He's just changed his public posturing, not his agenda. In public he's for supporting the troops, in private he's trying to undermine their mission.
On May 10, a silver-haired member of Congress looked into the C-SPAN TV camera and said, "We have to stand up for the troops."Well, at least he's being honest about the political posturing. Act patriotic in public when in reality you are giving aid and comfort to the enemy. He's masking his true intentions, there's a name for that. Frankly, I think that he should just be honest and tell us that he doesn't support the troops or their mission, he just wants to bring them home.
In a speech a few days later, that same congressman proclaimed, "Nothing less than protecting our troops is acceptable." The next morning, he repeated, "The best way to support our soldiers is to protect our soldiers."
If you weren't looking closely, you would think the speaker was military-friendly Norm Dicks of Bremerton or even Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona.
But it was Seattle's longtime liberal Democrat, Jim McDermott.
"Baghdad Jim." Remember him?
The most colorful man in Congress now speaks in red, white and blue. The politician who visited Saddam Hussein's city in 2002 and denounced the White House's war plans praises America's fighting forces almost daily while also calling for an end to the war.
It's hard to tell whether McDermott has mellowed or that he no longer sticks out from the crowd simply because so many of his colleagues now agree the war was a bad idea. On Thursday, the House voted to withdraw troops from Iraq by April 1.
[...]
McDermott says he no longer looks for opportunities to toss little bombs at the Bush administration.
His party controls Congress now, he said, and "there's different rules for that."
"When you're on defense you play hard. I knocked everyone down I could. But when you're on offense, you want to win.
"I've been on both sides, and you have to know your role."
BTW, for the liberals who may be tempted to comment that you guys support the troops more because you want to bring them home so that they won't be killed might want to keep in mind that the troops' lives will be put in greater danger if they are driven from the field by scared politicians who fear the voters more than the enemy. America will look weak in the Arab world and that's not something that is helpful in an honor based society and it will only cause greater boldness from our enemies as they realize that we won't stand and fight. I believe that our troops will be put in greater danger if we abandon the field to the enemy.
But we do have to give McDermott props for being smarter than Pelosi:
The Syrians wanted McDermott to take tea with them in Damascus, but Haddadim said no. "I advised him not to go there, because the Syrians would use it for propaganda," Haddadim said. McDermott agreed.(via)
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