The anti-Murtha juggernaut will fail. The Pennsylvania Democrat may not be Scoop Jackson but he is certainly not Michael Moore, no matter how much some in the White House might want to link the two. A majority of Americans are now entertaining second thoughts about the Iraq war, not just a far-left fringe.

Yet by refusing to question the war or respond to changing circumstances on the ground, Republicans risk driving the country into the left’s arms. An inability to rethink military action while combat is ongoing prevents a realistic assessment of our current policy — a policy that a recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found 52 percent of Americans no longer believe to be worthwhile.

It does no disservice to our troops to question the policies of their civilian leaders. It is not surrender to abandon a course if it was misconceived from the beginning. We must not continue to spend blood and treasure in Iraq based on premises as faulty as those which led us into war in the first place. ~W. James Antle III, Enter Stage Right