And so the fall Senate session shifts into gear as the senior Senator from New York, Charles Schumer, takes to the floor after the August recess and gives his assessment of the surge in Iraq.  Here's the nub of what Schumer said in his 10 minute address to his anti-war fringe and, for that matter, the remnants of al Qaeda that have been getting wiped out in Iraq over the last four months.

And let me be clear, the violence in Anbar has gone down despite the surge, not because of the surge. The inability of American soldiers to protect these tribes from al Qaeda said to these tribes we have to fight al Qaeda ourselves. It wasn't that the surge brought peace here. It was that the warlords took peace here, created a temporary peace here. And that is because there was no one else there protecting.

Get it? Schumer is saying that the Bush-Petraeus plan is such a failure that the tribal sheiks had to take matters into their own hands because our military was so inept.  Our military had nothing to do with clearing out al Qaeda out of Ramadi and Baquba, news that will I'm sure come as quite a surprise to the brave men and women who distinctly remember things a little differently, having flushed out al Qaeda and all. 

But what Schumer says is important, because it telegraphs the tack that the Democrats are going to take in days and weeks ahead.  The Democrats have the same view of the military that they do of all Americans.  The average American, according to the liberal view, cannot make it on their own without government programs, regulation or control.  The same holds true for the military.  They cannot possibly get it right if they are led by a conservative commander-in-chief.  

Not only is Schumer calling the American military incompetent, he's calling them liars, as well.

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