By John W. Lillpop
For one who has worked feverishly to prove that the "best man for the job of Speaker is a woman," Speaker Nancy Pelosi has shown herself to be a hysterical squaller and unequal to the challenge when confronted by big, bad Republican men in Washington, D.C.
At issue were comments made by Vice President Dick Cheney in which the Veep administered a badly needed dose of truth serum to the misguided Pelosi.
"I think if we were to do what Speaker Pelosi and Congressman Murtha are suggesting, all we will do is validate the al-Qaida strategy," the vice president told ABC News. "The al-Qaida strategy is to break the will of the American people ... try to persuade us to throw in the towel and come home, and then they win because we quit."
Here:
Cheney's statement was simply a strongly worded disagreement with politicians from the opposition party on an issue that is of vital concern to America.
However, Cheney did not question the patriotism of any one, although he did suggest that sound judgment might be in short supply among those who now make up the majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.
To say that Speaker Pelosi found the medicine administered by Dr. Cheney distasteful would be comical, were it not so damn funny.
Rather than responding to the Veep with an intelligent, reasoned comment, Pelosi decided to throw a sissy fit by calling President Bush to complain.
In what should provide writers at Saturday Night Live with material for months, Pelosi said Cheney's criticism of Democrats was "beneath the dignity of the debate we're engaged in and a disservice to our men and women in uniform, whom we all support."
"And you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to call the president and tell him I disapprove of what the vice president said," Pelosi said. "It has no place in our debate."
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Pelosi did, in fact, try to call Bush, but was only able to reach chief of staff Josh Bolten. Thank Goodness for switchboard incompetence!
Thank Goodness, because Cheney is 100 percent right.
In fact, Speaker Pelosi and John Murtha want the United States to retreat from Iraq as soon as possible, and are prepared to go to extraordinary lengths to circumvent President Bush's troop surge.
Think about it: How can the recent resolution of non-support engineered by Pelosi and passed by the House be interpreted as anything but a validation of al-Qaida strategy?
Or perhaps the bug-eyed speaker from San Francisco is laboring under the false notion that al-Qaida supports Bush's plans to add more troops in Iraq?
For his part, John Murtha said he would attach language to a war funding bill to prohibit the redeployment of units that have been at home for less than a year, stop extension of tours beyond 12 months, and prohibit units from shipping out if they do not train with all of their equipment.
Murtha's aim, he made clear, is not to improve readiness but to "stop the surge."
Here:
How can Murtha's thinking be viewed as anything but a validation of al-Qaida strategy?
Breaking News: Just because Dick Cheney disagrees with Nancy Pelosi and John Murtha does not mean that the Veep regards the two as closet Jihadists.
Repeat: Dick Cheney is not accusing Democrats of converting the House cloakroom into an al-Qaida sleeper cell.
The point is that, in Cheney's view, proposals made by Pelosi and Murtha would have the unintended consequence of aiding and abetting this nation's avowed enemy.
Besides, disagreeing publicly with the Speaker of the U.S. House is still constitutional, even when the Speaker is a member of the "weaker sex."
Right, Madam Speaker?
John Lillpop is a recovering liberal.
