Hewitt Blog

Read it here.  Sign up here.  Contact senators here. E-mail your friends and families and ask them to sign up as well and to contact Republican senators urging them to block Biden/Warner/McCain.

Then read Dean's column, which explains the rapid growth in support for the Pledge.  Here are the last few graphs, but read the whole thing:

FOR SIX YEARS, SERIOUS CONSERVATIVES have responded to every betrayal from a Lincoln Chafee or a Chuck Hagel with continued support for the organizations that enable them like the NRSC. This support in the wake of each and every disappointment said in effect, “Thank you, Senator. May I have another?” The cumulative result of this unconditional love has been Republican Senators concluding that their agenda mirrors those of their party’s activists – namely, that we all care about nothing more than the careers of our Congress critters.

On Thursday evening, Senator John Ensign, the head of the NRSC, appeared on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show. On the one hand, Ensign is an enviable position; Liddy Dole did such a wretched job of running the NRSC during the 2006 cycle, it’s almost unimaginable that Ensign won’t benefit from the inevitable comparisons between him and his predecessor. But on the other hand, Ensign is taking over the reins of the NRSC at a time when the chickens of six years of Republican Senatorial malfeasance are coming home to roost.

During his appearance on Hugh’s show, Senator Ensign warned Hugh and his listeners that litmus tests are a bad thing. With all due respect to Senator Ensign, he’s wrong regarding this particular litmus test.

The time has long since come when Republican voters should demand that their office-holders be serious about the war. The anti-surge resolution is a frivolous thing, a pathetic exercise in rear-end covering. While differences regarding the war tactics urged by the White House are fair game, nakedly playing politics with matters of life and death is not.

The sooner the Republican Party gets serious about the war, the better it will be for both the country and the party.

Americans who are serious about the war cannot tolerate the Biden/Warner resolutions, and sense in John McCain's attempt to produce another "Gang of 14" deal not seriousness but opportunism.  If Senator McConnell steps forward and simply declares these are not maneuvers worthy of a great country in a time of war, he will have the esteem and gratitude of those who are serious about the war.  He and the other serious senators might lose  --there might be 11 Republicans willing to expose themselves as defeatists who would join Democrats in  voting for cloture on the Biden resolution. 

But the Republican senators might actually wake up to the reality that the Republican Party supports victory in the war, and act accordingly.  The GOP senators ought to fight their political battles with at least one-tenth the effort for victory as the hundreds of thousands of Americans have fought real battles in Iraq and Afghanistan.