McCain and Lieberman Double-Team the Dems

Senators John McCain and Joe Lieberman have an op-ed in today's Manchester Union-Leader slamming the Dems for their refusal to pass a clean Iraq funding bill:

HAVING SPENT much of the past year mired in legislative trench warfare over Iraq, advocates in Congress seeking a mandatory withdrawal of troops are now refusing to pass funding for our forces deployed in Iraq or Afghanistan.

For Congress to fail to provide the funds needed by our soldiers in the field is inexcusable under any circumstances -- but it is especially disappointing right now, coming at the very moment when Gen. David Petraeus and his troops are achieving the kind of progress in Iraq that few would have dared imagine possible just a few months ago.

We recently traveled to Iraq, where we saw and heard firsthand about the remarkable transformation that our brave men and women in uniform have succeeded in bringing about this year.

As every major news outlet now acknowledges, security has improved dramatically across Iraq since Gen. Petraeus took command and began implementing a bold new counterinsurgency strategy -- the so-called "surge." Today, rocket and mortar attacks have dropped to their lowest levels in 21 months. Car bombs and suicide attacks in Baghdad have plummeted 70 percent. Iraqi civilian casualties are sharply down throughout Iraq. And the number of U.S. soldiers killed in action has fallen for five straight months and is now at the lowest level in nearly two years.

Simply put: a year ago, al-Qaida was winning in Iraq. Now we are.

Our soldiers know they have seized the momentum in this fight.

Idealistic and innovative, they rightly recognize what has happened this year under Gen. Petraeus as one of the most extraordinary turnarounds in American military history.

Read the whole thing. The Democrats have stumbled into a number of legislative defeats on the Iraq issue that have dragged their approval rating to new lows. If layoff notices start going out to households of union members who work for the Defense Dept. because of the Dems intransigence, the donkey party will be in for a tough time in early 2008.