John Murtha is a man with a plan. The vote of no confidence against the President's new Iraq strategy was only a "first step." He really wants to stop the implementation by writing restrictions on military funding which would prevent, from a practical point of view, the deployment of the "surge" troops. He admits freely this restrictions could not be met.

Now, Murtha faces some stumbling blocks on the way to legislating defeat. First, there may be enough House Democrats who will balk at this tactic because they either recognize it as a de facto cutting off of the funds or an encroachment upon Executive authority, or both. Even if it passes, Senator Carl Levin, Democratic Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, rejects the approach. He prefers an amendment to the AUMF which would allow only defensive measures and training the Iraqis, but not American participation in combat missions. In effect, there would be an Authorization for Use of Military Force which precludes any offensive use of force. Potemkin would have been proud.

Levin's approach probably fares no better in the Senate, where a 60-vote majority is required to pass any controversial bills due to the filibuster rule, than does Murtha's, so it is likely the matter will be kicked to the House-Senate Conference on the differing bills, which is how different versions are resolved. Sooner or later, though, both bodies must pass an appropriations bill.

If a bill with any form of Murtha-esque hobbles is passed, a constitutional crisis could be precipitated. Bush would likely have to sign it, or lose all funding, so he probably would do so. But then he issues a signing statement noting the unconstitutional restraints on his authority as CinC, and ignore those provisions. The House Defeatocrats will immediately seek redress in the Supreme Court, and simultaneously institute the impeachment hearings they have been salivating over.

Rich Lowry at NRO considers the options:

Murtha repeatedly says in the webcast that his proposals are meant to "protect" the troops. But he is frank about the not-so-ulterior motive of keeping more troops from heading to Iraq, explaining that "they won't be able to do the work." Because his provisions can be sold as guaranteeing the readiness and quality-of-life of the troops, Murtha believes that they "will be very hard to find fault with."

Only if one ignores our constitutional scheme. The president, not Congress, is the commander in chief. Congress was never meant to, nor is it suited to, direct tactical military decisions, as Murtha seeks to do with his restrictions.

Arguably, his maneuver will be the most blatant congressional intrusion on the president's war-making powers in the nation's history. Congress choked off the Vietnam War in the 1970s, but only after U.S. ground troops were mostly already out of the country and chiefly as a matter of cutting off aid to South Vietnam.

Just as disturbing is Murtha's cynical reliance on failure in Iraq as a political strategy. The plan aptly has been described by Politico.com as a "slow-bleed" antiwar strategy. The surge is the best chance of turning the war around. By hampering it, Democrats will ensure that the war continues to fail, and thus that domestic political support for it plummets to the point where Democrats feel safe in defunding it.

Read the whole article at the link above.

What seems to be missing here is any Democrat in the House or Senate willing to stand up for our troops and our country [Lieberman is technically an Independent]. None of the so-called "moderate" freshmen in the House, who campaigned strongly AGAINST cutting off funds has stood up so far.

Neither are the antiwar Democrats willing to simply stand up and say they want to cut the funds off.

A sad day in the history of the oldest political party in the world. Mr. Jefferson would be distraught.