Don’t get caught flat-footed in front of the press!  Below is a quick rundown of today’s “must reads.” – John T. Doolittle, House Republican Conference Secretary

The Morning Murmur – Thursday, December 8, 2005

1.  Rally Round the (White) Flag, Boys! – The Weekly Standard
The Democratic leadership has decided to elevate surrender to a party platform for the upcoming elections, with their national chairman, House leader, and last presidential nominee all running up the white flag as the Democratic war banner.

2.  Oh, holiday tree? The attack on all things Christmas has gone too far – Dallas Morning News Columnist
The invocation of "Christmas” is now perceived as an affront, and a new phony right has been born – the right of religious minorities to never have to endure any reference to the social or economic activities of the majority faith.

3.  Progress in Iraq – Washington Times Editorial
One wouldn't know it from the acrimonious debate in Washington, but two former trouble spots, Najaf and Mosul, are rapidly joining the 80 percent or so of Iraq that suffers little or no violence– good reasons why Howard Dean is utterly wrong to predict American defeat in Iraq.

4.  Double Down, Dr. Dean – New York Post Editorial
Howard Dean is not just any old loud-mouthed opportunist. He is the duly elected leader of the Democratic National Committee, and if he's asking America to believe that the party will support his proposal, then he needs to prove it. He should insist on a vote on his plan.

5.  Democrats Fear Backlash at Polls for Antiwar Remarks – Washington Post
Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s strong antiwar blasts have created a rift in her own party and several Democrats have joined President Bush in rebuking DNC Chairman Howard Dean’s declaration that "the idea that we're going to win the war in Iraq is an idea which is just plain wrong."

For previous issues of the Morning Murmur, go to www.GOPsecretary.gov

FULL ARTICLES BELOW:

1.  Rally Round the (White) Flag, Boys! – Weekly Standard
Democrats finally find an Iraq policy they can get behind.

By Edward Morrissey
12/07/2005

THE GOOD NEWS for the Democrats is that their leadership has settled on an electoral strategy for 2006. The bad news is that they have cribbed their game plan from one of the most disastrous campaigns in their history. The Democratic leadership has decided to elevate surrender to a party platform for the upcoming elections, with their national chairman, House leader, and last presidential nominee all running up the white flag as the Democratic war banner.

When was the last time that an entire political party stood for backpedaling the way the Democrats have in the past two weeks? Since Rep. John Murtha made his supposedly stunning announcement that he wanted an immediate withdrawal of all troops from Iraq, the Democrats have embraced surrender.

Not even during the Vietnam War did a major American party position itself to support abject retreat as a wartime political platform. For that, one has to go back to the Civil War, when the Democrats demanded a negotiated peace with the Confederate States of America and a withdrawal from the South. Celebrating the popularity of former General George McClellan, who had come from the battlefield to represent a party whose platform demanded a negotiated settlement (which McClellan later disavowed), the Confederates assumed that the war could be over within days of McClellan's presumed victory over the controversial and hated Abraham Lincoln. Even some Republicans began to question whether Lincoln should stand for reelection--until Sherman took Atlanta and exposed McClellan as a defeatist and an incompetent of the first order.

Murtha's demand for a pullout gave the party's leadership a chance to openly embrace defeatism, much as McClellan did for Northern Democrats in 1864, using McClellan's field experience for the credibility to argue that the American Army could not hope to defeat the enemy it faced.

AFTER THE MURTHA COMMENTS, the GOP challenged the Democrats to go on record with a Congressional vote for retreat. Almost the entire Democratic caucus cut and ran from their embrace of the cut-and-run strategy--the House voted against the non-binding resolution for immediate withdrawal 403 to 3. The height of Democratic pusillanimity came when GOP Rep. Sam Johnson, a former Vietnam POW, asked for three extra minutes to complete his remarks. Several Democrats voiced objection. The speaker demanded that the members objecting identify themselves--and none would even stand for their own objection.

Since then, things have only gotten worse. John Kerry insisted that no Democrat had demanded a precipitous withdrawal or a timetable for retreat--and then demanded that the White House provide a timetable with dates for "transition of authority." (In other words, after deciding at the end of last year's election that the United States needed more troops in Iraq, he now demands a withdrawal after he demanded an escalation.)

At nearly the same time, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi held her own news conference demanding an immediate withdrawal of all American troops from Iraq. Her second in command, House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, shot back that he wanted no withdrawal and instead wanted the nation to focus on victory. Meanwhile, Senator Joe Lieberman returned from his fourth trip to Iraq and wrote that Bush has a plan in place for winning the war--and that it's was working. Democratic leadership respectfully disagreed with Lieberman's assessment--and then changed course and suggested that Lieberman replace Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense.

