They can continue to claim they’re simply disagreeing with policies of the Bush administration, but listen to their words and you’ll see it’s much more than a simple disagreement. And it’s downright disgusting.

Senator Harry Reid is trying to preempt the report General David Petraeus is to give to Congress tomorrow… by calling the four-star general a liar.

“Before the report arrives in Congress, it will pass through the White House spin machine, where facts are often ignored or twisted, and intelligence is cherry-picked,” said Reid.

On Friday, Reid went so far as to question not only the true source of the report but also the four-star general’s honesty. “He has made a number of statements over the years that have not proven to be factual,” Reid said.

Of course, Reid doesn’t give us any specific examples of the numerous lies he claims General Petraeus has told. To call a four-star general who is commanding troops in an active war a liar in a public statement is not a “disagreement of policies”… it’s unpatriotic and disgusting.

Not to be outdone, Democrat Dick Durbin (who likes to compare our soldiers to nazis) said:

“By carefully manipulating the statistics, the Bush-Petraeus report will try to persuade us that violence is decreasing and that the surge is working. Even if the figures are right, the conclusions are wrong.”

He tries to hedge on Reid’s calling Petraeus a liar by including Bush’s name when claiming the report will be a fraud, but look at his last line: “Even if the figures are right, the conclusions are wrong.” He’s saying that Bush and Petraeus plan to manipulate the statistics to make the report say something that doesn’t jive with reality but then admits that even if they don’t manipulate the statistics, the report will still be wrong… (even though Petraeus hasn’t even delivered the report yet). Durbin’s arguing in the alternative here. He’s betting the report will contain some good news and is trying to explain the report away before it arrives… saying that the numbers are fake and the conclusions are flawed or the numbers are accurate, but the conclusions are flawed.

Of course, it’s obvious why they’re doing this. Democrats have already admitted that good news from the Petraeus report would be bad news for them.

Many Democrats have anticipated that, at best, Petraeus and U.S. ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker would present a mixed analysis of the success of the current troop surge strategy, given continued violence in Baghdad. But of late there have been signs that the commander of U.S. forces might be preparing something more generally positive. Clyburn said that would be “a real big problem for us.”

Bottom line, Democrats think Petraeus will deliver a report that highlights successes in Iraq and they’ve already admitted that good news for America will be bad news for Democrats.

The logical conclusion then is simply that Democrats and America have mutually distinct and independent goals.

UPDATE:
“U.S. poll finds more faith in military than politicians in resolving Iraq.” Hello, backfire.

This is priceless:

Democrats are having their own problems cleaning up bad spending habits, and that’s after only a few days in power. Yesterday on the Senate floor, Majority Leader Harry Reid was caught pulling out every stop to kill his own party’s plan for earmark reform.

To Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s credit, House Democrats recently passed ethics legislation that included provisions making earmarks more transparent. The House bill included a broad definition of earmarks, thereby making it harder to hide them in, say, last-minute conference reports. It also requires Members to file a public disclosure form when they request an earmark, and to state that neither they nor their spouses will financially benefit. It’s hard to argue that this is anything but elementary good government.

Unless you are Harry Reid. The ethics reform offered by Senate Democrats contained none of these tougher earmark provisions. So Senate Republicans, led by South Carolina’s Jim DeMint, cheekily took the identical language of the House earmark bill and offered it as an amendment to the Senate version. Numerous Democrats instantly denounced it, apparently unaware (or unconcerned) that the language had been sponsored by Ms. Pelosi.

Oops.

Democrat Dick Durbin then moved to table the amendment, though he lost by 51 to 46. Of the 46 Senators who voted to banish Ms. Pelosi’s reform, 38 of them were her fellow Democrats.

Democrats are so eager to oppose anything a Republican might put forth that when a Republican puts forth legislation drafted by Democrats, they oppose it immediately. Not because of the substance, but because of who offered it. And this time they’ve been caught red-handed.

That’s what happens when you’re more focused on gaining and keeping political power than you are about actually doing what’s best for the country.

Seems like another Democrat is taking Howard Dean’s talking points to heart and creating his own version of the facts.

The Washington Times reports:

In a column last month in the Los Angeles Times, Mr. Turley wrote that during a private meeting with Mr. Durbin, Judge Roberts “was asked by Sen. Richard Durbin [Illinois Democrat] what he would do if the law required a ruling that his church considers immoral,” Mr. Turley wrote. “Roberts appeared nonplused and, according to sources in the meeting, answered after a long pause that he would probably have to recuse himself,” wrote Mr. Turley, who added that it was “the wrong answer.” Conservatives
immediately accused Mr. Durbin of applying a religious “litmus test” to the Roberts confirmation, and Mr. Durbin said the column was inaccurate.

Hint: Dick Durbin, himself, was the source! So what does Durbin have to say for himself?

“I don’t know who was his source,” Joe Shoemaker, Mr. Durbin’s spokesman, said the day the column ran. “Whoever the source was either got it wrong or Jonathan Turley got it wrong.”

The reporter, Jonathon Turley sent a letter to Durbin’s office laying out the facts… including extensive quotes from a taped message by Durbin’s spokesman, Joe Shoemaker… who was also at the meeting in question. In fact, Shoemaker confirmed the facts of the story with Turley before the article was printed.

What was Durbin’s response? “I’m not going to dignify this with a response.” Of course not, he’s been caught in a lie and isn’t smooth enough to use the ol’ “what’s the meaning of is” strategy.

Durbin thought he could ask the ridiculous questions of Roberts behind closed doors, outside the view of the voting public. When outed on his improper strategy against Roberts, he simply smears the reporter as a liar and refuses to respond to the true facts.

Just more of this Democrat strategy Howard Dean laid out whereby the facts are less important than the Democrats’ “version” of such facts. Good luck with that one.