The roundtable took on the issue of funding for the troop. Fareed Zakaria questioned the Democratic strategy, saying "Congressional control of foreign policy is a blunt instrument. It can only be wielded in this very blunt way. What Murtha and Pelosi are trying to do is to narrow it, to turn it into a scalpel rather than a cudgel. I don't know that it will work." George Will reminded his compatriots that "the cudgel is clearly constitutional, whereas the scalpel may not be, due respect to Justice Katrina [vanden Heuvel] here. . . . We could be heading for a very interesting Constitutional moment here." Justice vanden Heuvel then entered into a neat bit of Orwellian semantics, demanding "George, stop using 'defund' . . . stop the word 'defund.' See, so much of this is language; protect the troops, use the funding to bring them home. I feel so strongly about this."
Fox News Sunday featured an interview with Carl Levin, who spoke on the Senate's recent attempt to rebuke President Bush's Iraq strategy. "We are determined that we are going to change course in Iraq. . . . I don't think there's support to cut off funds, I think that sends the wrong message to our troops; we're going to support our troops, but one way to support them is to find a way out of Iraq earlier rather than later." Newt Gingrich, who appeared on the show after Levin, had this to say about the Democrats' tactics: "There's a difference between
offering advice to what we should do, and legislating. . . . if they want to come in and say, we're cutting off all funding, the president has sixty days to leave Iraq, we are prepared to take responsibility, and we are rendering our judgment, that's one thing. That's not what they are doing. They want, what I think is the worst of all worlds: They want the ability to undermine the president, the ability to cripple the defense department, while disclaiming any responsibility. I think this strategy Murtha and Pelosi have been very open about. In the Senate it's not as open, but in the House they've been very open, that they intend to gradually grind down our ability to be effective in Iraq, day by day, week by week, amendment by amendment; I think that's a very destructive way to approach things."
Brit Hume was even less kind to Murtha than Gingrich, saying "It's time that a few things be said about [Murtha]. Even the Washington Post noted that he didn't seemed particularly well informed about what's going on over there, to say the least. Look, this man has tremendous cache among House Democrats, but he is not, this guy is long passed the day when he had anything but the foggiest awareness of what's going on in the world." Bill Kristol bluntly stated what common sense should have pointed out a while back in regards to Iranian interference in Iraq: "If the Iranian Revolutionary Guard are sending deadly devices into Iraq to kill American soldiers, which they are, that seems to be unquestioned, we have a big problem with Iran. . . . Whether they're simply permitting it, or ordering it, we have a big problem."
Face the Nation's roundtable was interesting this week. Doyle McManus gave any gamblers interested in wagering on politics a solid tip, when he told Bob Schieffer "Here's a fascinating little piece of research that I, that I turned up in my reading. If you look at the polls, six times out of the last seven Republican contested races, the early front-runner goes on to win. Democratic races are more chaotic and prone to more changes. So one thing you might want to do is look at your own poll and see who's out ahead right now, and Rudy Giuliani doesn't look like such a bad bet to go all the way through."
Sonny Bunch is assistant editor at THE WEEKLY STANDARD.
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