Then the Democratic party chairman stepped to the microphone in San Antonio on Monday to further muddy the waters. Howard Dean told WOAI listeners that America could not win the war against the terrorists in Iraq and that the United States should "redeploy" 80,000 National Guardsmen in Iraq back to America. As for the remaining 80,000 currently in Iraq, Dean wants 20,000 sent to Afghanistan and the rest to be "strategically redeployed" to an unnamed friendly neighboring country to fight the al-Zarqawi network everywhere except for where they currently operate--in Iraq.

OF COURSE "redeployment" by disengagement with no intent to return to the battlefield has another term in military parlance: full retreat.

More than 140 years after McClellanism first raised its ugly head in the Democratic party, it has returned to drive party descendants into a frenzy of confusion and defeatism. Just as Iraq has begun to establish its democratic structure and its troops have begun to show progress towards organizing for their self-defense, the Democratic leadership is frantically looking for ways to bug out. Not even the courageous voices of Joe Lieberman and Steny Hoyer in opposition to their party leadership appear able to stop the panicked rush of the Democrats to claim defeat as their standard. The distaste of watching the Democratic leaders try to top one another in declaring America the loser in Iraq will convince voters to keep Democratic hands off the levers of national security for the foreseeable future.

Edward Morrissey is a contributing writer to The Daily Standard and a contributor to the blog Captain's Quarters.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/006/456mvstf.asp

2.  Oh, holiday tree? The attack on all things Christmas has gone too far – Dallas Morning News Columnist

Mark Davis
Wednesday, December 7, 2005

A Christmas quiz: What is the difference between these two events?

1. A clerk at a department store tells shoppers "Happy holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas."
2. A store renames Christmas trees, calling them "holiday trees."

Answer: Event No. 1 is a reasonable and praiseworthy attempt at inclusiveness, since the clerk does not know which shoppers celebrate Christmas and which do not.
Event No. 2, however, is a gutless and ridiculous dodge of the obvious, buying into a new level of politically correct absurdity.

As believers and nonbelievers work themselves into a lather over the Christmas Wars, rational distinctions like this can be lost.

Relief can be found in examining the roots of various holiday pronouncements and an assessment of their motivation.

Back before extremism made sensitivity a bad word, "Happy holidays" was a nice greeting that one could offer safely to Christians, people of other faiths and complete nonbelievers.

It's not as if "Merry Christmas" was a brick to the head of those not recognizing the enormity of Jesus' birth; "Happy holidays" was simply a wish intended to find its target irrespective of faith.

Nothing wrong with that.

But sometime in the last decade, as sensitivity became hypersensitivity and inclusiveness became jargon for pathological social engineering, the cursor moved.

A simple wish to broaden a holiday greeting morphed into obnoxious condescension, seeded by the most intolerant wings of the secular left.

Suddenly the invocation of "Christmas" was a perceived affront, and a new phony right was born – the right of religious minorities to never have to endure any reference to the social or economic activities of the majority faith.

The resulting eradication of "Christmas" from the lexicon of retail commerce and school pageants has lighted a righteous fire in those who fairly ask: Is the mere acknowledgment of Christmas in our daily lives now elevated to the First Amendment-volatile level of, say, forced Bible study in public schools?

The sad answer is yes, by some. But the good news is that these people are nuts, and they are losing.

Witness the large cities and stores of every size punting the ridiculousness of "holiday trees" and calling them what they are: Christmas trees.

Some school districts have even awakened to a fresh reality about Christmas concerts: a choir or a band performing "Silent Night" is neither a purveyor nor a victim of religious indoctrination.

Interestingly, the baseless complaining that poisoned the well of Christmas tolerance came not from Jews or Muslims, who generally seem quite unbothered by Christmas imagery, but from churchless busybodies who just can't stand to see society give the slightest nod to a season sparked by the birth of Jesus.

Harsh reaction to this is understandable, but defenders of Christmas need to refrain from engaging in their own lousiness born of oversensitivity.

"Did you know that 'Xmas' is an atheist plot to de-emphasize Christ?" bleats one e-mail campaign, ignorant of a religious abbreviation dating back centuries. "If a clerk says 'Happy holidays,' complain to a manager," exhorts another stupid spammer just looking to pick a fight.

The proper battle is to make advertisers and schools comfortable with the C-word again. Seeing it in store signs and catalogs and hearing it from the lips of third-graders in a Christmas concert are not the drumbeat of proselytization; it is the acknowledgment of this season's central wish of peace and good will.

