Clifford May reports that Representative Nancy Boyda, a congressional Democrat from Kansas, walked out of a hearing rather than risk a challenge to her preconceptions.
At a recent hearing of the Armed Services Committee, retired Gen. Jack Keane said “progress is being made” by U.S. military forces in Iraq; “We are on the offensive and we have the momentum,” he added. The freshman congresswoman was so distressed by these remarks that she got up and she walked out.
There was “only so much” she could take, she explained, so she “had to leave the room … after so much of the frustration of having to listen to what we listened to.” She said she was worried, too, that General Keane’s remarks “will in fact show up in the media and further divide this country.”
Just when she thought the media war had been won, that the voting public had been convinced of the futility of the war in Iraq, in comes a salvo of congressional testimony to obliterate the hard won gains. May went on to note that at least one Democrat is coming to the realization that his party may have bet on the wrong horse.
As House Majority Whip James Clyburn suggested this week, success in Iraq also would be awkward for those who have bet their political chips on American failure.
To be precise, Clyburn said that it would be “a real big problem for us” should General Petraeus return to Washington next month and present a positive report on progress in Iraq. Moderate Democrats might listen and decide that for America to be defeated in Iraq by al Qaeda and Iranian-backed militias is neither inevitable nor in the national interest. These same moderate Democrats also might decide that, for them, the national interest trumps the partisan interest.
Makes for an interesting definition of "moderate Democrat": n. One who takes national interest into consideration.
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