Please Check Your Advisors at the Party Door

Is there any truth to the Washington Post's take on how the Democratic Party is NOT the well-oiled machine we've come to love and respect and count on? Maybe. And maybe Nancy Pelosi should've flipped before she flopped. I have to admit it was a pretty boneheaded move to balk for several days before agreeing with Murtha's call for a rapid withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. But maybe it's her advisors who are flailing. You know, the ones on the Republican payroll?

Marshall Wittmann, a former Republican political strategist now with the centrist Democratic Leadership Council, said Pelosi may have resurrected her party's most deadly liability -- voters' lack of trust in the party on national security.

A former Republican strategist??!!?? Is it any wonder they usually do such a good job gumming up the Democratic works, the Democrats come off sounding and acting like warmed-over Republicans? I can't help but wonder if someone's wising up and purging the ranks because, apparently, Nancy's not listening, Marshall, and the Democrats in general are looking downright LIBERAL these days. But is it too much to ask for a little cohesion? A statement we can all get behind? The professor offers a little jumpstart:

“By attacking Congressman Murtha, Congresswoman Pelosi, and the Democratic Party for criticizing Bush’s failed war strategy the Administration and the Republican Party once again display their arrogance and their alienation from the American people. An overwhelming majority of the American people knows this war has been mishandled. These same Americans know that the road to security and peace is an exit strategy from Iraq that the Administration doesn’t have. The Bush Administration’s response to criticism of its flawed "Plan for Victory" demonstrates its contempt for the very citizens who are paying the taxes that support this war. Scandalously, the Republican attack shows what they think of the citizens whose sons and daughters, husbands and wives, and whose fathers and mothers are paying for this mishandled war with their lives.”