The imagery and customs of Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and any other prevailing holidays should always be welcome in the public square. It should not be too much to ask to extend that same tolerance to the holiday celebrated by the vast majority of Americans.

Merry Christmas to all.

The Mark Davis Show is heard weekdays on News/Talk 820 WBAP and nationwide on the ABC Radio Network. WBAP airtime is 9 a.m. to noon. His column regularly appears Wednesdays on Viewpoints.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/columnists/mdavis/stories/DN-davis_07edi.ART.State.Edition1.1349898b.html

3.  Progress in Iraq – Washington Times Editorial

December 8, 2005

Najaf, Mosul and the Iraqi economy: These were the three pillars of President Bush's speech yesterday before the Council on Foreign Relations, and they are three of the best reasons why Howard Dean is utterly wrong to predict American defeat in Iraq. One wouldn't know it from the acrimonious debate in Washington, but the two former trouble spots are rapidly joining the 80 percent or so of Iraq that suffers little or no violence, while the Iraqi economy is looking better than it has in years.

Najaf used to be one of Iraq's worst problem areas; now it has an elected government, political campaigns and signs of new economic activity. Iraqi police handle security; U.S. forces are now 40 minutes outside town, as Mr. Bush observed -- a sign that a place once overrun by terrorist militias is returning to a normalcy it never enjoyed under Saddam Hussein, whose thugs terrorized the Shia city.

In 2004, Mosul ranked with Fallujah as perhaps the most infamously violent place in the country; today U.S. forces are moving into a supporting security role. Insurgent violence is still a problem, but last year's chaos is over, and the city's political leadership has regained control. As one of Iraq's most populous cities and a center of commerce, Mosul's improvements rank among the most encouraging signs that things are improving on the ground in Iraq.

The Iraqi economy is rebounding; real gross domestic product is expected to grow by 16 percent next year. Unemployment is still high at a one-quarter to one-third of the population but is down from highs of half or more of the country in the immediate aftermath of war. On a per-capita basis, income levels in Iraq since 2003 have doubled, according to World Bank data.

Why doesn't official Washington notice this good news? The White House's public-relations offensive draws some attention to it, but the question remains for the many antiwar politicians and the media who fail to acknowledge the signs of progress on the ground.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20051207-104212-7670r.htm

4.  Double Down, Dr. Dean – New York Post Editorial

December 8, 2005

So, while predicting — calling for? — the defeat of American troops in Iraq, Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard "le Weasel" Dean simultaneously boasted that his party would soon come together on his proposal to bring 80,000 National Guard and Reserve soldiers home immediately.

Now, it's not likely that the Democrats can come together over much of anything — especially national security.

And it remains to be seen whether anything that rolls off Howard Dean's lips is worth hearing.

Still, Dean is not just any old loud-mouthed opportunist. He is the duly elected leader of the Democratic National Committee, and if he's asking America to believe that the party will support his proposal, then he needs to prove it.

He should insist on a vote on his plan.

Surely, congressional fellow travelers such as Rep. Jose Serrano of The Bronx, Georgia's Cynthia McKinney or Florida's Robert Wexler — the only three House members to vote in favor of last month's resolution demanding immediate withdrawal — would be more than willing to introduce a similar measure.

Especially if their party leader asks them to.

Well, Mr. Chairman, go ahead.

Let the votes fall where they may.

http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/editorial/58509.htm

5.  Democrats Fear Backlash at Polls for Antiwar Remarks – Washington Post

By Jim VandeHei and Shalaigh Murray
Wednesday, December 7, 2005; A01

Strong antiwar comments in recent days by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean have opened anew a party rift over Iraq, with some lawmakers warning that the leaders' rhetorical blasts could harm efforts to win control of Congress next year.

Several Democrats joined President Bush yesterday in rebuking Dean's declaration to a San Antonio radio station Monday that "the idea that we're going to win the war in Iraq is an idea which is just plain wrong."

The critics said that comment could reinforce popular perceptions that the party is weak on military matters and divert attention from the president's growing political problems on the war and other issues. "Dean's take on Iraq makes even less sense than the scream in Iowa: Both are uninformed and unhelpful," said Rep. Jim Marshall (D-Ga.), recalling Dean's famous election-night roar after stumbling in Iowa during his 2004 presidential bid.

Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Rahm Emanuel (Ill.) and Rep. Steny H. Hoyer (Md.), the second-ranking House Democratic leader, have told colleagues that Pelosi's recent endorsement of a speedy withdrawal, combined with her claim that more than half of House Democrats support her position, could backfire on the party, congressional sources said.

