Stop Me Before I Vote Again

Thus Arianna Huffington:

Don't let the DLC and DCCC spin-meisters fool you. This election was not a mandate for the Democratic Party to run to the middle. It was a mandate for the Democratic Party to do everything in its power to get us out of Iraq -- rapidly and responsibly.

And that's why the next thing Democrats need to do is make sure that Jack Murtha becomes the new Majority Leader of the House. He led the charge to make Iraq the central issue of this campaign, and led the charge to keep pressing the issue when other Democratic leaders wanted to tone down the rhetoric or move economic issues to the forefront.

Jack Murtha's leadership sparked last night's victory and has given Democrats control of Congress for the first time in a dozen years. Now they have to complete the end-the-Iraq-debacle mission the voters have given them. And Murtha's the leader who can take them the rest of the way.

That Arianna can be a charmingly naughty girl sometimes. I don't think Murtha has a chance in hell of becoming majority leader, and given his joined-at-the-hip relationship with the brass hats at the Pentagon, I don't think I'd want him to, but I love the idea of this column showing up in Nancy Pelosi's morning news digest like a cockroach in her scrambled eggs.