Murtha of a Nation

Rep. John Murtha intrigues me. His background is heroic, his idea for pulling troops from Iraq is suicidal but his role in Hilary's future is interesting. After a few months of Cindy Sheehan's shaming of the president, her dingbat idea is catching fire. Even Republican Senators are wondering that three years of a shooting war is too much for a country to bear, even though casualties haven't reached the levels of the morning of D-Day. How, one has to wonder, does the junior senator from New York handle this growing anti-war spasm?

Hillary Clinton, an anti-Saddam hawk, cannot be happy. She has heard the intelligence report since the mid-90s, she has sat on intelligence committees, and met with hindreds if not thousands of soldiers, reservists and airmen in her tour of military bases in New York. How does a neocon - yes, a neocon - convince the anti-war, bring them home, no blood for oil Left that she is their chice for the White House in '08.

Easy: she can't. Expect Hillary to go to the other side to join Sheehan, Murtha and countless other senators and representatives from both the right and left who have lost their stomach for the war. It's over. Expect to see politicians on listening tours so that they can vote to bring the troops home.