These sources said the two leaders have expressed worry that Pelosi is playing into Bush's hands by suggesting Democrats are the party of a quick pullout -- an unpopular position in many of the most competitive House races.

"What I want Democrats to be discussing is what the president's policies have led to," Emanuel said. He added that once discussion turns to a formal timeline for troop withdrawals, "the how and when gets buried" and many voters take away only an impression that Democrats favor retreat.

Pelosi last week endorsed a plan by Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) to withdraw all U.S. troops in Iraq within six months, putting her at odds with most other Democratic leaders and leading foreign policy experts in her party.

Democrats, who have not controlled the White House since 2000 and the House in more than a decade, have tried over the past year to put aside deep philosophical differences and rally behind a two-pronged strategy to return to power: Highlight the growing number of GOP scandals and score Bush's unpopular war management.

While the party is divided over the specifics of Iraq policy, most Democratic legislators are slowly coalescing around a political plan, according to lawmakers and party operatives. This would involve setting a broad time frame for drawing down U.S. troops, starting with National Guard and reserve units, internationalizing the reconstruction effort, and blaming Bush for misleading the country into a war without a victory plan.

The aim is to provide the party enough maneuvering room to allow Democrats to adjust their position as conditions in Iraq change -- and fix public attention mostly on Bush's policies rather the details of a Democratic alternative. A new Time magazine poll found 60 percent of those surveyed disapproved of Bush's handling of Iraq.

Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) embodies this cautious approach. He has resisted adopting a concrete Iraq policy and persuaded most Democratic senators to vote for a recent Senate resolution calling 2006 "a period of significant transition to full Iraqi sovereignty" and to compel the administration "to explain to Congress and the American people its strategy for the successful completion of the mission in Iraq." While Republicans introduced the resolution, it was prompted by a Democratic plan.

Democratic Reps. Jane Harman and Ellen Tauscher, both of California, plan to push House Democrats to adopt a similar position during a closed-door meeting today that is to include debate on the Pelosi position.

Despite Pelosi's claims that she echoes the views of most members in her caucus, plenty of Democrats are cringing at her new high profile on an Iraq withdrawal. Not only did she back a position that polls show most Americans do not support, but she also did this when Bush is trying to move off the defensive by accusing Democrats of supporting a de facto surrender.

"We have not blown our chance" of winning back the House but "we have jeopardized it," said a top strategist to House Democrats, who requested anonymity to speak freely about influential party leaders. "It raises questions about whether we are capable of seizing political opportunities or whether we cannot help ourselves and blow it" by playing to the liberal base of the party.

Pelosi spokesman Brendan Daly said that while Pelosi estimates more than half of House Democrats favor a speedy withdrawal, she will lobby members in today's meeting against adopting this as a caucus position.

Without naming Pelosi, Vice President Cheney told troops yesterday that terrorists will prevail "if we lose our nerve and abandon our mission," saying such precipitous move "would be unwise in the extreme." Cheney, addressing Army units at Fort Drum, N.Y., said that "any decisions about troop levels will be driven by the conditions on the ground and the judgment of our commanders, not by artificial timelines set by politicians in Washington, D.C."

In his comments Monday, Dean likened the president's optimistic assessment to those offered by the government during the Vietnam War. Bush fired back yesterday. "There are pessimists . . . and politicians who try to score points. But our strategy is one that is -- will lead us to victory," Bush said in response to a question about Dean's comments after a meeting with Lee Jong Wook, director general of the World Health Organization. "Our troops need to hear not only are they supported, but that we have got a strategy that will win."

DNC spokeswoman Karen Finney said Dean's comments were taken out of context. Dean, she said, meant the war was unwinnable unless the Bush administration adopts a new strategy. Still, a number of Democrats distanced themselves from Dean. "I think Howard Dean . . . represents himself when he speaks," Tauscher said. "He does not represent me."

Democratic candidates said their biggest concern is that voters will misconstrue comments by party leaders about Bush's handling of the war as criticism of U.S. troops who are fighting in Iraq. "I absolutely disagree" with Dean, said Patrick Murphy, a Democrat who is running for the suburban Philadelphia House seat now occupied by GOP Rep. Michael G. Fitzpatrick.

Rep. Chet Edwards (D-Tex.), who represents a district Bush won easily in 2004, said he disagrees with Pelosi and Dean but does not see that as a problem. "The national press is playing up the fact that Democrats do not speak with one voice on Iraq," he said. "We should wear it as a badge of honor because it shows we are not playing a political line with war and peace."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/06/AR2005120601707.html

###