Okay, here’s our project for the day here at TPM.
Last summer the White House made the case to congressional Republicans that the best way for them to weather the Iraq storm politically was to embrace the war and the president’s policy and try to make the debate into one of “staying the course” or “cutting and running.”
As you can see by this post below, Rep. Sweeney (R-NY) did as he was told and now seems to regret it since he’s now saying “I think that the strategy of ‘staying the course’ is not a strategy at all. It doesn’t work.”
A lot of GOP reps made similar statements a few months ago and if you’ll remember they all vote for that Iraq war resolution. And I really doubt Sweeney’s the only one to be caught in such an egregious flip flop.
Politically, of course, that’s very damaging. But this goes beyond gotcha politics. Even for those who don’t support a rapid withdrawal from Iraq, it was crystal clear this summer that the president’s Iraq policy was a disaster. It was the height of cynicism to embrace that policy on the argument (plausible at the time, not so plausible now) that it was the best strategy for the mid-term election. These folks deserve to be punished at the polls for that cynicism when American troops are dying in the field and Iraq is becoming a charnel house.
So, crank up the google or nexis, and you take a look at see if you can find similar ‘stay the course’ quotes from members of Congress in competitive elections. If you can find quotes like that and a more recent flip flop quote, a la Rep. Sweeney (R-NY), we’ll give you a brand new TPM T-shirt for labors and a big thank you online. (We’ll give away up to five T-shirts.)
