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# Posted 10:45 PM by Ariel David Adesnik

COMPARING THE RESOLUTIONS: Gary Farber compares Murtha's proposal to the GOP version that got voted on yesterday. According to Gary, no one should dare say that the two are the same. As far as I can tell, the main difference is as follows -- The GOP version says that "that the deployment of United States forces in Iraq be terminated immediately." Murtha's version says that

The deployment of United States forces in Iraq, by direction of Congress, is hereby terminated and the forces involved are to be redeployed at the earliest practicable date.

Btw, the roll call on the GOP version is here. Three cheers for Cynthia McKinney and her two brave colleagues for voting "aye"!

Also, Joe Gandelman argues that the GOP shot itself in the foot by drawing even more attention to Murtha, giving anti-war Dems a highly visible platform, and exposing some of their own members as malicious and small minded.

Just to underscore the importance of that last point, who was the only GOP representative to get a soundbite on NBC Nightly News after the debate? You guessed it: Jean Schmidt.

And of course, Murtha himself got more great coverage from NBC. At the end of her segment on the House debate, Andrea Mitchell asked:

Why is one congressmen's call for withdrawal so powerful? Because people on both sides of the debate think that if the president has lost John Murtha, he could lose the nation.

You can't pay for coverage like that.

(2) opinions -- Add your opinion

Comments:

Excellent column.

And I say that as a Democrat.

Also, wanted to let you know your homepage link at top left needs
a correction.

Thanks, I linked to this. And you can delete this comment after reading since it's not too useful in the long run :-)

# posted by

Unknown : 2:26 PM

Thanks. I'll fix the link.

# posted by

Ariel David Adesnik : 10:42 PM