Patience
With so many members of the House of Representatives, I certainly have not heard all all of them, much less be conversant in all of their positions. So, I have never heard of Jim Marshall, Democrat from Georgia. But I hope I hear more from him and more like him.
WASHINGTON - President Bush and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi both need Jim Marshall.
He’s a House Democrat who represents the kind of Republican-leaning district in the South — in Macon, Ga., and its environs — that Pelosi must keep in order to hold onto her majority in the House.
And Bush needs the support of Marshall and Democrats like him to give his Iraq policy a chance of success…….
Not a last stand
Marshall did not see the speech in the apocalyptic terms that some pundits did: “People need to be thinking about this not as some sort of last stand or next-to-the-last stand, but as a reasonable thing for America to do in order to support the Iraqis.”
There's more. His position cannot be endearing him to Nancy Pelosi, but Tom Curry, the author of the story, is absolutely right. She really should listen to people like Marshall unless she's willing to see the House change hands again in 2008. (Not that I believe she will, but that's another story.) Marshall's best line:
On Monday Marshall used a word that Bush used in his speech Wednesday night, a word you won’t hear Democrats such as Pelosi use: “What this calls for is patience.”
He explained: “We can reduce the size of our conventional forces (in Iraq) at the same time that we increase the size of our Special Operations forces, (do) more training, more embedding — and frankly a difference in the size of the conventional force is not likely to change the security situation very dramatically at all, unless it’s taken a political signal that we’re withdrawing. So we should not be doing it as a withdrawal action.”
Precisely.
By Quilly Mammoth, Thursday, 11 January , 2007 @ 4:22 pm
I think the Blue Dogs are starting to growl. Rep Marshall is a Blue Dog. He is also a member of the Army Ranger Hall of Fame. A Vietnam vet he certainly knows whereof he speaks.
There’s 35 Blue Dogs (at last count) and rumor is that some are chafing that the recent election was a win for the Far Left.
By Gaius, Thursday, 11 January , 2007 @ 4:28 pm
Good for them.