Doug Ross @ Journal

Dove to Hawk to Dove

On 9/10/2001, most Democrats were doves. But by September 12 of that year, with the collapse of the twin towers, most had transformed themselves into hawks. A purple hailstorm of rage pulsed the landscape from coast to coast.

After the fall of Afghanistan, Saddam Hussein was recognized as the predominant threat to regional stability. His "candystore for terrorists" and decades-long cat-and-mouse with weapons inspectors sealed his fate.

After a lightning-strike military operation, sons Uday and Qusay were dead and their father -- the modern amalgam of Hitler and Pol Pot -- was in prison. By 2005, despite an influx of terror drones slipped in from Syria and Iran and a cacaphony of IEDs, anyone could read the writing on the wall. Iraq was on the path to Democracy.

And the entire region was on its way to one of history's most dramatic transformations. Gusts of Democracy swept through Libya, Egypt, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan. Further political pressure mounted on the outliers still affiliated with the world's deadliest terror groups.

The Democratic party could read the tea leaves. Taking full political advantage, they joined in a chorus of their favorite devotional hymns, "We Were Mesmerized into War" and "We need an Exit Strategy." Let's not ask how W (maligned for years by the Left as laughably ignorant) hynotized the liberal elite. Instead, let's ask how gullible the Left thinks we -- the American public -- are. It would seem the answer is: laughably so.

And for our wishy-washy legislators on both sides of the aisle, Mark Steyn has a pretty good idea:

What does Rockefeller believe, really? I know what Bush believes: He thought Saddam should go in 2002 and today he's glad he's gone, as am I. I know what, say, Michael Moore believes: He wanted to leave Saddam in power in 2002, and today he thinks the "insurgents" are the Iraqi version of America's Minutemen. But what do Rockefeller and Reid and Kerry believe deep down? That voting for the war seemed the politically expedient thing to do in 2002 but that they've since done the math and figured that pandering to the moveon.org crowd is where the big bucks are? If Bush is the new Hitler, these small hollow men are the equivalent of those grubby little Nazis whose whining defense was, "I was only obeying orders. I didn't really mean all that strutting tough-guy stuff." And, before they huff, "How dare you question my patriotism?", well, yes, I am questioning your patriotism -- because you're failing to meet the challenge of the times. Thanks to you, Iraq is a quagmire -- not in the Sunni Triangle, where U.S. armed forces are confident and effective, but on the home front, where soft-spined national legislators have turned the war into one almighty Linguini Triangle.

And on Powerline, Vietnam veteran Charles Kindt eviscerates the surrender mentality so prevalent in today's political discourse.

It's galling, is it not, when someone like Murtha, who, as did I, served in Vietnam when the Democrats did, IN FACT, make us cut and run, can now espouse the identical spineless, pant-wetting, humiliating, hollow and death-dealing tactic as then? What did Murtha say about the abandonment of the South Vietnamese? No doubt, if we did as they loudly advocate, and Iraq returned to what they now see as "the good old days," they would be the first to scream "Bush Lost The War!" Seems to me that they were among the first, and the most strident, to criticize George H.W. Bush for not pressing the advantage during the first Gulf War, and remove Sadaam. Simply because Murtha, or any others of us, served in the military, does not make any of us somehow prescient or wonderfully wise about all things military. However, even the most brain-dead leftist should be able to read a one paragraph historical account of what actually happens when you "cut and run," and come away with a vague sense of the consequences. Then again, integrity, honesty and character are not items that can be used to describe today's left.

The party of FDR, Truman, and JFK has disappeared from the face of the Earth, perhaps never to be seen again. The current Democratic leadership, willing to transmogrify itself from Dove to Hawk and back to Dove again, are inexorably bound to a course of political expediency, no matter the cost to the United States.

Then again, when your grassroots support is minimal compared to the succor offered by George Soros and posse, it's really no surprise at all. There are about 23 million reasons why the party is addicted to Soros. But who knows where the financier's true loyalties lie? Unfortunately, that's a question that also must be asked of the Democratic leadership, who are now beholden to the treasures of a rogue currency trader and his ilk.