Imagine if shortly prior to D-Day, it became publicly known that America was going to make a landing on Western Europe. The strategizing was done. The fact that there was going to be a landing was a fait accompli. Then imagine that a bunch of Senators got together anyway to express their opinion via a resolution that the move was a bad one. Even though it was going to happen anyway.

What possible purpose could passing such a resolution have had? It couldn’t have changed the strategy. Indeed, it wouldn’t have even counseled a change in strategy. The only possible purpose would have been to express a national sense of disunity. And what good would that have done?

THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT WE have happening today with the Senate resolution that is currently being contemplated. The Senators who have expressed their support for the measure have earned history’s scorn. The Senators who have agreed to even consider such a divisive and pointless measure have earned history’s scorn.

Again, what’s the point? Among the opponents of the surge, you see the kind of intellectual slovenliness that may be acceptable for a blogger but is hardly worthy of a Senator. A case in point: A week ago, Andrew Sullivan said he couldn’t support the surge because after a careful tactical analysis, he decided that for a surge to be successful it would require 50,000 troops instead of the proposed 21,500. (Of course, I just made up the part about the “careful tactical analysis.”) Today, Andrew opined that to truly turn the tide we would need “in the region of several hundred thousand more (troops).” He offered no explanation for changing his figure by 14 fold, but I have little doubt that he arrived at the “several hundred thousand” number with a comprehensive tactical analysis similar to the one he used to arrive at the 50,000 number.

But Andrew’s just a blogger, and a childish inconsistency is every blogger’s Constitutional right, or at least it will be until the Democrats put us out of business for making “campaign contributions.” But we should expect more from our Senators.

If John Warner thinks Dave Petraeus doesn’t know what he’s talking about, he should explain why that’s the case in a detailed fashion. The same goes for Susan Collins, Norm Coleman, Gordon Smith and the rest of the pro-resolution gang. But I haven’t heard a Senator from either side of the aisle explain why he or she thinks the surge will fail with anything more comprehensive than Andrew’s virtual sound byte. When General Petraeus testified in the Senate yesterday, the Senators doing the questioning were loath to engage him in a tactical debate, clearly sensing their limitations. Yet without Petraeus in the room, the same Senators promise to be uninhibited when it comes time to vote for a resolution that will say in effect that Petraeus is wrong about the tactics he is pursuing.

THE VOTE TO SUPPORT THE FIRST GULF WAR was a close run thing. The vast majority of Senate Democrats voted against the first President Bush on the matter. When the first Gulf War ended as a hugely popular success, all the Senators who had been so wrong on that vote were essentially out of presidential contention for 1992. When Bill Clinton chose Al Gore as his running mate, one of the reasons was because Gore had been one of the very few Senators to vote the right way on the war.

After the fighting had ended, the President made an address to a joint session of Congress where he was greeted as a conquering hero. Some Republicans wore pins that said in effect “I Was Always with the President.” The Democrats who tried to curry favor with the public by boisterously showing their new-found fondness for the president became deserving laughing-stocks.

At some point, all the Senators who are involved in the debate on the Anti-Surge resolution will have to face the light of history. If the surge succeeds, there malfeasance will be mere footnotes to history, just as the anti-war Democrats of 1990-1991 are.

But if the surge fails and the war effort fails, history will wonder why these Senators went so out of their way to undermine their country effort at such a pivotal time. History will ask why they thought it was critical that they show to our enemies and our soldiers their lack of confidence and resolve.

The Democrats have it easy at the moment. Anything they do to oppose the President will play well with their base. Although history will judge them harshly, these aren’t people who think beyond the current news cycle, let alone beyond the current decade.

Republicans who support this resolution will have no such luck. Much of the conservative base has been frequently disappointed with the President and his administration. We feel his policies have been too often misguided, and his leadership frequently lacking.

But we still want him to succeed. And even more so, we want our military to succeed and the war effort to succeed. Any Republican Senators who think they can pull a stunt like the one they’re contemplating without being completely abandoned by their base have badly miscalculated.

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