress wanted to get there first and take credit for coming up with the pullout initiative, and they were most definitely pissed when Murtha came out credibly and demanded it first. But the other half of Murtha's message was to publicly put the responsibility for this mess squarely on the Administration's shoulders. In doing that he offered the American public an alternative to the failed leadership of the Right. At least on this one issue. And that pissed the Right off even more.

So Murtha not only suggested they should do what they were going to do already but publicly placed the blame on them for the entire mess. The purpose of the House Republican resolution the other night was to make it look like Murtha said something different. I don't think it worked.

Go check out the rest of Steve's post as he has more on other foreign policy actions.


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