"Tell all those assholes in D.C. to get us the f--- out of here. This is bullshit."*

Well the Republican Congress has their meaningless, rhetorical 'victory' in this week's Iraq 'debate'. The Associated Press reports that "In a 256-153 vote that mirrored the position taken by the Senate earlier, the GOP-led House approved a nonbinding resolution that praises U.S. troops, labels the Iraq war part of the larger global fight against terrorism and says an 'arbitrary date for the withdrawal or redeployment' of troops is not in the national interest." Wow, sounds like victory is around the corner with such decisive action! The real reason is the elections, of course. The article later notes "Republicans likely will use Democratic 'no' votes to claim that their opponents don't support U.S. troops". Count on it. Shades of 2002 (in which Vietnam vet Max Cleland was defeated by Republicans with ads allying him to Saddam Hussein and bin Laden), the Republicans, despite having been proven wrong on almost every aspect of this war, will continue to paint their opponents as weak surrender-monkeys. Winning the war takes second place to winning the elections. And that is why I believe they are capable of winning neither.

Many Democrats did stand up and fight back against this rhetoric, though.

Here is part of one such rebuttal from yesterday's House session...

"[A]t a time when Americans and Iraqis are giving their lives in the one of the most brutal wars of our time... an internal Republican memo was circulated outlining the Party's plan of attack for today. It instructs Republicans to paint a picture of, quote, 'a Democrat Party without a coherent national security policy that sheepishly dismissed the challenges America faces in a post-9/11 world,' end quote. We'll hear a lot of that empty propaganda today, I'm sure.

How will such divisive rhetoric help our soldiers abroad, Mr. Speaker? What could it possibly have to do with the war we are fighting?...

...So I suppose it shouldn't come as a surprise that today, instead of proposing serious solutions to the problems we are facing in Iraq, Republicans are offering us a "yes" or "no" vote on a resolution drowning in patriotic rhetoric and offering us an open-ended fight against an open-ended enemy.

Debate is about choice - but there is no choice here today. What we have is less like our democracy and more like a Soviet election.

Americans expect real debate in their Congress. They don't expect their Representatives to passively acquiesce to the assertions of a meaningless resolution based on White House talking points. And they expect their elected officials to have a meaningful discussion on the future course of the greatest challenge to our nation in a generation."

--Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY)

Full statement- here. Video clip- here.

Video of more Dems denouncing the stunt and the GOP's failed leadership on the war- here.

Unfortunately for our leaders, it's not the war between reality v. rhetoric that concerns voters. It's the real one.

[*Quote from a soldier's letter in this Salon article summing up this whole shameful show:
Resolved: America great! Bin Laden evil! Go Bush!-

Not even the inventor of "freedom fries" could stand to be present at the GOP-controlled Congress' absurd "debate" over Iraq.]